Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/805

Rh the island put together, for scarcely a planter's house or sugar works withstood the shock anywhere. Not one house remained standing in the village of Passage Fort, one only in the Liguanea, and none in Spanish Town but a few low and substantial structures that had been built by the Spaniards. From the Saltpond Hill, opposite Port Royal, water rushed out from some twenty or thirty openings, twenty feet above the sea-level, and continued running abundantly for two days. Vast land-slips stripped the mountain-sides of their forest, and left bald and bare scarps several miles in extent. Rivers were choked up and driven into new channels, and the entire appearance of the Blue Mountain Range was changed.

As far as Port Royal was concerned, the earthquake had reduced it to a cay of about the same dimensions as it presented in 1635 when Colonel Jackson visited Jamaica, and the work of fifty-seven years had been undone in one or two minutes. Although Port Royal is now again connected with the Palisades, the process of silting up does not appear to have proceeded so rapidly after the earthquake as it did before. In 1698 there was still a navigable channel over the ruins, for on the 8th of November of that year a committee of the House of Assembly reported: "That it is necessary to have a close fort of about sixteen guns erected upon the easternmost part of Port Royal, where the old church and King's House stood, which will not only secure the passage which the late dreadful earthquake made on that part of the town, but very much annoy any ship that may break into the harbour." As late as 1783—that is, ninety-one years after the earthquake—Port Royal is referred to in official documents as a "cay."

Sixty years ago the ruins of the submerged town were said to have been plainly visible in calm weather, and at the present day irregular masses of masonry can be discerned near the conical red buoy which marks the spot where the church stood. The popular belief, derived from the works of old authors, such as Martin's British Colonies, was that incalculable wealth was to be found among the ruins; for, according to these writers, "the wharves were laden with the richest merchandise, and the markets and stores displayed the glittering spoils of Mexico and Peru," at the time that the earthquake occurred. This, no doubt, was only meant for fine writing, as we know very well that the wealth and glory of Port Royal had departed some fifteen years before the catastrophe; but it served to inflame the public imagination, and in 1861 an American diver requested aid from the Government to explore the remains of the old city, offering to divide the treasure he might find. One trial was allowed him. He stated, on coming to the surface, that he had entered what was apparently a blacksmith's shop, and that he had found the remains of a fort.