Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1872-04-10
VIVID ACCOUNT OF THE CALIFORNIA
EARTHQUAKE.

Grace Greenwood Gives Her Experience.
In very interesting letter written to
the New York Times, from Sacramento,
under date of the 18th March, Grace
Greenwood says of the earthquake.
It occurred, that is the great shock, at
2:20 O'Clock, and then the clock stopped
1t was late when | went to bed last night
[ was tired and weak from recent illness,
yet l could not sleep for long time. /
fancied the air was heavy and sultry. With
window wide open i'll my large chamber,
| still had strange feeling of oppression
and apprehension, though all without was
profoundly quiet-a dead stiffness. After
long tossing and weary waiting, slept, it
seemed but q little while. 1 dreamed /
was at sea, and that the ship suddenly
struck upon a rock, and shuddered and
shivered and creaked fearfully. | woke to
feel the rocking, straining motion of the
ship, and the roar of the wind and the
waves. [ had actually some moments of
vague distress and terror before | realized
where | was, and what was the strange
tumult and shock, and knew that the fear
full power that was shaking the great, solid
house, and rattling the windows and
swinging the chandeliers about me was
neither of the air or sea-that the dull, APP
palling roar was neither the sound of
mighty, rushing wind" nor the "vOice
of many waters''-thOugh it was like to
them both-nor could it be taken for thun-
der, or the rumble of cars, or the tumult of
battle. 1t was something peculiar, strange,
terribly unfamiliar, yet impossible to be
mlStaken-a nameleSS horror of sound.
muffied pOrtentOus and all-pervading. 1t
did not seem to me to belong to the earth
quake. 1t seemed i'll the air, not under
the grOund-it was not the grOwl of i'm
prisOned thunder-but the Ominous, def
ant roar Of some unknown element of
death and destruction, flying all abroad"
1t was more terrible to me than the rock
ing and trembling all about me.
The shocks became much less violent
and frequent, and at last were so gentle
that, worn out by strange emotions, said
to the dear old earth i never had feared be-
fore: Rock me to sleep, MOther"-and
she did it. At about O'clock [ was aWak-
ened by a smart shock, the last severe one
we have had. During the day we have
had several starts and trem6iemcntS, so
slight that it is probable we should not
have noticed them, had we not been on
the Qui UjUe.
There is in all earthquake all the ele-
ments of panic, of wild, mad terror, es-
peclally in its utter uneXpectedness and
uncertainty. Nothing in nature gives you
warning that it is coming, nothing assur-
ances that it is past. You cannot know
during the first great shock whether it is
subsiding or eliminating. Still, we were
more solemnized than terrified, at least af-
ter the bewildered waking out of sleep,
and the first surprise and alarm. There
was something SO mysterious, so stupen-
dous, so almost grand in that shudder of
the solid globe, that nightmare of the
sleeping earth, moaning and tossing un-
der the still bright heavens. We were
hushed and humbled; with a sense of the
most utter helplessness we could but try to
look beyond nature to natures God, silent
ly to appeal from her pitilessness to His
pity, from her restlessness to His rest.