EARTHaUAKE. 2^ 



and in many cases they had been forced apart 

 from each other, and were inclined in opposite di- 

 rections. The great church, called La Merced, 

 jPell on the 4th of April 1819, one day after the 

 (Earthquake began, and seven days before the great 

 shock which destroyed the town. Its side walls, 

 and part of one end, were left standing, in a dis- 

 j^^ocated and inclined state, and rent from top to 

 bottom ; but what was curious, the buttresses, 

 '^hich appear to have been broad and substantial 

 ones, were almost all thrown down. One of them 

 which still remained was fairly wrenched apart 

 from the building it had been intended to support, 

 the wall touching it at the ground, but standing 

 ^ yard and a half from it at the top. It appears, 

 therefore, as ought to have been anticipated by 

 the architect, that these supports contribute no- 

 thing to the stability of a wall exposed to the 

 * shaking of an earthquake : their real use is to re- 

 sist a lateral thrust outwards, not to act against a 

 vibratory motion of the ground on which they 

 stand. 



While we were viewing the church of La Mer- 

 ced, one of the holy Fathers of the ruined esta- 



