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One of the few two-story houses in Copiapó is the Hotel de Atacama, kept at the time of my visit by Bosman, a Dutchman from South Africa. The beds occupy the inner corners of the sleeping rooms where experience has shown there is the greatest safety at times of earthquake, owing to the stability given by converging walls. From side to side under the ceiling of my room there ran a heavy iron rod which pierced the walls and held in place great round iron clamps visible on the outside. The rod tends to prevent the outer wall from being thrown out in times of earthquake, thus allowing the roof to crash down. The cracks in the walls and the ruins of many old earthen houses in the suburbs attest the violence of past earthquakes for which the region is famous.

What was probably the most disastrous shock ever experienced by the city, occurred in April, 1819, and presented the very unusual feature of a grouping of three successive shocks, on the 3rd, 5th, and nth, each one heavier than the preceding. The houses and churches, which were then built almost entirely of rubble masonry, were leveled, and the town was practically destroyed. When rebuilt on the same site, all the better structures were erected with wood frames filled in with adobe, and no subsequent earthquake has caused equal damage. At the time there was talk of moving the site of the city. Three years later, after another violent quake, many people went from Copiapó to Huasco to live.

The records of the Copiapó Mining Company (see following chapter) contain an account of an earthquake which occurred at 8 A. M. on October 5, 1859, and did much damage through-