tions from which were felt all over the valley of the Ohio, as high up as Pittsburg. The first shock was felt on the night of December sixteenth, 1811, and was repeated at intervals, with decreasing severity, into February following. New Madrid, having suffered more than any other town on the Mississippi from its effects, was considered as situated near the focus from whence the undulations proceeded.

The water of the river, which the day before was tolerably clear, being rather low, changed to a reddish hue, and became thick with mud thrown up from its bottom, while the surface, lashed vehemently by the convulsion of the earth beneath, was covered with foam, which, gathering into masses the size of a barrel, floated along on the trembling surface. The earth on the shores opened in wide fissures, and, closing again, threw the water, sand and mud, in huge jets, higher than the tops of the trees. The atmosphere was filled with a thick vapor or gas, to which the light imparted a purple tinge, altogether different in appearance from the autumnal haze of an Indian summer, or that of smoke. From the temporary check to the current, by the heaving up of the bottom, the sinking of the banks and sand-bars into the bed of the stream, the river rose in a few minutes five or six feet; and, impatient of the restraint, again rushed forward with redoubled impetuosity, hurrying along the boats, now set loose by the panic-stricken boatmen, as in less danger on the water than at the shore, where the banks threatened every moment to destroy them by the falling earth, or carry them down in the vortices of the sinking masses. Many boats were overwhelmed in this manner, and their crews perished with them. Numerous boats were wrecked on the snags and old trees thrown up from the bottom of the Mississippi, where they had quietly rested for ages, while others were sunk or stranded on the sand-bars and islands. At New Madrid, several boats were carried by the reflux of the current into a small stream that puts into the

river just above the town, and left on the ground by the returning water a very considerable distance from the Mississippi.

It is an interesting coincidence, that, at this precise period, the first steam-boat voyage ever made in western waters, added the novelty of its occurrence to the convulsions of nature in this region. The name of the steam-boat in question was the New Orleans, commanded by Mr. Roosevelt. On arriving about five miles above the Yellow Banks, near New Madrid, they moored opposite to a vein of coal on the Indiana side, the coal having been purchased some time previously for the steamer's use. They found a large quantity already quarried to their hand and conveyed to the shore by depredators, who, however, had not means to carry it off; and with this they commenced loading. While thus engaged, the voyagers were accosted in great alarm by the squatters in the neighborhood, who inquired if they had not heard strange noises on the river and in the woods in the course of the preceding day, and perceived the shores shakeinsisting that they had repeatedly heard the earth tremble. Hitherto, however, nothing remarkable had been perceived, and the following day they continued their monotonous voyage in those vast solitudes. The weather was oppressively hot; the air misty, still and dull; and though the sun was visible, like an immense and glowing ball of copper, his rays hardly shed more than a mournful twilight on the surface of the water. Evening drew nigh, and with it some indications of what was passing around them became evident, for they ever and anon heard a rushing sound and violent splash, and finally saw large portions of the shore tearing away from the land and lapsing into the watery abyss. An eyewitness says: "It was a startling scene -one could have heard a pin drop on deck. The crew spoke but little; they noticed, too, that the comet, for some time visible in the heavens, had suddenly disappeared, and every one on board was thunderstruck."

The second day after leaving the Yellow Banks, the sun rose over the forests, the same dim ball of fire, and the air was thick, heavy, and oppressive, as before. The portentous signs of this terrible natural convulsion increased. Alarmed and confused, the pilot affirmed he was lost-as he found the channel everywhere altered; and where he had hitherto known deep water, there lay numberless trees with their roots upward. The trees that still remained were seen waving and nodding on the banks, without a wind. The

adventurers had of course no choice but to continue their route as best they could, but towards evening they were at a loss for a place of shelter. They had usually brought to, under the shore, but at all points they saw the high banks disappearing, overwhelming many an unfortunate craft, from which the owners had landed, in the hope of effecting their escape. A large island in mid-channel, which had been selected by the pilot as the better. alternative, was sought for in vain, having totally disappeared, and thousands of acres constituting the surrounding country, were found to have been swallowed up, with their gigantic growth of forest and cane.

Thus, in doubt and terror, they proceeded hour after hour, until dark, when they found a small island, and rounded to, mooring at the foot of it. Here they lay, keeping watch on deck, during the long night, listening to the sound of the waters which roared and whirled wildly around. them-hearing, also, from time to time, the rushing earth slide from the shore, and the commotion of the falling mass as it became engulfed in the river. The lady of the party was frequently awakened from her restless slumber, by the jar of the furniture and loose articles in the cabin, as in the course of the night the shock of the passing earthquake was communicated to the bows of the vessel. The morning dawned and showed they were near the mouth of the Ohio. The shores. and channel were now equally unrecognizable-everything seemed changed. About noon that day they reached New Madrid. Here the inhabitants were in the greatest consternation and distress. Part of the population had fled for their lives to the higher grounds; others prayed to be taken on board the steamer, as the earth was opening in fissures on every side, and their houses hourly falling around them. Proceeding thence they found the Mississippi,

at all times a fearful stream, unusually swollen, turbid, and full of trees, and after many days of extreme danger, finally reached Natchez.

After shaking the valley of the Mississippi to its center, the earthquake vibrated along the courses of the rivers and valleys, and, passing the primitive mountain barriers, died away along the shores of the Atlantic ocean. In the region of its greatest force, and pending the tremendous elemental strife which finally ensued, the current of the Mississippi was driven back from its source with appalling velocity for several hours, in consequence of an elevation of its bed. But the noble river was not thus to be stayed in its course. Its accumulated waters came booming on, and, overtopping the barrier thus suddenly raised, carried every thing before them with resistless power. Boats, then floating on its surface, shot down the declivity like an arrow from a bow, amid roaring billows and the wildest disorder. A few days' action of its powerful current sufficed to wear away every vestige of the barrier thus strangely interposed, and its waters moved on in their wonted channel to the ocean, seemingly rejoicing in their triumph over the opposing elements and forces.

The day that succeeded this night of dread brought no solace in its dawn. Shock followed shock; a dense black cloud of vapor overshadowed the land, through which no struggling sunbeam found its way to cheer the desponding heart of man. The appearances that presented themselves after the subsidence of the principal commotion were indeed staggering to the beholder. Hills had disappeared, and lakes were found in their stead; numerous lakes became elevated ground, over the surface of which vast heaps of sand were scattered in every direction; while in many places the earth for miles was sunk below the general level of the surrounding country, without being covered with water, -leaving an impression in miniature of a catastrophe much more important in its effects, which had, perhaps, preceded it

ages before. One of the lakes thus formed is sixty or seventy miles in length, and from three to twenty miles in breadth; it is also in some places very shallow, and in others from fifty to one hundred feet deep, which latter is much more than the depth of the Mississippi river in that quarter. In sailing over its surface, one is struck with astonishment at beholding the gigantic trees of the forest standing partially exposed amid the waste of waters, branchless and leafless, like gaunt, mysterious monsters. But this wonder is still further increased on casting the eye on the darkblue profound, to witness cane-brakes covering its bottom, over which a mammoth species of tortoise is occasionally seen dragging its slow length along, while countless millions of fish are sporting through the aquatic thickets,-the whole constituting one of the most remarkable features in American scenery and topography.

The lost hills or islands before mentioned are of various extent; some twenty or thirty miles in circumference, others not so large, and some are even diminutive in size, but of great altitude; occasionally furnished with fountains of living water, and all well timbered. The low grounds are in the form of basins, connected by openings or hollows; these, not being as deep as the bottom of their reservoirs, it happens that, when an inundation takes place, either from the Mississippi river or streams issuing from the surrounding highlands, they are filled to overflowing— and, when the waters recede below a level with these points of communication, they become stagnant pools, passing off by the process of infiltration, which is very slow, in a thick, black, tenacious loam, or by evaporation equally gradual, in a country covered by forests and impenetrable jungle. At New Madrid and its vicinity, the earth broke into innumerable fissures; the church-yard, with its dead, was torn from the bank and embosomed in the turbid stream; and in many places, the gaping earth unfolded its secrets, the bones of the gigantic mastodon and ichthyosaurus, hidden within its bosom for

Flint, the geographer, who visited the country seven years after the event, says that, at the time of his visit, a district west of New Madrid still remained covered with water, and that the neighboring forest presented a scene of great confusion. He also saw hundreds of deep chasms remaining in the alluvial soil, which were produced, according to the inhabitants, by the bursting of the earth, which rose in great undulations, and discharged prodigious volumes of water, sand, and coaly matter, thrown up to a great height. As the shocks lasted throughout a period of three months, the country people remarked that, in particular districts, there were certain prevailing directions in which the fissures opened, and they accordingly felled the tallest trees, making them fall at right angles to the direction of the chasms. By stationing themselves on these, the inhabitants often escaped being swallowed up when the earth opened beneath them.

During the visit of Sir Charles Lyell to this region, in 1846, Mr. Bringier, the well-known engineer, related to him that he was on horseback near New Madrid, in 1811, when some of the severest shocks were experienced, and that, as the waves advanced, he saw the trees bend down, and often, the instant afterward, when in the act of recovering their position, meet the boughs of other trees similarly inclined, so as to become interlocked, being prevented from righting themselves again. The transit of the wave through the woods was marked by the crashing noise of countless branches, first heard on one side and then on the other. At the same time, powerful jets of water, mixed with sand, loam and bituminous shale, were cast up with such impetuosity, that both horse and rider

might have perished, had the swelling and upheaving ground happened to burst immediately beneath them. Some of the shocks were perpendicular, while others, much more desolating, were horizontal, or moved along like great waves; and where the principal fountains of mud and water were thrown up, circular cavities, called sink-holes, were formed.

Hearing that some of these cavities still existed near the town, Professor Lyell went to see one of them, three-quarters of a mile to the westward. There he found a nearly circular hollow, ten yards wide, and five feet deep, with a smaller one near it, and, scattered about the surrounding level ground, were fragments of black bituminous shale, with much white sand. Within a distance of a few hundred yards, were five more of these "sand-bursts," or "sand-blows," as they are sometimes termed, and, about a mile farther west, there is still pointed out "the sink-hole where the negro was drowned." It is a striking object, interrupting the regularity of a flat plain, the sides very steep, and twenty-eight feet deep from the top to the water's edge.

In the interesting account of this region and of the event in question, furnished by Professor Lyell, in his book of travels, he relates the reminiscences of a citizen of New Madrid, who witnessed the earthquake when a child. He described the camping out of the people in the night when the first shocks occurred, and how some were wounded by the falling of chimneys, and the bodies of others drawn out of the ruins; and confirmed the published statements of the inhabitants having availed themselves of fallen trees to avoid being engulfed in open fissures,—a singular mode of escape, which, curiously enough, had been adopted spontaneously in different and widely-distant places, at the same time, even little children throwing themselves thus on the felled trunks. Lyell was then invited to go and see several fissures still open, which had been caused by the undulatory movement of the ground, some of them jagged, others even