THE YOUTH’S CABINET... 37

 

The Great Earthquake in Caraccas.

UMBOLDT, in the narrative of his
journey to the equinoctial re-
gions of the New Continent, has
recorded all that could be learn-

ed respecting the earthquake of the 26th
of March, 1812, which destroyed the

*city of Caraccas, with twenty thousand
inhabitants of the province of Venezuela.
An abridgment of this account, will not
only illustrate the human disasters com-
mon on such occasions, but the vast area
shaken by the subterranean commotions,
indicating a common agency exerted at
a great depth in the interior of the globe,
and bearing with fatal energy upon par-
ticular points.

Drought was prevalent through the
province of Venezuela at the time, and
not a drop of rain had fallen for five
moriths around the capital. The day of
its destruction broke with a calm air and
a cloudless sky, and became excessively
hot. It was Holy Thursday, and the
population gathered to the churches, as
usual on the festival. Not any token
of danger appeared, till seven minutes
after four in the afternoon, when a com-
motion was felt sufficiently strong to
make the bells of the churches ring. The
ground continued in a state of undula-
tion, heaving like a fluid while boiling,
till a noise was heard louder and more
prolonged than the thunder of the
fiercest tropical storm, when the undu-
lations became more violent, and pro-
ceeding from opposite directions, and
crossing each other, Caraccas was over-
thrown. Subsidences occurred at the
churches of the Trinity and Alta Gracia,
and the barracks called #1 Quartel de
San Carlos almost entirely disappeared

 

by the sinking of the ground. The night
of Holy Thursday presented a distress-
ing scene of desolation and sorrow,
which contrasted sadly with the beauti-
ful aspect which nature speedily resumed.
The thick clouds of dust which rose from
the ruins and darkened the air, had
fallen to the ground. The shocks had
ceased. Never was there a finer or a
quieter night. The rounded summits of
the Silla mountain were illuminated By
the moon, nearly at the full, and the se-
renity of the heavens seemed to mock
the disturbed state of the earth, where
under a heap of ruins lay nearly ten
thousand of the inhabitants of Caraccas.
“In this city,” says Humboldt, “was
now repeated what had taken place in
the province of Quito, after the dreadful
earthquake of the 4th of February, 1797.
Children found parents in persons who
had till then disavowed them; restitu-
tion was promised by individuals who
had never been accused of theft; and
families who had long been at enmity,
became friends again.”

Caraccas was at this period a focus of
subterranean commotions, which from
the beginning of 1811 to 1813 operated
on a vast extent of the earth’s surface,
an area limited by the meridian of the
Azores, the valley of the Ohio, and the
cordilleras of New Grenada. The shocks
fatal to the city were sensibly felt at
Honda, on the banks of the Magdalena,
six hundred and twenty miles distant.
Large masses of earth fell in the moun-
tains, and enormous rocks were detached
from the Silla. The lake of Maraycabo
underwent considerable diminution, but
at Valecillo, the ground opened, and
emitted so great a mass of water, that a
new torrent was formed, the same phe-