EFFECTS OF EARTHQUAI^S ON LAND. 147 



the large j&ssures many houses were engulfed. Subse- 

 quent excavations showed that by tbe closing of the 

 fissures these had been jammed together to form one 

 compact mass. These cracks are usually more or less 

 parallel, and at the same time parallel to some topo- 

 graphical feature, like a range of mountains. For example, 

 the cracks which were formed by the Mississippi earth- 

 quake of 1812 ran from north-east to south-west parallel 

 to the Alleghanies. By succeeding shocks these crevasses 

 are sometimes closed and sometimes opened still wider. 

 Their permanency will also depend upon the nature of 

 the materials in which they are made. 



During an earthquake large cracks may suddenly open 

 and shut. 



During the convulsions of 1692 which destroyed Port 

 Royal, it is said that many of the fissures which were formed, 

 opened and shut. In some of these, people were entirely 

 swallowed up and buried. In others they were trapped 

 by the middle, and even by the neck, where if not killed 

 instantaneously they perished slowly. Subsequently their 

 projecting parts formed food for dogs.^ 



The earthquake which, July 18, 1880, shook the 

 Philippines caused many fissures to be found, which in 

 some places were so numerous that the ground was broken 

 up into steps. Near to the village of San Antonio the 

 soil was so disturbed that the surface of a field of sugar- 

 canes was so altered that in some cases the top of one row 

 of full grown plants was on a level with the roots of the 

 next. Into one such fissure a boat disappeared, and into 

 another, a child. 



Subsequently the child was excavated, and its body, 

 which was found a short distance below the surface, was 

 completely crushed.^ 



* Gent. Mag. vol. xx. p. 212. « Trans. Scis. Soc. vol. v. p. 67-68. 



