Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1857-10-17
The Earthquake in Missouri and
Southern illinois on the Sth Inst.
From the st. Louis News, 9Th,

About twenty minutes past tour O'Clock
this morning, rather severe shock OF an
earthquake was experienced in st. Louis, as
also in the surrounding vicinities, like wise
tor many miles Oh the Illinois side. Towards
midnight of yesterday a moisture began to
peyvade the atmosphere, and finally some
wnas OF u dew WAS formed. This did not
increase in density until about half past tw o
O'Clock in the morning, when a fog began
to gather over the city and superseded the
dew. 1t grew gradually thicker and thick
or until about twenty minutes past four,
when 60 give the words of Officer Nc Means
aud fellow officer who WAS sitting on
Third street, between Poplar and Plum in a
doorway they heard loud rumblng noise.
They jumped up, and had scarcely reached
their feet before they were amazed at the
shaking Of the groand beneath their feet,
SO that they could scarcely stand. The win
dows Of the houses on both sides of the street
olattered loudly in their frames, the blinds
flew open and out popped the heads ofscores
of people in their ii ghtdresses who occupied
the houses. A great number ran out of the
houses, alarmed at the oscillation of the
beds, windows and furniture in their rooms,
and the cry Of an "earthquake' broke :he
silence that otherwise reigneG as this early
hour of the morning. We may state that
the evidences just narrated were experienced
by people all over the city. Upon compa-
ring all the accounts together, it is apparent
that the shock proceeded from the southwest
and 30 travelled along. Parties describe it
as coming up from the river west, from
which point it was felt most severe. At
n oil 80, ~ =,
was acutely felt. Persons coming in from
there state that at the time OF the shock,
the noise resembled at one moment the
rumbling induced by steam endeavoring to
escape through muffled apparatus, and at
another as though vehicles heavily laden,
with untitled wheels, were being drawn with
express speed over cobble stone road
The latter sound was heard in this city
At Merramac it WAS pitch dark at the time,
and the people were very much alarmed and
ran out OF the houses. There was likewise
strong smell of sulphur, and it is said up
on good authority, that suiphuric meteor
ic ball rolled about the streets in this city,
leaving wherever it went most unpleasant
smell. In consequence of the early hour
in the morning, very little was known OF
what the outside effects We're; but in regard
to the inside ones they are visible in many
parts. Plaster had fallen from the ceilings,
locked doors were unlocked and thrown
open, bricks knocked down, beds and fnrni-
ture displaced.
The Missouri Hotel and many buildings in
the vicinity, are described to Us by some OF
the boarders to have rocked very nearly like
a cradle, and a large number of them quickly
arose from their beds in alarm. Heads were
popped out of the windows, and many per-
sons went into the streets. Four miles north
from here. just before the shock, it was very
dark. After the first shock and about eight
minutes after that came the second shock,
which was felt all over the city, but was not
50 strong as the first, although very percept-
ible, when the moon shone out as bright as
ever. This is a very strange phenomenon to
be accounted for, how it is that while the
shock is in progress q darkness so peculiar
should prevail, and that no sooner had the
shock been felt, than it quickly disappears,
and gives way to the silvery path of the
moons rays. 1t is very certain that there
were two shocks; the fret is stated by old
citizens of st. Louis to have been more Sc
we're than any other which has occurred since
1911, when the great earthquake which des-
troyed Caracas and other cities in Central
America. extended itself as near to ST. Louis
as New Madrid, where the property was all
destroyed, and large number of lives lost.