On the 16th of December, 1811, about two o'clock, am,
we were visited by a violent shock of an earthquake, accompanied by a
very awful noise resembling loud but distant thunder, but more hoarse
and vibrating, which was followed in a few minutes by the complete
saturation of the atmosphere, with sulphurious vapor, causing total
darkness. The screams of the affrighted inhabitants running to and fro,
not knowing where to go, or what to do - the cries of the fowls and
beasts of every species - the cracking of trees falling, and the roaring
of the Mississippi- the current of which was retrograde for a few
minutes, owing as is supposed, to an irruption in its bed - formed a
scene truly horrible. From that time until about sunrise, a number of
lighter shocks occurred; at which time one still more violent than the
first took place, with the same accompaniments as the first, and the
terror which had been excited in everyone, and indeed in all animal
nature, was now, if possible doubled. The inhabitants fled in every
direction to the country, supposing (if it can be admitted that their
minds can be exercised at all) that there was less danger at a distance
from, than near to the river. In one person, a female, the alarm was so
great that she fainted, and could not be recovered.
There were several shocks of a day, but lighter than
those already mentioned until the 23d of January, 1812, when one
occurred as violent as the severest of the former ones, accompanied by
the same phenomena as the former. From this time until the 4th of
February the earth was in continual agitation, visibly waving as a
gentle sea. On that day there was another shock, nearly as hard as the
proceeding ones. Next day four such, and on the 7th about 4 o'clock am,
a concussion took place so much more violent than those that had
proceeded it, that it was dominated the hard shock. The awful darkness
of the atmosphere, which was formerly saturated with sulphurious vapor,
and the violence of the tempestuous thundering noise that accompanied
it, together with all of the other phenomena mentioned as attending the
former ones, formed a scene, the description of which would require the
most sublimely fanciful imagination.
At first the Mississippi seemed to recede from its
banks, and its waters gathering up like a mountain, leaving for the
moment many boats, which were here on their way to New Orleans, on bare
sand, in which time the poor sailors made their escape from them. It
then rising fifteen to twenty feet perpendicularly, and expanding, as it
were, at the same moment, the banks were overflowed with the retrograde
current, rapid as a torrent - the boats which before had been left on
the sand were now torn from their moorings, and suddenly driven up a
little creek, at the mouth of which they laid, to the distance in some
instances, of nearly a quarter of a mile. The river falling immediately,
as rapid as it had risen, receded in its banks again with such violence,
that it took with it whole groves of young cotton-wood trees, which
ledged its borders. They were broken off which such regularity, in some
instances, that persons who had not witnessed the fact, would be
difficultly persuaded, that is has not been the work of art. A great
many fish were left on the banks, being unable to keep pace with the
water. The river was literally covered with the wrecks of boats, and
'tis said that one was wrecked in which there was a lady and six
children, all of whom were lost.
In all the hard shocks mentioned, the earth was
horribly torn to pieces- the surface of hundreds of acres, was, from
time to time, covered over, in various depths, by the sand which issued
from the fissures, which were made in great numbers all over this
country, some of which closed up immediately after they had vomited
forth their sand and water, which it must be remarked, was the matter
generally thrown up. In some places, however, there was a substance
somewhat resembling coal, or impure stone coal, thrown up with the sand.
It is impossible to say what the depths of the fissures or irregular
breaks were; we have reason to believe that some of them are very deep.
Eliza Bryan
|
