Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1872-04-11

large numb<r os ,ossss sss~ sssysgsS -
na.i 70 cast . vote, pro or con, and ,tAs -
, SUIT was an overwhelming majority II 49,
and accordingly voted to raise efa co q,
J the purpose OF erecting building four sto.
. ries high and one hundred feet long.
1t is said that the Portland notice ....;o,
will have to be closed and .sno further oces.
ion for police" written over the door. The
reform club 10 growing fast.
Some anxiety is felt in the west mart Of
D sumner with regard to the small pox. Two
or three cases there have given rise 70 manv
, sensational stories. One death was reported
but later intelligence says that it was . case
of black measles.
The California Earthquake.
From California correspondence and news.
papers, we gather the following interesting
particulars of the recent terrible commissions
in'Inyo county. In the town of Independ-
ence, we are told,
THE FIRST GREAT SHOCK
Came at 2 l-2 Tuesday morning, and was
probably the most severe that occurred. Mr..
Bell, who was sleeping in the second story Of
the hotel at Independence, Ga frame building
filled in with abodes), says that when the
first shock came it threw his pitcher and
wash-bowl which were upon washstand six
feet distant. upon his bed, whence they rolled
to the floor and we're broken. Alter few
heavy sidewise lurches from south to north,
during which Mr.. Bell was trying to climb
out OF his second story window, about half .
dozen perpendicular jolts came, which SEEM
ed to lift the house to the hight of several
feet. The earth now settled down to steady
tremulous motion. From this time till near
ly Z O'Clock the earth was never for q mo-
ment perfectly quiet, and every few minutes
heavy shocks of a few seconds duration were
occurring. In all, there were more than
fifty very heavy shocks. The first shock
cracked and threw down many walls and
buildings, but it was the heavy succeeding
shocks which levelled everything. The brick
Court House and every brick and abode
house in the town and throughout the whole
| country, were thrown down.
CLOUD OF DUST, FIssUREs OF EARTH, ETC.
The shock were accompanied with great
rumbling, and the air was filed with great
clouds of dust--indeed such quantities of
dust filled the air that cloud was formed,
which was seen by persons residing fifteen
or twenty miles to the northward. In places
on the stage road there were encountered
rock as large as two-story houses, which had
rolled down from the mountains. From In
dependence to Big Pine, a distance Of forty
FIVE miles, there is not square yard Of
ground that does not show cracks" Near
Big Pine they found a crevice across the
road sixty feet wide and six feet deep. or
the road, but in plain sight, this crevice was
two hundred feet wide and over twenty feet
deep, and it could be traced q long distance,
running north and south, parallel with the
Sierra Nevada mountains.
Between Fish Springs and Bishop Creek,
where formerly was desert place, there now
gushes forth stream of water large enough
to turn mill. In other places streams and
springs are dried up, and, in fact, the whole
country turned topsy-turvy. At Hot Springs
while severe shocks were felt on the surface,
the men in the mines Goo feet deep) felt
nothing of them.
AWFUL SCENE AT yIsALIA.
Here eye witnesses describe the scene at
the time of the shock as something awful in
its uncomfortable grandeur. noise like the
guns Of fifty batteries of artillery fred sim
ualtaneously beneath the place the ground
for miles around trembling violently; houses
shaking violently an instant, and the next
lying in ruins; people, but moment before
in dreamland, shrieking in terror as they en-
deavOred to extricatc themselves from the
mountainous heaps of debris; rocks and
trees hurled from the side of the neighboring
hills and crushing down the slopes; houses,
rocks, trees, horses. cattle and human beings
thrown into the crevasse which suddenly
opened as the solid earth was rent asunder--
all made the scene Undesirable.
A HOUSE INsrANsLY CRUSHED AND YOUNG
LApY KILLED. @sk
One gentleman says the house in which he
had been staying was crumbled in an instent
into q confused mass of broken fnrnitafe,
bricks, pieces of boord, &c., and it was by
the greatest miracle that he escaped Is he
did, totally unhurt In the house were two
inmates besides himself, farmer and his
daughter. After the shock the latter he saw
lying insensible upon the ground at distance
of some twenty feet from the site Of the
dwelling. The father was terribly bruised.
and blood was pouring from wound on his
forehead, where falling brick had struck
him. Wiping it away, the two began rubbing
the hands and chatting the temples of the
senseless girl, but it was all ~ NO purpose.
She had evidently been killed instantly, hav-
ing fallen on her back. a
WHOLE FAMILIES KILLED OR BURIED.
A young husband had been sitting at his
freside with his wife. He intended to depart
in the morning for San francisco, and the
two were making the most of the last time
they would be together probably for several
months the candle had burned out and they
were seated close to the open fire place, the
wife holding in her arms child of a few
months. After the shock the husband was
found lying on his face, dead, beam across
his neck, which in falling had nearly severed
his head from the trunk and the mother vas
so frightfully burned by the FIRE brands that
she could net have lived many minutes, and
the infant was discovered ifeless nearly .
rod distant. family of seven persons ON
the outskirts of Visalia who were sound
asleep were sunk, house and all, some two or
three feet below the surface of the ground.
All were rescued however, alive, except
baby, which was burned to death BY coming
in contact with a stove. mother was nurs-
: ing sick child, a girl of fourteen or fifteen,
who had been taken the day before With chills
and fever. After the shock neither could be
found, the ruins of the house itself even be-
ing swallowed up in the enormous assure
which had been made in the earth.