Principles of Geology Part 38

In 1828 Sir A. Burnes went in a boat to the ruins of Sindree, where a single remaining tower was seen in the midst of a wide expanse of sea.

The tops of the ruined walls still rose two or three feet above the level of the water; and standing on one of these, he could behold nothing in the horizon but water, except in one direction, where a blue streak of land to the north indicated the Ullah Bund. This scene presents to the imagination a lively picture of the revolutions now in progress on the earth--a waste of waters where a few years before all was land, and the only land visible consisting of ground uplifted by a recent earthquake.

Ten years after the visit of Sir A. Burnes above alluded to, my friend, Captain Grant, F. G. S., of the Bombay Engineers, had the kindness to send at my request a native surveyor to make a plan of Sindree and Ullah Bund, in March, 1838. From his description it appears that, at that season, the driest of the whole year, he found the channel traversing the Bund to be 100 yards wide, without water, and incrusted with salt.

He was told that it has now only four or five feet of water in it after rains. The sides or banks were nearly perpendicular, and nine feet in height. The lagoon has diminished both in area and depth, and part near the fort was dry land. The annexed drawing, made by Captain Grant from the surveyor's plan, shows the appearance of the fort in the midst of the lake, as seen in 1838 from the west, or from the same point as that from which Captain Grindlay's sketch (see fig. 72) was taken in 1808, before the earthquake.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 73.

View of the Fort of Sindree, from the west, in March, 1838.]

The Runn of Cutch is a flat region of a very peculiar character, and no less than 7000 square miles in area: a greater superficial extent than Yorkshire, or about one-fourth the area of Ireland. It is not a desert of moving sand, nor a marsh, but evidently the dried-up bed of an inland sea, which for a great part of every year has a hard and dry bottom uncovered by weeds or gra.s.s, and only supporting here and there a few tamarisks. But during the monsoons, when the sea runs high, the salt-water driven up from the Gulf of Cutch and the creeks at Luckput overflows a large part of the Runn, especially after rains, when the soaked ground permits the sea-water to spread rapidly. The Runn is also liable to be overflowed occasionally in some parts by river-water: and it is remarkable that the only portion which was ever highly cultivated (that anciently called Sayra) is now permanently submerged. The surface of the Runn is sometimes incrusted with salt about an inch in depth, in consequence of the evaporation of the sea-water. Islands rise up in some parts of the waste, and the boundary lands form bays and promontories.

The natives have various traditions respecting the former separation of Cutch and Sinde by a bay of the sea, and the drying up of the district called the Runn. But these tales, besides the usual uncertainty of oral tradition, are farther obscured by mythological fictions. The conversion of the Runn into land is chiefly ascribed to the miraculous powers of a Hindoo saint, by name Damorath (or Dhoorunnath), who had previously done penance for twelve years on the summit of Denodur hill. Captain Grant infers, on various grounds, that this saint flourished about the eleventh or twelfth century of our era. In proof of the drying up of the Runn, some towns far inland are still pointed out as having once been ancient ports. It has, moreover, been always said that ships were wrecked and engulphed by the great catastrophe; and in the jets of black muddy water thrown out of fissures in that region, in 1819, there were cast up numerous pieces of wrought-iron and ship nails.[643] Cones of sand six or eight feet in height were at the same time thrown up on these lands.[644]

We must not conclude without alluding to a _moral_ phenomenon connected with this tremendous catastrophe, which we regard as highly deserving the attention of geologists. It is stated by Sir A. Burnes, that "these wonderful events pa.s.sed _unheeded_ by the inhabitants of Cutch;" for the region convulsed, though once fertile, had for a long period been reduced to sterility by want of irrigation, so that the natives were indifferent as to its fate. Now it is to this profound apathy which all but highly civilized nations feel, in regard to physical events not having an immediate influence on their worldly fortunes, that we must ascribe the extraordinary dearth of historical information concerning changes of the earth's surface, which modern observations show to be by no means of rare occurrence in the ordinary course of nature.

Since the above account was written, a description has been published of more recent geographical changes in the district of Cutch, near the mouth of the Koree, or eastern branch of the Indus, which happened in June, 1845. A large area seems to have subsided, and the Sindree lake had become a salt marsh.[645]

_Island of Sumbawa_, 1815.--In April, 1815, one of the most frightful eruptions recorded in history occurred in the province of Tomboro, in the island of Sumbawa (see Map, fig. 39, p. 351), about 200 miles from the eastern extremity of Java. In April of the year preceding the volcano had been observed in a state of considerable activity, ashes having fallen upon the decks of vessels which sailed past the coast.[646] The eruption of 1815 began on the 5th of April, but was most violent on the 11th and 12th, and did not entirely cease till July. The sound of the explosions was heard in Sumatra, at the distance of 970 geographical miles in a direct line; and at Ternate, in an opposite direction, at the distance of 720 miles. Out of a population of 12,000, in the province of Tomboro, only twenty-six individuals survived.

Violent whirlwinds carried up men, horses, cattle, and whatever else came within their influence into the air; tore up the largest trees by the roots, and covered the whole sea with floating timber.[647] Great tracts of land were covered by lava, several streams of which, issuing from the crater of the Tomboro mountain, reached the sea: So heavy was the fall of ashes, that they broke into the Resident's house at Bima, forty miles east of the volcano, and rendered it as well as many other dwellings in the town uninhabitable. On the side of Java the ashes were carried to the distance of 300 miles, and 217 towards Celebes, in sufficient quant.i.ty to darken the air. The floating cinders to the westward of Sumatra formed, on the 12th of April, a ma.s.s two feet thick, and several miles in extent, through which ships with difficulty forced their way.

The darkness occasioned in the daytime by the ashes in Java was so profound, that nothing equal to it was ever witnessed in the darkest night. Although this volcanic dust when it fell was an impalpable powder, it was of considerable weight when compressed, a pint of it weighing twelve ounces and three quarters. "Some of the finest particles," says Mr. Crawfurd, "were transported to the islands of Amboyna and Banda, which last is about 800 miles east from the site of the volcano, although the southeast monsoon was then at its height."

They must have been projected, therefore, into the upper regions of the atmosphere, where a counter-current prevailed.

Along the sea-coast of Sumbawa and the adjacent isles, the sea rose suddenly to the height of from two to twelve feet, a great wave rushing up the estuaries, and then suddenly subsiding. Although the wind at Bima was still during the whole time, the sea rolled in upon the sh.o.r.e, and filled the lower parts of the houses with water a foot deep. Every prow and boat was forced from the anchorage, and driven on sh.o.r.e.

The town called Tomboro, on the west side of Sumbawa, was overflowed by the sea, which encroached upon the sh.o.r.e so that the water remained permanently eighteen feet deep in places where there was land before.

Here we may observe, that the amount of subsidence of land was apparent, in spite of the ashes, which would naturally have caused the limits of the coast to be extended.

The area over which tremulous noises and other volcanic effects extended, was 1000 English miles in circ.u.mference, including the whole of the Molucca Islands, Java, a considerable portion of Celebes, Sumatra, and Borneo. In the island of Amboyna, in the same month and year, the ground opened, threw out water, and then closed again.[648]

In conclusion, I may remind the reader, that but for the accidental presence of Sir Stamford Raffles, then Governor of Java, we should scarcely have heard in Europe of this tremendous catastrophe. He required all the residents in the various districts under his authority to send in a statement of the circ.u.mstances which occurred within their own knowledge; but, valuable as were their communications, they are often calculated to excite rather than to satisfy the curiosity of the geologist. They mention that similar effects, though in a less degree, had, about seven years before, accompanied an eruption of Carang a.s.sam, a volcano in the island of Bali, west of Sumatra; but no particulars of that great catastrophe are recorded.[649]

_Caraccas_, 1812.--On the 26th of March, 1812, several violent shocks of an earthquake were felt in Caraccas. The surface undulated like a boiling liquid, and terrific sounds were heard underground. The whole city with its splendid churches was in an instant a heap of ruins, under which 10,000 of the inhabitants were buried. On the 5th of April, enormous rocks were detached from the mountains. It was believed that the mountain Silla lost from 300 to 360 feet of its height by subsidence; but this was an opinion not founded on any measurement. On the 27th of April, a volcano in St. Vincent's threw out ashes; and, on the 30th, lava flowed from its crater into the sea, while its explosions were heard at a distance equal to that between Vesuvius and Switzerland, the sound being transmitted, as Humboldt supposes, through the ground.

During the earthquake which destroyed Caraccas, an immense quant.i.ty of water was thrown out at Valecillo, near Valencia, as also at Porto Cabello, through openings in the earth; and in the Lake Maracaybo the water sank. Humboldt observed that the Cordilleras, composed of gneiss and mica slate, and the country immediately at their feet, were more violently shaken than the plains.[650]

_South Carolina and New Madrid, Missouri_, 1811-12.--Previous to the destruction of La Guayra and Caraccas, in 1812, earthquakes were felt in South Carolina; and the shocks continued till those cities were destroyed. The valley also of the Mississippi, from the village of New Madrid to the mouth of the Ohio in one direction, and to the St. Francis in another, was convulsed in such a degree as to create new lakes and islands. It has been remarked by Humboldt in his Cosmos, that the earthquake of New Madrid presents one of the few examples on record of the incessant quaking of the ground for several successive months _far from any volcano_. Flint, the geographer, who visited the country seven years after the event, informs us, that a tract of many miles in extent, near the Little Prairie, became covered with water three or four feet deep; and when the water disappeared a stratum of sand was left in its place. Large lakes of twenty miles in extent were formed in the course of an hour, and others were drained. The grave-yard at New Madrid was precipitated into the bed of the Mississippi; and it is stated that the ground whereon the town is built, and the river-bank for fifteen miles above, sank eight feet below their former level.[651] The neighboring forest presented for some years afterwards "a singular scene of confusion; the trees standing inclined in every direction, and many having their trunks and branches broken."[652]

The inhabitants relate that the earth rose in great undulations; and when these reached a certain fearful height, the soil burst, and vast volumes of water, sand, and pit-coal were discharged as high as the tops of the trees. Flint saw hundreds of these deep chasms remaining in an alluvial soil, seven years after. The people in the country, although inexperienced in such convulsions, had remarked that the chasms in the earth were in a direction from S. W. to N. E.; and they accordingly felled the tallest trees, and laying them at right angles to the chasms, stationed themselves upon them. By this invention, when chasms opened more than once under these trees, several persons were prevented from being swallowed up.[653] At one period during this earthquake, the ground not far below New Madrid swelled up so as to arrest the Mississippi in its course, and to cause a temporary reflux of its waves.

The motion of some of the shocks is described as having been horizontal, and of others perpendicular; and the vertical movement is said to have been much less desolating than the horizontal.

The above account has been reprinted exactly as it appeared in former editions of this work, compiled from the authorities which I have cited; but having more recently (March, 1846) had an opportunity myself of visiting the disturbed region of the Mississippi, and conversing with many eye-witnesses of the catastrophe, I am able to confirm the truth of those statements, and to add some remarks on the present face and features of the country. I skirted, as was before related (p. 270), part of the territory immediately west of New Madrid, called "the sunk country," which was for the first time permanently submerged during the earthquake of 1811-12. It is said to extend along the course of the White Water and its tributaries for a distance of between 70 and 80 miles north and south, and 30 miles east and west. I saw on its borders many full-grown trees still standing leafless, the bottoms of their trunks several feet under water, and a still greater number lying prostrate. An active vegetation of aquatic plants is already beginning to fill up some of the shallows, and the sediment washed in by occasional floods when the Mississippi rises to an extraordinary height contributes to convert the sunk region into marsh and forest land. Even on the dry ground along the confines of the submerged area, I observed in some places that all the trees of prior date to 1811 were dead and leafless, though standing erect and entire. They are supposed to have been killed by the loosening of their roots during the repeated undulations which pa.s.sed through the ground for three months in succession.

Mr. Bringier, an experienced engineer of New Orleans, who was on horseback near New Madrid when some of the severest shocks were experienced, related to me (in 1846), that "as the waves advanced the trees bent down, and the instant afterwards, while recovering their position, they often met those of other trees similarly inclined, so that their branches becoming interlocked, they were prevented from righting themselves again. The transit of the wave through the woods was marked by the crashing noise of countless boughs, first heard on one side and then on the other. At the same time powerful jets of water, mixed with sand, mud, and fragments of coaly matter, were cast up, endangering the lives of both horse and rider."

I was curious, to ascertain whether any vestiges still remained of these fountains of mud and water, and carefully examined between New Madrid and the Little Prairie several "sink holes," as they are termed. They consist of cavities from 10 to 30 yards in width, and 20 feet or more in depth, and are very conspicuous, interrupting the level surface of a flat alluvial plain. I saw abundance of sand, which some of the present inhabitants saw spouting from these deep holes, also fragments of decayed wood and black bituminous shale, probably drifted down at some former period in the main channel of the Mississippi, from the coal-fields farther north. I also found numerous rents in the soil left by the earthquake, some of them still several feet wide, and a yard or two in depth, although the action of rains, frost, and occasional inundations, and especially the leaves of trees blown into them in countless numbers every autumn, have done much to fill them up. I measured the direction of some of the fissures, which usually varied from 10 to 45 degrees W. of north, and were often parallel to each other; I found, however, a considerable diversity in their direction.

Many of them are traceable for half a mile and upwards, but they might easily be mistaken for artificial trenches if resident settlers were not there to a.s.sure us that within their recollection they were "as deep as wells." Fragments of coaly shale were strewed along the edges of some of these open fissures, together with white sand, in the same manner as round the "sink holes."[654]

Among other monuments of the changes wrought in 1811-12, I explored the bed of the lake called Eulalie, near New Madrid, 300 yards long by 100 yards in width, which was suddenly drained during the earthquake. The parallel fissures by which the waters escaped are not yet entirely closed, and all the trees growing on its bottom were at the time of my visit less than 34 years old. They consisted of cotton-wood, willows, and honey-locust, and other species, differing from those clothing the surrounding higher grounds, which are more elevated by 12 or 15 feet. On them the hickory, the black and white oak, the gum and other trees, many of them of ancient date, were flourishing.

_Aleutian Islands_, 1806.--In the year 1806, a new island, in the form of a peak, with some low conical hills upon it, is said to have risen from the sea among the Aleutian Islands, east of Kamtschatka. According to Langsdorf,[655] it was four geographical miles in circ.u.mference; and Von Buch infers from its magnitude, and from its not having again subsided below the level of the sea, that it did not consist merely of ejected matter, but of a solid rock of trachyte upheaved.[656] Another extraordinary eruption happened in the spring of the year 1814, in the sea near Unalaschka, in the same archipelago. A new isle was then produced of considerable size, and with a peak three thousand feet high, which remained standing for a year afterwards, though with somewhat diminished height.

Although it is not improbable that earthquakes accompanying these tremendous eruptions may have heaved up part of the bed of the sea, yet the circ.u.mstance of the islands not having disappeared like Sabrina (see p. 416), may have arisen from the emission of lava. If Jorullo, for example, in 1759, had risen from a shallow sea to the height of 1600 feet, instead of attaining that elevation above the Mexican plateau, the ma.s.sive current of basaltic lava which poured out from its crater would have enabled it to withstand, for a long period, the action of a turbulent sea.

_Reflections on the earthquakes of the nineteenth century._--We are now about to pa.s.s on to the events of the eighteenth century; but before we leave the consideration of those already enumerated, let us pause for a moment, and reflect how many remarkable facts of geological interest are afforded by the earthquakes above described, though they const.i.tute but a small part of the convulsions even of the last forty years. New rocks have risen from the waters; new hot springs have burst out, and the temperature of others has been raised; the coast of Chili has been thrice permanently elevated; a considerable tract in the delta of the Indus has sunk down, and some of its shallow channels have become navigable; an adjoining part of the same district, upwards of fifty miles in length and sixteen in breadth, has been raised about ten feet above its former level; part of the great plain of the Mississippi, for a distance of eighty miles in length by thirty in breadth, has sunk down several feet; the town of Tomboro has been submerged, and twelve thousand of the inhabitants of Sumbawa have been destroyed. Yet, with a knowledge of these terrific catastrophes, witnessed during so brief a period by the present generation, will the geologist declare with perfect composure that the earth has at length settled into a state of repose? Will he continue to a.s.sert that the changes of relative level of land and sea, so common in former ages of the world, have now ceased?

If, in the face of so many striking facts, he persists in maintaining this favorite dogma, it is in vain to hope that, by acc.u.mulating the proofs of similar convulsions during a series of antecedent ages, we shall shake his tenacity of purpose:--

Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae.

EARTHQUAKES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

_Quito_, 1797.--On the morning of February 4th, 1797, the volcano of Tunguragua in Quito, and the surrounding district, for forty leagues from south to north, and twenty leagues from west to east, experienced an undulating movement, which lasted four minutes. The same shock was felt over a tract of 170 leagues from south to north, from Piura to Popayan; and 140 from west to east, from the sea to the river Napo. In the smaller district first mentioned, where the movement was more intense, every town was levelled to the ground; and Riobamba, Quero, and other places, were buried under ma.s.ses detached from the mountains. At the foot of Tunguragua the earth was rent open in several places; and streams of water and fetid mud, called "moya," poured out, overflowing and wasting every thing. In valleys 1000 feet broad, the water of these floods reached to the height of 600 feet; and the mud deposit barred up the course of the river, so as to form lakes, which in some places continued for more than eighty days. Flames and suffocating vapors escaped from the lake Quilotoa, and killed all the cattle on its sh.o.r.es.

The shocks continued all February and March; and on the 5th of April they recurred with almost as much violence as at first. We are told that the form of the surface in the district most shaken was entirely altered, but no exact measurements are given whereby we may estimate the degree of elevation or subsidence.[657] Indeed it would be difficult, except in the immediate neighborhood of the sea, to obtain any certain standard of comparison if the levels were really as much altered as the narrations imply.

_c.u.mana_, 1797.--In the same year, on the 14th of December, the small Antilles experienced subterranean movements, and four-fifths of the town of c.u.mana was shaken down by a vertical shock. The form of the shoal of Mornerouge, at the mouth of the river Bourdones, was changed by an upheaving of the ground.[658]

_Canada--Quebec_, 1791.--We learn from Captain Bayfield's memoirs, that earthquakes are very frequent on the sh.o.r.e of the estuary of the St.

Lawrence, of force sufficient at times to split walls and throw down chimneys. Such were the effects experienced in December, 1721, in St.

Paul's Bay, about fifty miles N. E. from Quebec; and the inhabitants say, that about every twenty-five years a violent earthquake returns, which lasts forty days. In the History of Canada, it is stated that, in 1663, a tremendous convulsion lasted six months, extending from Quebec to Tadeausac,--a distance of about 130 miles. The ice on the river was broken up, and many landslips caused.[659]

_Caraccas_, 1790.--In the Caraccas, near where the Caura joins the Orinoco, between the towns San Pedro de Alcantara and San Francisco de Aripao, an earthquake, on St. Matthew's day 1790, caused a sinking in of the granitic soil, and left a lake 800 yards in diameter, and from eighty to one hundred in depth. It was a portion of the forest of Aripao which subsided, and the trees remained green for several months under water.[660]

_Sicily_, 1790.--On the 18th of March in the same year, at S. Maria di Niscemi, some miles from Terranuova, near the south coast of Sicily, the ground gradually sunk down for a circ.u.mference of three Italian miles, during seven shocks; and, in one place, to the depth of thirty feet. It continued to subside to the end of the month. Several fissures sent forth sulphur, petroleum, steam, and hot water, and a stream of mud, which flowed for two hours, and covered a s.p.a.ce sixty feet long and thirty broad. This happened far from both the ancient and modern volcanic district, in a group of strata consisting chiefly of blue clay.[661]

_Java_, 1786.--About the year 1786, an earthquake was felt at intervals, for the period of four months, in the neighborhood of Batur, in Java, and an eruption followed. Various rents were formed, which emitted a sulphurous vapor; separate tracts sunk away, and were swallowed by the earth. Into one of these the rivulet Dotog entered, and afterwards continued to follow a subterraneous course. The village of Jampang was buried in the ground, with thirty-eight of its inhabitants, who had not time to escape. We are indebted to Dr. Horsfield for having verified the above-mentioned facts.[662]

CHAPTER XXVIII.

EARTHQUAKE IN CALABRIA, 1783.

Earthquake in Calabria, February 5, 1783--Shocks continued to the end of the year 1786--Authorities--Area convulsed--Geological structure of the district--Difficulty of ascertaining changes of level--Subsidence of the quay at Messina--Movement in the stones of two obelisks--Shift or fault in the Round Tower of Terranuova--Opening and closing of fissures--Large edifices engulfed--Dimensions of new caverns and fissures--Gradual closing in of rents--Bounding of detached ma.s.ses into the air--Landslips--Buildings transported entire to great distances--New lakes--Funnel-shaped hollows in alluvial plains--Currents of mud--Fall of cliffs, and sh.o.r.e near Scilla inundated--State of Stromboli and Etna during the shocks--How earthquakes contribute to the formation of valleys--Concluding remarks.

_Calabria_, 1783.--Of the numerous earthquakes which have occurred in different parts of the globe, during the last 100 years, that of Calabria, in 1783, is almost the only one of which the geologist can be said to have such a circ.u.mstantial account as to enable him fully to appreciate the changes which this cause is capable of producing in the lapse of ages. The shocks began in February, 1783, and lasted for nearly four years, to the end of 1786. Neither in duration, nor in violence, nor in the extent of territory moved, was this convulsion remarkable, when contrasted with many experienced in other countries, both during the last and present century; nor were the alterations which it occasioned in the relative level of hill and valley, land and sea, so great as those effected by some subterranean movements in South America, in later times. The importance of the earthquake in question arises from the circ.u.mstance, that Calabria is the only spot hitherto visited, both during and after the convulsions, by men possessing sufficient leisure, zeal, and scientific information, to enable them to collect and describe with accuracy the physical facts which throw light on geological questions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 42.]

_Authorities._--Among the numerous authorities, Vivenzio, physician to the king of Naples, transmitted to the court a regular statement of his observations during the continuance of the shocks; and his narrative is drawn up with care and clearness.[663] Francesco Antonio Grimaldi, then secretary of war, visited the different provinces at the king's command, and published a most detailed description of the permanent changes in the surface.[664] He measured the length, breadth, and depth of the different fissures and gulfs which opened, and ascertained their number in many provinces. His comments, moreover, on the reports of the inhabitants, and his explanations of their relations, are judicious and instructive. Pignataro, a physician residing at Monteleone, a town placed in the very centre of the convulsions, kept a register of the shocks, distinguishing them into four cla.s.ses, according to their degree of violence. From his work, it appears that, in the year 1783, the number was 949, of which 501 were shocks of the first degree of force; and in the following year there were 151, of which 98 were of the first magnitude.

Count Ippolito, also, and many others, wrote descriptions of the earthquake; and the Royal Academy of Naples, not satisfied with these and other observations, sent a deputation from their own body into Calabria, before the shocks had ceased, who were accompanied by artists instructed to ill.u.s.trate by drawings the physical changes of the district, and the state of ruined towns and edifices. Unfortunately these artists were not very successful in their representations of the condition of the country, particularly when they attempted to express, on a large scale, the extraordinary revolutions which many of the great and minor river-courses underwent. But many of the plates published by the Academy are valuable; and as they are little known, I shall frequently avail myself of them to ill.u.s.trate the facts about to be described.[665]

In addition to these Neapolitan sources of information, our countryman, Sir William Hamilton, surveyed the district, not without some personal risk, before the shocks had ceased; and his sketch, published in the Philosophical Transactions, supplies many facts that would otherwise have been lost. He has explained, in a rational manner, many events which, as related in the language of some eye-witnesses, appeared marvellous and incredible. Dolomieu also examined Calabria during the catastrophe, and wrote an account of the earthquake, correcting a mistake into which Hamilton had fallen, who supposed that a part of the tract shaken had consisted of volcanic tuff. It is, indeed, a circ.u.mstance which enhances the geological interest of the commotions which so often modify the surface of Calabria, that they are confined to a country where there are neither ancient nor modern rocks of volcanic or trappean origin; so that at some future time, when the era of disturbance shall have pa.s.sed by, the cause of former revolutions will be as latent as in parts of Great Britain now occupied exclusively by ancient marine formations.

_Extent of the area convulsed._--The convulsion of the earth, sea, and air extended over the whole of Calabria Ultra, the southeast part of Calabria Citra, and across the sea to Messina and its environs; a district lying between the 38th and 39th degrees of lat.i.tude. The concussion was perceptible over a great part of Sicily, and as far north as Naples; but the surface over which the shocks acted so forcibly as to excite intense alarm did not generally exceed 500 square miles in area.