302 3MITCHILL ON THE EARTHQUAKES OF 1811, 1812, AND 1813. 



cable rapid. He felt a succession of shocks of earthquake until he 

 came down to Flam Island. He spoke of many physical changes in the 

 river, particularly a great multiplication of sawyers, but he does not de- 

 scribe them with sufficient accuracy to enable me to give you an 

 account of them. 



" I have also seen several persons who passed New-Madrid on the 20th 

 of February; they report that the earth still continued to tremble 

 there, at that time. The falls had worn away to smooth rapids. 



" With very great respect and esteem I am, Dear Sir, your 

 very humble servant, 



« The Hon. Samuel L. Mitchill. W. SHALER." 



The information contained in a description, forwarded to William 

 Duane, Esq. by one of his correspondents at St. Genevieve, in Louisi- 

 ana, shows the state of opinion in the mind of the sensible writer, there, 

 about the 1st of April, 1312, on the subject of the earthquakes at New- 

 Madrid, and the surrounding region. This may be found on the pages 

 of his Aurora. 



A. B. Woodward, Esq. one of the judges of Michigan Territory, in 

 his letter of the 7th of April, 1812, wrote thus: " We have had nine 

 shocks of the earthquake here, of which I have an exact memorandum 

 of eight, and have somehow entirely lost the time of the other. I felt 

 four myself. I know only one person, a French lady, who felt the 

 whole ; speaking here of the eight." And in a letter dated June 23d, 

 the same gentleman observes, that " in a late journey to the Riviere 

 aux Tranches, in Upper Canada, I found the number of shocks of the 

 earthquake felt there, was exactly the same as here, that is, nine" 



Dr. Robertson, the enterprising traveller to the sources of the Ar- 

 kansaw River, by order of the government, in 1806, witnessed the phe- 

 nomena of these earthquakes, very particularly at St. Genevieve, where 



