200 The 'American Geologist. September, 1902 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
The New Madrid Earthquake. In his valuable and instructive 
article on "The. New Madrid Earthquake" itj your current number, 
professor Broadhead makes no reference to a source of information 
which I have regarded as of first importance, viz : Mitchill's 
article in "Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical Society 
of New York," Vol i, 1815, pp. 281-307. The full title of the 
article is, "A detailed Narrative of the Earthquakes which occurred 
en the i6th day of December, 181 1, and agitated the parts of 
America that lie between the Atlantic Ocean and Louisiana ; and 
also a particular account of the other quakings of the earth oc- 
casionally felt from time to time to the 23d and 30th of January, and 
the 7th and i6th of February, 1812, and subsequently to the i8th of 
December, 1813, and which shook the country from Detroit and the 
Lakes to .New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. Compiled chiefly 
at Washington, in the District of Columbia. By Samuel L. Mitchill, 
Representative in Congress, etc. (Read before the Society on the 
14th of April, and the 12th of May, 1814.)" Briefer articles on then 
recent earthquakes in Venezuela, on the volcano and earthquake in the 
island of St. Vincent, on volcanoes in the Azores, and on the atmo- 
spheric disturbances accompanying the New Madrid earthquake, are 
appended on the ensuing pages 308-340. 
Dr. Mitchill's article is by far the fullest contemporary account 
known to me. It is rendered especially valuable by the full and ex- 
plicit data relating to the earthquake in its eastern extension. From 
the data it appears that the primary shock of December 16, 181 1, 
was destructive at Charleston and many other points in South Caro- 
Hna, at Richmond and elsewhere in Virginia, at Washington, at Fort 
Duquesne (Pittsburg), at Detroit, at Fort Dearborn (Chicago), and 
at many other points so distributed as to indicate that the area affected 
by the earthquake must have reached at least a million and a quarter 
square miles, or some two-fifths of the present area of the United 
States. He introduced many original records not elsewhere published ; 
among others a letter from William Shaler, Esq., kinsman of the 
distinguished geologist of Harvard, who was descending the Missis- 
sippi in a flat-boat when the subsequent shock of February 7, 1812, 
occurred and whose craft was caught and floated up-stream "with the 
velocity of the swiftest horse.' 
Another contemporary record of value was that of Engineer Louis 
Bfingier, published in an early number of the American Journal of 
Science, whose name is misprinted "Binegler" in professor Broadhead's 
article (p. 83) ; and it is of interest to note that Dekay's type of Bos 
pallassi (now Ovibos cavifrons) was founded on a skull thrown out 
of one of the earth fissures formed during the New Madrid dis- 
turbance. My own information relating to the earthquake was origi- 
nally derived from a manuscript diary, or ordinary book, kept by a 
grandfather residing in Barren county, Kentucky, during the period 
