EARTHQUAKES. 545 


which was landed almost uninjured about four hundred and 
_ fifty yards inland. The other vessels did not fare so well: 
dashed ashore, keel upmost, they remain a sad spectacle, the 
prey of the wreckers. Om shore less than a hundred people 
lost their life, while on shipboard nearly three hundred per- 
ished. At Iquique the shock lasted over four minutes, and 
was followed by the wave which destroyed at least three- 
quarters of the town and many lives. At Arequipa the 
earthquake commenced a few minutes past five in the after- 
noon, and in a few moments nearly every house in the town 
= Wasin ruins. The cities of Yca and Pisco suffered severely, 
and at the Chincha Islands both the earthquake and the tidal 
wave did great damage. At Callao the wave went over the 
houses on the shore at 10 o'clock, P. m. These were much 
damaged, but no lives were lost. At Talcahuano, and 
_ Torne, near Conception, three shocks occurred, a day later 
according to the reports, and the second caused, or was fol- 
lowed by a tidal wave, which nearly destroyed the towns. 
From Cape San Francisco, in Ecuador, to the Straits of 
‘ Magellan, nearly every seaport town has suffered, and at the 
Northern end of this coast line, among the mighty volcanoes 
of the equator, the records report several towns in ruins, 
‘mong them Ibarra, San Pablo, and Atuntaque, and where 
vatacachi stood is now a lake of water. No less than thirty 
peed inhabitants of these towns perished with their 
omes, 
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3 
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l Let us close this sad catalogue of disasters, where man 
a mis so utterly powerless to cope with the vast forces with 
hich God’s plan of creation is carried on, with a brief re- 
a of some of the former earthquakes, which have rendered 
this region so noted. | 
According to Ulloa, in 1570, along the coast of Chili, an 
hundred leagues along the coast. In 1575 Valdivia was 
l January 22d, 1582, at noon, Arequipaswas de- 
sand four years later, at Callao, a tidal wave four- 
. NATURALIST, VOL. II 

