REMARKABLE EARTHQUAKE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 136, 3 August 1881, Page 4

REMARKABLE EARTHQUAKE.

An old yet well-recorded instance is the earthquake of Jamaica in 1692. Phe ground swelled and heaved like a rolling sea, and was traversed by mmerous cracks, 200 or 300 of which veve seen at a time, opening and then dosing rapidly again. Many people urero swallowed up in these rents ; ome the earth caught by the middle nd squeezed to death ; the heads only f others appeared above the ground ; nd some were engulfed and then cast orth again with, great quantities of rater. Such was the devastation lat even in Port Eoyal, then the fvpital, where more homses are said ) have left standing than in the hole island besides, three-quarters

of the buildings, together with the ground" they stood on, sank down, with their inhabitants, entirely under water. The large stone houses on the harbor side subsided so as to be from 24 to 48 feet under water ; yet many of them appear to have remained standing, for it is stated that after the earthquake the mast-heads of several ships wrecked in the harbor together with the chimney-tops of the houses, were just projecting above the waves. A large tract of .land round the town, about 1000 acres in extent sank down in less than one minute during the first shock, and the sea immediately rushed in. The Swan frigate, which was repairing in the wharf, was driven over the tops of many buildings and thrown upon one of the roofs, through which it broke. The breadth of one of the streets is said to have been doubled by the earthquake. Lyell states that he was informed by the late Admiral Sir C. Hamilton that he frequently saw the submerged houses of Port Eoyal in the year 1780 in that part of the harbor which lies between the town and the usual anchorage for men-of-war ; and that Lieut. Jeffery, E.N., saw the remains of houses in four or eight fathoms of water. Out of the town the ruin was vast. Some plantations sank, and were covered in after years by a lake of fresh water ; several tenements were buried in landslips ; and one plantation was removed half a mile by a slide from its place — growing crops and all. Between Spanish and " Sixteen-mile Walk" the high and perpendicular cliffs bounding the river fell in, stopped the passage of the river and flooded the latter place. The Blue Mountains were much shattered, fissured, and their soil set loose in landslips. — From Professor P.M. Duncan's paper on Earthquakes, in " Science for All."