“The Earthquake”

Date

2-14-1812

Newspaper

Raleigh Register

Page and Column

Page 2, Column 5, Page 3, Column 1

Newspaper Location

Raleigh, North Carolina

Serial Number

652

Abstract

Long synopsis of earthquake felt reports from the National Intelligencer. Reports from Charleston, Natchez Cincinnati all for the December 16, 1811 earthquake.

Transcript

THE EARTHQUAKE. We continue to receive accounts of this phenomenon of nature from all quarters. The following letter from a subscriber informs us of its being felt on the Ohio; and the subjoined article, from a Charleston paper apprizes us of its effects having extended as far south as that place. It will be observed that in Charleston and this place (Washington) the shocks were simultaneously felt, or, at most, within five or ten minutes of the same moment; whist, on the Ohio, the shock was felt an hour earlier than at either this City or Charleston. If any thing is to be inferred from this circumstance, it is, that the progress of the subterranean impulse, which caused the shock, was from west to east. Were we to give the reins to our imagination, we might conjecture, in the vast and almost unexplored region between the Mississippi and Pacific, the existence of the cause of this tremendous commotion, whose vibrations have affected so vast a continent to its remotest limits. Nat. Int. Charleston, Jan. 24.--Yesterday morning, at fifteen minutes after nine o'clock, another shock was felt in this city. The vibratory motion was more severe than any we experienced last month, and continued for one minute. The pavements in several of the streets are cracked, by the loosening of the cement and a three story brick house in King street, belonging to Mr. Brownlee, has received very considerable injury. The walls are cracked from the top to the bottom, and the wooden work and plaistering, in the inside, are split and broken. Many persons in different parts of the city were sensible of a shock at eight o'clock in the morning. Several families left their beds. Both these concussions were unaccompanied with any noise. Natchez, Jan. 1.--We have conversed with a gentleman who came passenger, in the Steam Boat lately arrived here from Pittsburg, and are informed that the Earthquake, shocks of which were felt here a week or two since, has done great injury to the settlements on the Ohio and Mississippi, by throwing down houses, chinmies, &c. and in one or two instances, islands in the Mississippi, or considerable magnitude had been sunk or destroyed; that the bank of the river on both sides fell in to a prodigious extent, and at one place about 300 acres caved in of a solid body. He also informs, that the western side of the river was the most affected-and that the shocks lasted about twelve days, with intervals of fifteen or twenty minutes. From Liberty Hall-[Cincinnati, Ohio.] The Earthquake--An interesting letter from a gentleman of respectability, dated at Chickasaw Bluffs, December 21, states, that the first shock of the earthquake occurred at 30 minutes past 2 o'clock, in the morning of the 16th, the same time it seems to have been felt in the Atlantic states and in this country.-That shock was followed during the 16th and the following night by nineteen others; on the 17th there were three, and the following night several others; on the 18th there were seven shocks, and several through the succeeding night; on the 20th there were five, and on the 21st, when the letter was written, the earth was still trembling. The first and second vibrations, and that between 11 and 12 o'clock on the 17th, were the most violent. The effects of these shocks appear to have been of the most alarming kind. The barge commanded by the author of the Letter was anchored in 2 1/2 fathoms water, about seventeen miles below New Madrid, or 87 below the mouth of Ohio. The boat was acted on by the water in a manner that excited a supposition of her being grounded, but upon sounding, they could find no bottom. The current increased to three times the velocity it had the preceding evening; the crew of a boat at the shore testified that the river rose six feet in a short time; and that no spot on the land was to be found that was not (as they expressed it) "giving" Two flat bottomed boats that were laying at the shore were destroyed. One was broken entirely to pieces, and the other overturned-the crew saved themselves. At the second shock, thousands of trees that were imbedded in the mud in the bottom of the river, suddenly had one end elevated to the surface, rendering the river almost impassable. At the same time the banks were shook into the river in large masses. Upon passing the Little Prairie, the inhabitants were found to have all fled to the high lands. It was stated by some hunters near the Bayou River, that the ground was cracked into innumerable fissures, and large quantities of water were issuing out of them. An island just above the mouth of the Bayou river was extremely agitated, and seemed to require but little to sink it. The lakes which be in the valley of the Mississippi, were discharging large quantities of water into that river; and the water fowls of that region were observed throughout the whole of the 16th to keep constantly on the wing. The writer of the letter had not heard from any place farther down the river than the Chickasaw Bluffs, about 176 miles below the mouth of the Ohio; but his letter closes with an expression of the deepest anxiety respecting the country nearer the Gulph. We are, however, credibly informed that a letter has been received from N. Orleans, dated Dec. 20, which is entirely silent as to the earthquake.

Link to Full Text

Share

 
COinS