Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/82

78 the tumultuous bosom of the river, carrying down with them the cottonwood trees cracking and crashing, tossing their arms to and fro, as if sensible of their danger, while they disappeared beneath the flood. From the check given to the current by the heaving bottom, the river rose in a few minutes five or six feet and again rushed forward with redoubled impetuosity, hurrying along the boats, now let loose by the horror-stricken boatmen, as in less danger on the water than on the land."

Whole islands disappeared. Captain Sarpy of St. Louis, with bis family and considerable money aboard, tied up at an island on the evening of the fifteenth of December, 1811. In looking around they found that a party of river pirates occupied part of the island and were expecting Sarpy with the intention of robbing him. As soon as the latter found that out he quietly dropped lower down the river. In the night the earthquake came, and next morning when the accompanying haziness disappeared, the island could no longer be seen; it had been utterly destroyed as well as its pirate inhabitants.

Few scientists were in the region during the period of shocks, but we are fortunate in having handed down to us a realistic picture from the pen of the great naturalist Audubon.

Traveling through the Barrens of Kentucky (of which I shall give you an account elsewhere) in the month of November, I was jogging on one afternoon, when I remarked a sudden and strange darkness rising from the western horizon. Accustomed to our heavy storms of thunder and rain, I took no notice of it, as I thought the speed of my horse might enable me to get under shelter of the roof of an acquaintance, who lived not far distant, before it should come up. I had proceeded about a mile, when I heard what I imagined to be the distant rumbling of a violent tornado, on which I spurred my steed, with a wish to gallop as fast as possible to a place of shelter; but it would not do, the animal knew better than I what was forthcoming, and instead of going faster, so nearly stopped that I remarked he placed one foot after another on the ground, with as much precaution as if walking on a smooth sheet of ice. I thought he had suddenly foundered, and, speaking to him, was on the point of dismounting and leading him, when he all of a sudden fell a-groaning piteously, hung his head, spread out his four legs as if to save himself from falling, and stood stock still, continuing to groan. I thought my horse was about to die, and would have sprung from his back had a minute more elapsed, but at that instant all the shrubs and trees began to move from their very roots, the ground rose and fell in successive furrows, like the ruffled waters of a lake, and I became bewildered in my ideas, as I too plainly discovered that all this awful commotion in nature was the result of an earthquake.

The vibrations did not cease for over a year from December sixteenth, the date memorable for the first shock. During the succeeding three months 1,874 shocks were recorded, of which eight were violently destructive, ten very severe and thirty-five generally alarming. In fact, this earthquake is famous all over the world as one of the few instances of almost incessant shaking for a period of many months in a region remote from the seat of any volcanic action.