TJic Nezv Madrid Earthquake. — Broadhcad. 83 
proceeded from the same point, and went oil in an opposite 
direction. He also foimd that the shock came from a Httle 
northward of east, and proceeded to the westward. By day- 
Hght he had counted 2/ shocks. 
Hon. Lewis F. Linn, U. S. Senate, in a letter to the chair- 
man of the committee on commerce Feb. i, 1836, gives a 
sketch of this part of Missouri. He says : 
The memorable earthquake of December, 181 1. after shaking the 
valley of the Mississippi to its center, vibrated along the courses of 
the rivers and valleys, and passing the primitive mountain barriers, 
died away along the shores of the Atlantic. In this, during the contin- 
uance of so appalling a phenomenon, which commenced by distant 
rumbling sounds, succeeded by discharges, as if a thousand pieces of 
artillery were suddenly exploded, the earth rocked, to and fro, vast 
chasms opened, from which issued columns of water, sand and coal, 
accompanied by hissing sounds, with ever and anon flashes of electric- 
ity, rendering the darkness doubly- terrible. 
Dr. Linn's letter is published in Wetmore's Gazetteer of 
Missouri, 1837. and in the Western Journal and Civilian. 
Wetmore, in his Gazetteer, gives an interesting account, 
but it includes much that had been published by others. He 
states that a woman of Little' Prairie bore her little children 
from her house to the prostrate, trunk of a tree on which she 
placed them. She returned to her house for provisions and 
ordered her husband to take a paddle and steer the log while 
she held the children. 
In a number of the St. Louis Globe Democrat of March, 
1902, may be found an interesting article from the papers of 
the late Aug. Warner on the disappearance of Island Xo. Q4. 
This island was in the Lower ]Mississippi, not far from Mcks- 
burgh. It seemed that Captain Sarpy of St. Louis, with his 
family and considerable money aboard, tied up at this island 
on the evening of the T5th of December, 181 1. In looking 
around they found that a party of river .pirates occupied part 
of the island and were expecting Sarpy with the intention of 
robbing him. As soon as Sarpy found that out he quietly 
dropped lower down the river. In the night the earthquake 
came and next morning vvdien the accompanying haziness dis- 
appeared, the island could no longer be seen ; it had been 
utterly destroyed as well as its pirate inhabitants. 
In Beck's Gazetteer of Illinois and jNIi^^souri ( All)anv. 
1823) wc find a letter from L. Bincgler which had been pub- 
lished in the American Journal of Science, Vol. ^. 1821. 
