Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/800

778 Jamaica, all the others, with the exception of Spanish Town, being mere hamlets.

Let us now take a general view of the town as it was a year or two before the earthquake. In the center, approximately speaking, built on the solid rock of the original cay, was Fort Charles and about five streets of houses, while all around, but principally to the north, and to the east, where the ship-channel had been when Colonel Jackson visited the island, the greater part of the houses were built upon ground that had been won from the sea, and was retained in position by rows of palisades. These latter were most numerous to the east, and that part of the town was called the Palisadoes, whence we get the modern name "The Palisades." Several batteries and other works had been built on the brink of the water on land similarly won from the sea. Of these the principal were Fort Rupert, a hexagonal work, defending the approach along the sand-spit from the east; Fort James, which mounted thirteen guns, and was situated at the northwestern angle of the town; Walker's Lines, which commanded the entrance to the harbor; and Morgan's Lines, which defended the sea front. The ground-floors of the houses were, generally speaking, of brick; the upper portions of wood. Four fifths of the town was thus built upon sand, heaped up on the verge of deep water, and it is marvelous how the inhabitants could have been satisfied to live in so perilous a position, for earthquakes frequently took place, and they had ample warning of what might at any time occur. On October 20, 1687, a shock of earthquake was felt which caused the bells in the church to ring and a tidal wave to sweep along the streets nearest the harbor, while the sand in other streets, sucked out by the waters beneath, fell away into crater-like pits. Nobody, however, seems to have inquired what would have been the result had the shock been of longer duration.

The 7th of June, 1692, the day of the great earthquake, was exceedingly hot; not a cloud was in the sky, and not a breath of air stirred. At about 11.40 a slight trembling of the earth was felt, and this was shortly followed by a second shock, somewhat stronger than the first, and accompanied by a hollow rumbling noise like distant thunder. At this most of the people began to run out of their houses, but a third shock at once supervened, and in about a minute—for it is said to have lasted nearly a minute—four fifths of the town was in ruins and the sea rolling over it. The streets on the north side, on the brink of the harbor, where the sand had been most steeply banked up, were the first to fall, sinking at once into four or five fathoms of water; next fell the church and tower; and then Morgan's Lines, on the south side, on the verge of the sea, to which many had fled for safety.