13 



it lasted five or six seconds, during which time., 

 the ground was in a continual undulating move* 

 ment, and seemed to heave up like a boiling- 

 liquid. The danger was thought to be past, 

 when a tremendous subterraneous noise was 

 heard, resembling the rolling of thunder, but 

 louder, and of longer continuance, than that 

 heard within the tropics in time of storms. This 

 noise preceded a perpendicular motion of three 

 or four seconds, followed by an undulatory 

 movement somewhat longer. The shocks were 

 in opposite directions, from north to south, and 

 from east to west. Nothing could resist the 

 movement from beneath upward, and undula- 

 tions crossing each other. The town of Caraccas 

 was entirely overthrown. Thousands of the in- 

 habitants (between nine and ten thousand) were 

 buried under the ruins of the houses and 

 churches. The procession had not yet set out; 

 but the crowd was so great in the churches, that 

 nearly three or four thousand persons were 

 crushed by the fall of their vaulted roofs. The 

 explosion was stronger toward the north, in that 

 part of the town situate nearest the mountain of 

 Avila, and the Silla. The churches of la Trinidad 

 and Alta Gracia, which were more than one 

 hundred and fifty feet high, and the naves of 

 which were supported by pillars of twelve or 

 fifteen feet diameter^ left a mass of ruins scarcely 

 exceeding five or six feet in elevation. The 



