EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES AND ENGLAND.
The fowls of every hue,
“Crowding together, sailed on weary wing,
And hovering, oft they seemed about to light,
Then soared as if they deemed the earth unsafe.
The cattle looked with meaning face on man,
Dogs howled, and seemed to see more than their masters,
And there were sights that none had seen before.
And hollow, strange, unprecedented sounds,
And earnest whisperings ran along the hills,
At dead of night: and long, deep endless sighs
Came from the dreary vale; and from the waste
Came horrid shrieks, and fierce unearthly groans,
The wail of evil spirits that now felt
The hour of utter vengeance near at hand.
The winds from every quarter blew at once,
And shapes, strange shapes, in winding sheets were seen,
And voices talked amid the clouds: and then
Earth shook, and swam, and reeled, and oped her jaws,
By earthquake tossed and tumbled to and fro.”
It is a common assertion that when persons are drowning, all the events
of past life rush suddenly before them with startling distinctness:
sometimes in amusing combinations: generally the reverse.
Something of the same effect is produced by the earthquake; but in a far
more terrifying way. Each one is witness to the panic of his neighbor;
and no fright is so terrible as that which is infectious. In moments of
great peril a single calm master-spirit may quiet a mob. But when the
eternal hills are shaken, when the groaning earth reels beneath the
feet, and the mountains are removed and cast into the midst of the sea,
who is there that retains his presence of mind? Man’s social
arrangements are calculated upon a supposition of the earth’s
stability: and when he finds himself the victim of misplaced confidence,
there is neither courage nor spirit nor reason left in him. Numerous are
the cases where men have been rendered insane by such convulsions.
To the ravage of the hurricane, the roar of the storm, the surge of the
sea, the rush of the flood, one becomes in a measure accustomed, and in
the moment of danger may take precautions for personal safety. But in
the case of earthquakes the reverse is the rule; none dread them more
than those who know them best. The stranger in tropical America may sit
at his ease on a summer evening, enjoying the beauties of the landscape;
or he may stand in a crowded hall, amongst a galaxy of wits and
beauties, observing the kaleidoscopic movements of the gorgeous costumes
before him. There comes a faint peculiar quiver of the earth, so
insignificant that the uninitiated foreigner may hardly observe it: but
there goes up a wild shout of “Tembla! Tembla!” and in an instant a
terror-stricken, breathless throng surges wildly into the streets, the
fields, the parks--anywhere: anywhere away from the heavy roofs and
massive walls that would defy a hurricane; all blindly seeking to be
under the open sky, only too often to be engulfed in gaping crevices.
It is preternaturally terrible; this emblem of solidity quivering
beneath our feet, reminding us that the days of unbridled chaos, the
wild war of all the elements, the tremendous geological convulsions that
have exterminated so many races of animals in the days of the past, may
be as ready and powerful for destruction in the present! The sensation
of utter powerlessness is so overwhelming, that amid the crash of
falling houses, the cries of entombed victims, the shrieks of flying
multitudes, the rumblings in the earth beneath, and the trembling of the
soil like that of a steed in the presence of a lion, the boldest and
bravest can but sit with bowed head, in silent, motionless despair,
awaiting whatever fate a grim capricious chance may determine. In the
strange mysterious phenomena, which strike and do their work in a few
seconds, one is disposed to see the disturbing dreams of fever, or the
touch of a horrible nightmare, rather than any possible reality.
It is no wonder that insanity, hallucinations, or graver nervous
disorders, in such moments fasten themselves on people for life. When a
power, which despite its constant recurrence, remains almost unknown,
holds the lives of untold thousands in its grasp, the mind is affected
beyond the power of pen to describe. Long stress of poignant grief finds
its effects equalled in a few seconds. People dash convulsively on the
ground, as though seized with epilepsy. Some may become paralyzed:
paralytics may recover the use of their limbs: others lose the power of
speech: yet others are hopelessly idiotic. Not less marked are the
effects on the brute creation. The owl, with nervous twitching head, and
feathers all awry, flits to the trees near the house, as though
imploring the protection of man. The panther forgets his ancient enmity,
and creeps within the city gate. The screaming swallow leaves the eaves,
and wings her way to other lands. The long-silent crocodile scrambles
from his native lair and rushes moaning about the sand. The frightened
nightingale forgets her song. The doleful dog howls loudly in the
street. The trembling ox and horse together huddle, and groan as they
tremble. The air itself is chill, as though it were turned cold at the
manifestation of some awful being. All things are awed by the terrible
“Wrath of God.”
The “Wrath of God!” Yes, such is the actual name of the earthquake among
the modern Greeks--Theomenia. No other title will they give it. They
have braved the
[Illustration: WRECK OF THE CHARLESTON EARTHQUAKE.]
storm and the flood, the famine and the pestilence for three thousand
years, and recognize in each the operation of law, and against each may
take precautions; but the earthquake, absolutely beyond control, is to
them inexplicable by natural causes, and any attempt to explain it is
resented. They know the quicksand in which the victim, erect, vigorous,
in full possession of his faculties, stares his fate in the face; stands
for hours with death grinning from the sand at his feet, as it slowly
drags him down; but this fearful opening of the soil, that in an instant
swallows young and old, rich and poor, the loved and hated, the city and
the castle--it can only be the “wrath of God!” So to the Jew was the
fall of Sodom.
Not a single agent of nature can equal it in sudden destruction. It
comes and it goes in a few seconds; almost ere you are aware of its
presence it has claimed its thousands. There is no escape; no ruin so
absolute; no desolation so pitiful; no death so remorseless. You stand
chatting with a friend, the earth shakes, gapes, and the friend at your
side finds a grave in the foundations of the earth. “Two women shall be
grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left.”
“Think ye that those twelve on whom the tower of Siloam fell were
sinners above all that are in Jerusalem? I tell you nay.”
So, as we have already seen, the phenomena of earthquakes are as clearly
under the domination of law as any other forces of nature. We know the
forces that produce them, and though we can not tell with certainty what
combination of them existed at the location of any particular shock. We
can not hope to control the causes, but we can to a large extent avert
the seriousness of the results. With this in view, we can consider
seriously the extent of the ravages of this strange destroyer, without
considering them as direct visitations upon the sins of a people.
Such views as those of the Greeks, however, have been common among all
Christian nations of non-Saxon origin, and still prevail to no small
extent. But the peculiar sense of personal responsibility and power that
belongs to the Teuton, Scandinavian and Saxon stock has given a
different impress to British and American ideas. Perhaps, too, the fact
that Britons and Americans have suffered less from earthquakes than many
others, has gone far to modify the trend of their thought. Be that as it
may, the dominant element of the race--reverence, awe, and with common
sense and a dash of contempt for those of more superstitious
disposition, may be found in the old hunter’s comment on the outburst of
Cosequina: “What was the meaning of those shakes in New Granada a month
agone? Natur’ don’t mostly toss about this big earth just for sport and
idleness; there’s a meaning and a reason and a secret in every movement
she makes. But eighty earthquakes in twenty-four hours aren’t sent just
to scare a pile of Nicaraguan Greasers. Guess earthquakes don’t take no
more regard of Greasers than of other big folks!”
So long as superstitious ideas prevail among a multitude of people, it
is not surprising that they find portentous signs in earth and sky
betokening the near approach of the dread visitation. This is naturally
increased by the desire to have due warning. The ancient Greeks were
especially anxious in this regard. So we find one of their grave
geographers, Pausanias, declaring that earthquakes are preceded by
unusual rain or drought, eclipses, sudden disappearing of springs, great
hurricanes, fiery apparitions in the sky with long trains of light, and
the appearance of new stars in the sky. The people of Mendoza, South
America, when overtaken by a great earthquake, suddenly remembered that
but a short time before, a flaming meteor of a brilliant blue color and
awful appearance had hissed past their town. So before the Riobamba
earthquake, a brilliant shower of meteors took place; so, also, at the
Cumana earthquake. At other times the weather has been unusually rainy;
again, long drought has prevailed. Sometimes springs have become
suddenly muddy, and cleared as suddenly after the shock. Again, muddy
streams have become clear till the shock passed. Again, we are told that
all animals manifest great fear before the earthquake comes; that
lizards, snakes, mice and rats rush from their holes in terror.
Doubtless many smaller animals perceive tremors of the earth that pass
unnoticed by men; but as to the efficacy of such signs in general, it is
suggestive of Hotspur’s reply to Glendower. The fiery Welshman,
endeavoring to prove that he, too, is some great one, asserts that at
his nativity
“The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets: and at my birth,
The frame and huge foundations of the earth
Shaked like a coward.”
To which Hotspur answers:
“Why, so it would have done,
At the same season if your mother’s cat
Had kittened, and yourself had ne’er been born!”
So much for popular beliefs. Quite generally there are subterranean
rumblings, or slight tremors preceding the more violent shock; but even
these are not sure signs, as they may occur alone, or the earthquake may
come unannounced. A notable case of the former sort is the remarkable
subterranean roaring heard at Guanaxuato, in Mexico, in 1784. It lies in
a rich mining district, with no volcano in the vicinity. On January 9
there broke out, after some preliminary muttering, a great uproar which
seemed as if a thunder storm were going on beneath the surface of the
earth. A short distance from the town it could not be heard; and not the
slightest tremor of the soil was perceptible, even in mines sixteen
hundred feet deep. But so great was the panic it created, that thousands
fled from the town, leaving it entirely to the mercy of thieves and
bandits. The alcaldes, with true Spanish grandiloquence, asserted that
the government would “be able in its wisdom to say when danger is
imminent, and to take measures for enabling the people to fly for
refuge;” and it determined to impose a penalty of one thousand piasters
on the rich, or of two months imprisonment on the poor who fled ere the
word was given. But though it was easy to make laws, it was not so easy
to feed the people; for the affrighted peasantry would not set foot in
the city; so the month of uproar became one of famine as well.
[Illustration: HOUSES THROWN INTO A RAVINE BY AN EARTHQUAKE.]
A similar rumbling occurred in Melada, an island off the coast of
Dalmatia, in 1822, and the frightened inhabitants besought the Austrian
government to transport them to a place of safety; but though the
explosions continued during two years, sometimes more than one hundred
in a single night, nothing ever resulted therefrom.
So with regard to all popular beliefs on this topic--no dependence can
be placed on any of them. There is nothing to warn us of the approach of
the earthquakes, neither in the heavens above, nor the earth beneath,
nor the waters under the earth.
Has the reader ever experienced one of these strange earthstorms?
Perhaps not. Is it believed they are rare? They are as common as storms
in the atmosphere. Within a period of seven years, four thousand six
hundred and twenty have been recorded. Many more, doubtless, occurred
completely beyond the pale of civilization. Hundreds have passed
unnoticed save by delicate instruments. Not a day passes without several
being recorded. They are as widely various in power as the storm and the
breeze. Not a region on earth is unvisited by them.
Yet the reader will be disposed to think that the United States is
almost free from these visitants. To a certain extent it is; we have not
in all our history, had a shock of extreme violence, or one that can
compare in destructiveness with the strange convulsions of tropical
regions: but in the rarity of shocks we are not so favored as might be
supposed. A few moments consideration of the records will be
sufficiently convincing.
In the memoirs of the “Academy of the Arts and Sciences” in Boston, is a
paper read in 1783 by Prof. Williams, recounting the story of some of
the earlier earthquakes in our history.
The first one noticed after the landing of the Pilgrims occurred June 1,
1638. We are told it was preceded by a rumbling noise like remote
thunder, which gradually grew louder and nearer. Then the earth began to
quake till pewter and crockery tumbled from the shelves, stone walls
[Illustration: WRECK ON KING STREET, CHARLESTON, S. C.]
toppled over, and chimneys crumbled and fell. The shock passed from
northwest to southeast, and was followed by a second in half an hour.
People found it difficult to keep their feet. It occurred in the
afternoon but there is no means of knowing what area was affected. As
the country was then unsettled, the damage done was of course _nil_.
Nearly four years later occurred a light shock, barely noticeable, in
the same region. In 1653 an earthquake on the 29th of October stirred up
the Puritan divines to admonish their flocks of the wrath of God. Still
another occasion of the same sort was given in 1658. But of this latter,
though we are told it was a very great earthquake, we have neither day
nor month, nor any record of its violence, extent or duration.
The first convulsion of which there is any detailed account, occurred in
1663, January 26-28, Old Style. An old narrative thus records it:
“About half an hour after five in the evening a most terrible earthquake
began. The heavens being serene, there was suddenly heard a roar like
the noise of a great fire. Immediately the buildings were shaken with
amazing violence. Doors opened and shut of themselves with a fearful
clattering. The bells rang without their ropes being touched. Cracks
appeared in the walls of buildings, and floors separated and in some
cases fell down. Chasms appeared in the fields, and the hills seemed to
be in motion. The fright of the inhabitants was shared by the beasts and
birds, who sent forth fearful cries, howlings and bellowings. The
duration of this earthquake was very uncommon. The first shock continued
half an hour before it was over, but it began to abate about a quarter
of an hour after it began.” (Probably there were a considerable number
of shocks, gradually lessening in violence.)
“The same day about eight o’clock in the evening, there came a second
shock, equally violent as the first, and within the space of half an
hour, there were two others. The next day about three hours from the
morning, there was a violent shock, which lasted a long time, and the
next night counted some thirty-two shocks, of which many were violent.
Nor did the trembling of the earth cease until the July following. Many
trees were torn up, and the outlines of the mountains appeared to be
much changed. Many springs and small streams were dried up; in others
the waters became sulphurous, and the channels in which some had run
were so altered as to be unrecognizable. Half way between Tadousac and
Quebec two hills were thrown down and formed a point of land which
extended half a quarter of a league into the St. Lawrence River. The
island Aux Coudres became larger than it was before, and the channel of
the St. Lawrence was greatly changed.”
This is, perhaps, as severe a shock as has been felt in this country;
but though the shock extended southward to Pennsylvania, its chief
energy was centered in a narrow strip on the St. Lawrence, giving our
Canadian neighbors the lion’s share of the fright. Other light shocks
were noticed in New England in 1665, 1668, 1669, 1670, 1705, and 1720.
October 29, 1727, another severe earthquake was experienced about 10:40
P.M. It seems to have had Southern New Hampshire as its focus, extending
thence to the Delaware and Kennebec rivers. Its approach was heralded by
a subdued roar from the northwest, which, as it drew nearer, “was
thought to be the roar of a blazing chimney near at hand, and at last
was likened to the rattling of carriages driven fiercely over pavements.
In about half a minute from the time the noise was first heard, the
earthquake was felt. It was observed by those who were abroad that, as
the shake passed under them, the surface of the earth rose and sank.”
Houses trembled and rocked, as though about to fall to pieces. Movables
were dashed about with a fearful clatter. Crockery was smashed; stone
walls and chimneys thrown down.
At Newbury, ashes and sulphur were cast forth from the earth, and also
volumes of sand. Sulphuretted hydrogen seems to have been present in
large quantities: also chemicals readily decomposed by warmth and
moisture.
A correspondent of the Royal Society wrote that a clergyman near Boston
assured him “that immediately after the earthquake there was such a
stink that the family could scarce bear to be in the house for a
considerable time that night.” Another clergyman writes that in the
following April the fine sand thrown up by the earthquake “had a very
offensive stench--nay, it was more nauseous than a putrefying corpse:
yet, in a very little while after, it had no smell at all. How long it
was before it began to have this stench, I am not certain; but I believe
it was covered with snow until a little while before.” Another minister
records that “about three days before the earthquake there was perceived
an ill-stinking smell, in the water of several wells. Some searched
their wells, but found nothing that might thus affect them. The scent
was so strong and offensive that for eight or ten days they entirely
omitted using it. In the deepest of these wells, which was about
thirty-six feet, the water was turned to a brimstone color, but had
nothing of the smell, and was thick like puddle water.” Some wells, dry
just before the shock, immediately filled up. Occasional shocks were
felt for some months after.
From the phenomena present here, and in many similar cases, it will
appear that large volumes of pent-up
[Illustration: SCENE AT CHARLESTON.]
gases may be discharged in districts remote from any volcanic region. In
some instances, we are informed that immediately after severe shocks,
the streams and vegetation have proved poisonous to cattle. There were
light shocks felt in 1732, 1737 and 1744; but none of these are said to
have done any damage beyond throwing down a few stone walls. Thus we
find within a century fourteen earthquake periods in New England alone;
and in several cases the shocks were numerous, extending over a period
of several months. Comparing the small area with the whole region, and
remembering that shocks are more frequent in the central, southern and
western portions of the country, it is fair to conclude that the merest
tithe of those actually occurring could have come under the notice of
our ancestors.
The most violent shock ever known in New England came eighteen days
after the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, preceded by a peculiar,
rumbling roar. Then came a “rapid, jarring, vibrating motion,” with an
upward shock: then a “violent, prodigious shock, as suddenly, to all
appearances as a thunderclap breaking upon a house and attended by a
great noise.” Then followed a series of “quick and violent concussions,
jerks and wrenches, attended by an undulating, waving motion of the
whole surface of the ground, not unlike the shaking and quaking of a
large bog.”
Several writers give a graphic account of the behavior of the good
people of Boston at this juncture. The shock came at a little past four
in the morning. Some sprang from their beds and ran into the street;
some lay shivering with fear, not daring to rise; others rushed to the
windows, and, seeing in the gloom their unclad neighbors rushing about
the streets, shrieked aloud that the judgment day was at hand. Others
thought that they heard Gabriel’s horn, and fell on their knees, crying
for mercy, or fainted away. The boldest feared the crash of tottering
houses; children ran about crying for their parents; dogs howled
dismally; birds flew aloft with frightened cries; cattle bellowed with
fear as they dashed about their pens. Screaming horses struggled in
their stalls. Numbers of fish were killed by the shock. Changes were
wrought in springs and streams, after the manner of 1727.
The damage done was not so great as might have been expected from the
unusual alarm shown. A large number of chimneys in Boston were thrown
down; clocks were stopped; a new vane was broken from the market house,
the spindle being snapped at a place where it was five inches thick; but
we are not told of any serious loss of life or property. The shock
extended southward, and was plainly felt along the east side of the
Chesapeake, but not on the western shore. The sea wave set in motion
travelled southward, and it is supposed to have occasioned the unusual
commotion of the water in the West Indies. At St. Martin’s the sea
suddenly fell five feet below its level, and then rose six above.
The time of the shock was determined exactly by an accident. Prof.
Winthrop, of Cambridge, had placed a long glass tube in his tall clock,
as a safe place. This tube, thrown against the pendulum, stopped the
clock, which the day before had been adjusted to meridianal noon; and as
Prof. Winthrop had compared his watch and clock the night before, he was
able to show that the shocks began at eleven minutes and thirty-five
seconds after four A.M., November 18, and continued about four and a
half minutes.
Eighteen periods of earthquakes are noted in the next fifty-five years;
and at one of these, in 1791, nearly one hundred and fifty shocks were
felt.
[Illustration: OLD STATE HOUSE, CHARLESTON.]
In 1810-11-12, a series of remarkable shocks were felt throughout a
large portion of the United States, but with especial force in the
central Mississippi valley. The first were noticed near St. Genevieve,
but the center of violence seemed to lie around New Madrid, Mo. The
shocks became so sharp and frequent that Dr. Robertson was sent out to
observe and record them carefully. He kept count up to five hundred, and
then abandoned that portion of the work.
The phenomena were much like those of the milder type of earthquakes
everywhere. Around New Madrid huge fissures opening in the earth emitted
volumes of sand and gas, occasionally spouting water, or sending out
bursts of flame. Some of the fissures were six hundred feet long and
twenty feet wide. The sand and water was sometimes thrown as high as
forty or fifty feet. During the whole period there were unusual
disturbances in other regions. On the night of the most violent shocks
occurred the great earthquake at Caracas, Venezuela, which destroyed so
many thousands. Had the Mississippi region been a very thickly settled
one, the loss of life would have been fearful. Upon the upheaval of a
new island, Sabrina, in the Azores, to a height of three hundred and
twenty feet, and an eruption of the St. Vincent volcano, in the
Antilles, the disturbance ceased. It is not safe to assert positively
that there was no connection between these phenomena; but there is
little probability that there was. They serve rather to show how
universal are the subterranean forces with which man must deal. The year
1811 was also marked by a storm of unusual violence, and by the
appearance of a brilliant comet. But, as noticed before, efforts to
establish any especial connection between such phenomena have not met
with any marked success.
These earthquakes were so violent in the river itself as to almost
shatter boats in mid-stream. Trees at some distance from the bank were
hurled into the water with tremendous force. Flashes of fire and molten
matter were thrown to great heights. The explosions seemed like a
battery of artillery. Sunken logs and snags were thrown from the deep
bottom of the river to a height of thirty feet above the surface.
Sulphurous streams dashed from a thousand rents, leaving unfathomable
fissures. Great forest trees lashed their heads together, or were
snapped off by the shocks. Small islands sank to the bottom of the
river. Quantities of coal and charred wood were thrown up; some lying a
considerable distance from the fissures that discharged them. Many boats
were lost; quite a number of people were buried under falling banks. It
was undoubtedly the most violent convulsion in the history of our
country. Reelfoot lake, now a noted fishing resort, we are told was
formed by this earthquake.
Time would fail us to give an especial notice of the many shocks
received since the country has been more widely settled. With a notice
of the recent Charleston earthquake this list must be closed.
This convulsion owes its importance rather to its location than to its
violence. It was felt over about one-fourth of the entire country, its
greatest force being felt along the Atlantic coast from New Haven to
Savannah. The area affected was elliptical, and the shock was but little
less severe at Atlanta, Georgia, in East Tennessee, and many North and
South Carolina regions, than in Charleston itself. It was felt at
Charleston at 9:51, August 31, 1886, and reached Toronto, Canada, in
four minutes. It did not travel so readily westward as northward.
It is of course impossible to estimate exactly the damage done. A
considerable number of important cities
[Illustration: CHARLESTON, S. C.]
suffered more or less; but the majority were forgotten in the unusual
severity at Charleston. The city appeared as though it had been through
a siege, or as if a gigantic charge of dynamite had been exploded
beneath it. In all directions might be seen heaps of ruins, houses
tottering, cracked, twisted--in all stages of destruction. Ever and anon
a fresh shock brought down some crumbling edifice with a sullen roar,
and a cloud of stifling dust veiled it from view. The night resounded
with the screams of terrified fugitives, the tread of hurrying feet, and
the groans and cries of the wounded. The parks swarmed with those in
search of a place of safety. Hundreds were bruised or maimed by falling
stones and timbers; not a few were killed outright; others, crushed in
the wrecks, died a lingering death.
Appeals for aid were promptly responded to by all portions of the
country. Even those localities which had themselves suffered severely,
came to the aid of the city that had been more sorely stricken.
The greatest injury to life was indirect. Only forty-seven people, it is
said, were killed outright. But few houses were left safe; and for a
considerable time young and old, rich and poor, the feeble and the
strong, were out of doors in tents, booths, or such rude shelters as
they could hastily erect. The alarm was perpetuated by occasional
recurrence of the shocks during several days. The continued exposure and
lack of necessaries created a vast deal of sickness; and the deaths thus
indirectly occasioned far exceeded those killed outright.
The damage to buildings in Charleston is estimated at $5,000,000. But in
comparison with the whole number injured, comparatively few of the
houses were shaken completely down. Hundreds were shaken and shattered
to the point of falling, and had to be pulled down as unsafe. The shock
was just short of a point where it would have made terrible havoc. If
violent enough to overthrow the many houses it merely shattered, its
victims would have been numbered by thousands, instead of tens. We may
be thankful, with Lord North, that things were no worse.
The nature of the shocks varied. In some parts of South Carolina
chimneys and brick walls remained upright, but crushed to atoms at the
base, as if shattered by a powerful upward concussion; in other
locations, evidences of a twisting motion were present; houses were
turned partially around, and left almost unharmed. Again, as in most
cases in Charleston, the chief movement appeared to be a horizontal
one--the upper portions of walls and buildings being thrown down, while
the lower suffered little harm. More of these singular effects will be
noticed in connection with other shocks. Crevices and fissures were
opened; railroad rails bent in a snake-like form; mud, sand, and small
stones were thrown out. There was no tidal wave, and artesian wells four
hundred feet deep were not disturbed. There was no barometric variation,
though the air is said to have suddenly become oppressively hot at the
moment of the shock. Some Pennsylvania gas wells diminished, and a
geyser in the Yellowstone Park, four years quiet, burst suddenly into
action. These we must deem mere coincidences.
As a whole, this has been the most destructive single earthquake in our
history, while far inferior in real violence to the convulsions last
noticed. For frequency of shocks, and total damage in consequence, the
Pacific States far exceed all the rest of the country. Their position
with active volcanic regions in Oregon and Washington and Lower
California, renders them peculiarly liable to such disturbances. Within
the years 1872-1885, inclusive, there were registered seventy-five
earthquakes in New England, sixty-six in the Atlantic States,
seventy-five in the Mississippi Valley, and two hundred and thirty-seven
in the Pacific States.
These facts ought to be conclusive evidence against the belief that,
because storms and earthquakes are sometimes simultaneous, the one is in
any way responsible for the other. These figures show the fewest shocks
in the region
[Illustration: WRECK OF FACTORY, CHARLESTON.]
most frequented by tornadoes; while the section never visited by the
latter shows more shocks than all the rest combined. Add to these the
previous shocks recorded in our history--231--and it is evident that we
have our full share of such convulsions.
In respect to earthquakes, our British cousins have been even more
fortunate than ourselves. A cursory glance at British geology shows that
at a remote age in the past, volcanic action was frequent and violent;
but the whole region has long buried or healed the wounds inflicted upon
the face of nature by the petulant giants of fire. Now and then there is
a premonitory tremor; but the warning seems not to be for the
grandchildren of the Druids; and the latter have been lulled to a sense
of almost absolute security.
Yet at some periods of the past they have been seriously disturbed, if
we may credit the old chroniclers; but their records are so brief, and
at times so conflicting, that it is not always easy to determine the
extent of the disaster. And it must be remembered that in the dark and
middle ages the mass of the people knew absolutely nothing of affairs
not in their own immediate neighborhood.
Perhaps the most striking feature of British earthquakes is the fact
that, like the shocks in the Vesuvian neighborhood, the area they
disturb is very small; it may be, however, that incompleteness of
reports is responsible for this apparent peculiarity. Up to the last
century but one general shock is recorded; this being the first of which
there is definite mention, occurring in 974 A. D. Five others are
recorded in the next century, all local.
Perhaps the most violent of the earlier earthquakes was the one which in
1110 shook the region between Shrewsbury and Nottingham, tumbling down
many houses and injuring many people. At Nottingham the bed of the
river Trent was laid dry and remained so some hours. Probably a large
fissure opened temporarily in the channel, allowing the water to escape
into subterranean cavities. Three other earthquakes occurred in the
Lincolnshire fens in the next thirty-two years, doing considerable
damage.
In 1158 mention is made of a most extraordinary earthquake which shook
London and vicinity, destroying much property, injuring several people,
and causing the Thames to become so low as to be passed on foot. Seven
years later there was a general tremor observed throughout all England.
John of Brompton relates a remarkable circumstance in connection with an
earthquake in 1179. The ground belonging to the bishop of Durham, at
Oxenhall near Darlington, was raised suddenly to a level with the
adjacent hills, remaining so from 9 A.M. till sunset, when it fell
again, leaving a deep cavity in place of a hill. Three other earthquakes
occurred ere the close of the century; the last one, in Somersetshire in
1199, being violent enough to throw men off their feet.
Forty-seven years passed without any further experience of the sort,
when a series of severe shocks, especially violent in Kent, overthrew a
number of churches and other buildings of the more pretentious sort; and
the same thing happened next year, affecting especially London and the
Thames Valley. Again, in the year after, Bath and Wells suffered
considerably; and two years later St. Albans was shaken.
Of other earthquakes in the next century no especial mention need be
made, save of one of unusual violence in 1385. A revolution in Scotland
followed, and the superstitious populace, looking backward, concluded
that the earthquake had been meant as a warning which they had not been
able to interpret. A second shock which
[Illustration: RUINED DWELLING, CHARLESTON.]
followed the revolution was supposed to express the Divine displeasure
at their short-sightedness.
But one shock, though a very general one, is recorded during the next
one hundred and sixty-six years. Then in 1551 a slight tremor upset the
people’s furniture and dinner pots in a portion of Surrey. Twenty years
afterward a severe shock in Herefordshire was accompanied by a
landslide. A large portion of a hill slowly descended during two days,
turning a half circle as it came, as though on a pivot.
In 1574 a sharp vibration shook northern and western England at the hour
for vespers. Suppliants in Norton Chapel were thrown prostrate and fled
in terror, believing the dead were rising through the floor. Part of
Ruthin Castle was thrown down.
In 1580, April 6, nearly all England was alarmed by a violent shock. The
great bell at Westminster rang the alarm; others joined in. Students of
the Temple rushed into the streets; stones fell from St. Paul’s; showers
of chimneys in the streets maimed several persons; a panic ensued at
Christ Church, where two people were killed by falling stones, and
several were maimed in the wild rush to escape from the building. Parts
of the fortifications at Dover were overthrown; also several churches
and castles were damaged. May 1 of the same year the shocks were again
felt in Kent, during the night. This is one of the most notable of
British earthquakes; it passed eastward through Belgium to Cologne.
But it is needless to pursue the record further. Only two unusual
features are presented among the many earthquakes following: one in 1731
was confined to an area six miles by five; and one in 1734 exhibited a
peculiar rotary motion, shaking persons in bed around at right angles to
their former positions.
Summing up the record, we find that in the 10th century one earthquake
is recorded in England; during the 11th, ten; during the 12th, twelve;
during the 13th, thirteen; during the 14th, four; during the 15th, one;
six in the 16th; twenty in the 17th, and eighty-four in the eighteenth.
The present has also had a fair quota. But if we consider the damage to
property, or the fatality, we must conclude that no country in the world
is so favored in this matter of earthquakes as Great Britain, unless it
may be Germany.
Finally, all the disasters of this sort, in both England and the United
States, so far as all historic records go, do not equal a single one of
the many terrible convulsions recorded in the history of other nations.
From the earliest times to the present, we find a constant succession of
appalling disasters, many of which are almost beyond the power of
comprehension. The most cursory glance at these horrors of the past
should render every Anglo-Saxon peculiarly grateful that his lot is not
cast in a land so cursed with terrors, and more ready to sympathize with
the stranger in his woe.