
542 ; EARTHQUAKES. 
rors of the scene fire broke out among the ruins, a violent 
wind arose, and in about three hours the city was reduced to 
ashes. Immediately after the shock, a huge wave entered 
the Tagus, forty feet higher than the water had ever been 
known to rise before, but the bay received most of its vio- 
lence, and it at once subsided. The quay was thronged with 
people, and it suddenly sank, and no body ever floated to 
the surface. Where the solid wall had stood the water was 
many fathoms deep. At Cadiz the sea wave was nearly 
sixty feet high, and did great damage. According to Hum- 
boldt’s computation, a portion of the earth’s surface, four 
times greater than all Europe, was simultaneously shaken; 
even our great lakes felt the commotion, and tides of con- 
siderable height were observed on their shores. 
During the years 1811-12, earthquakes were felt in South 
Carolina, and more violently in the valley of the Mississippi, 
where, at New Madrid a whole grave-yard was pitched into 
the river; and the violence finally culminated in the des- 
truction of Carracas, burying ten thousand of its inhabitants 
beneath its ruins. In 1835, an earthquake was felt between 
Copiapo and Chiloe on the north and south, and the island 
of Juan Fernandez, and the city of Mendoza, on the west and 
east. Conception, Talcahuano, Chillan, and other towns 
were thrown down, and immediately after the shock the sea 
retired in the Bay of Conception, and the vessels grounded 
where had been seven fathoms of water. A wave soon rush 
in and retreated, and was succeeded by two others probably 
not more than sixteen or twenty feet in vertical height. 4n 
November 1837, Valdivia, in Chili, was destroyed, and in | 
January of the same year a shock devastated Syria, wee 
ing more than six thousand people, and making itself fe 
over a territory five hundred miles long by ninety wide. 
e earthquakes, then, of the present year are no nover 
ties, however dreadful they may seem, but they offer ee 
interesting features, and although no scientific man mes 
published any account of the earthquake of St. Thomas, 1 



