It Is, Perhaps, Owing To This
Same Reason, That Earthquakes Do Not Cause Quite Such Terrific
Havoc Within Deep Mines As Would Be Expected.
I believe this
convulsion has been more effectual in lessening the size of
the island of Quiriquina, than the ordinary wear-and-tear
of the sea and weather during the course of a whole century.
The next day I landed at Talcahuano, and afterwards rode
to Concepcion. Both towns presented the most awful yet
interesting spectacle I ever beheld. To a person who had
formerly know them, it possibly might have been still more
impressive; for the ruins were so mingled together, and the
whole scene possessed so little the air of a habitable place,
that it was scarcely possible to imagine its former condition.
The earthquake commenced at half-past eleven o'clock in the
forenoon. If it had happened in the middle of the night, the
greater number of the inhabitants (which in this one province
must amount to many thousands) must have perished,
instead of less than a hundred: as it was, the invariable
practice of running out of doors at the first trembling of the
ground, alone saved them. In Concepcion each house, or
row of houses, stood by itself, a heap or line of ruins; but in
Talcahuano, owing to the great wave, little more than one
layer of bricks, tiles, and timber with here and there part of
a wall left standing, could be distinguished. From this
circumstance Concepcion, although not so completely desolated,
was a more terrible, and if I may so call it, picturesque sight.
The first shock was very sudden.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 469 of 776
Words from 125499 to 125770
of 208183
