808 CONCEPCION. (cHar. xIv. 
The side which fronted the N.E. presented a grand pile of ruins, 
in the midst of which door-cases and masses of timber stood up, 
as if floating in a stream. Some of the angular blocks of brick- 
work were of great dimensions ; and they were rolled to a distance 
on the level plaza, like fragments of rock at the base of some 
high mountain. The side walls (running S.W. and N.E.), 
though exceedingly fractured, yet remained standing; but the 
vast buttresses (at right angles to them, and therefore parallel to 
the walls that fell) were in many cases cut clean off, as if by a 
chisel, and hurled to the ground. Some square ornaments on the 
oping of these same walls, were moved by the earthquake into a 
diagonal position. A similar circumstance was observed after 
an earthquake at Valparaiso, Calabria, and other places, includ- 
ing some of the ancient Greek temples.* This twisting dis- 
placement, at first appears to indicate a vorticose movement 
beneath each point thus affected; but this is highly improbable. 
May it not be caused by a tendency in each stone to arrange 
itself in some particular position, with respect to the lines of 
vibratiou,—in.a manner somewhat similar to pins on a sheet of 
paper when shaken? Generally speaking, arched doorways or 
windows stood much better than any other part of the buildings. 
Nevertheless, a poor lame old man, who had been in the habit, 
during trifling shocks, of crawling to a certain doorway, was 
this time crushed to pieces. 
I have not attempted to give any detailed description of the 
appearance of Concepcion, for I feel that it is quite impossible 
to convey the mingled feelings which I experienced. Several of 
the officers visited it before me, but their strongest language 
failed to give a just idea of the scene of desolation. It is a 
bitter and humiliating thing to see works, which have cost man 
so much time and labour, overthrown in one minute; yet com- 
passion for the inhabitants was almost instantly banished, by the 
surprise in seeing a state of things produced in a moment of 
time, which one was accustomed to attribute to a succession of 
ages. In my opinion, we have scarcely beheld, since leaving 
England, any sight so deeply interesting. 
In almost every severe earthquake, the neighbouring waters 
* M. Arago in L’Institut, 1839, p. 337. See also Miers’s Chile, vol. i. 
p- 392; also Lyell’s Principles of Geology, chap. xv., book ii. 
