The McArthur enquirer. (M'arthur, Vinton County, Ohio) 1873-1884, 1873-05-14

ment removed to spot about six
leagues souuhward and three miles
from the volcano of San Salvador,
where it stood till it's destruction in
1854, when it's 10000 inhabitants
were rendered houseless by an
earthquake. Seeing the danger of
the situation the government re-
moved the capital, and laid out
new city ten miles nearer the sea,
and to be called Nuevo San Sal
yador, but SO many of the old in
habitants preferred the old spot
that in 1865, it was again made the
seat of government. There is no
other place on the surface of the
globe in which SO many volcanoes,
both live and extinct, are crowded
together within so small space as
they are in Central America, that
is, in the region between the 18th
mus Of Tehauantepec and the 18th
mus Of Panama. They are all on
the Pacific coast, running almost in
q right line due northwest and
southeast, commencing with the
lofty volcano Of Cartago, in Costa
Rica. In this line there are several
hundreds of peaks and extinct era
ters, of which ten or eleven are ac-
tive and thus probably save the coun-
try from more earthquake shocks
than it has, In San Salvador, the
smallest, but in proportion to its
area, the most densely populated of
all the Central American republics,
are the volcanoes of Amapala, San
Salvador docking down upor the
city now destroyed), San Miguel,
San Vincente, Isalco, (which was
formed within the last hundred
years., Paneon, and Santa Anna,
The whole country is subject to
earthquakes, and the houses are
built in the best way to avert dan
ger from such phenomena; they
cover q large area, and are but one
story in height. Sometimes vol
cano bursts out and the earthquake
accompanies it with unheard of vi
olence, as in the great eruption of
Cosiguina, in Nicaragua, in 1855,
when ashes were thrown all over
Central America, and the shocks
were felt over an area having a rad
ius of 1900 miles. In the earth
quake which destroyed the city of
San Salvador, in 1854, but few lives
were lost, as the catastrophe came
during the day. 1t is impossible
not to believe, although the tele-
graph despatch leaves the question
untouched, that the earthquake
which has again demolished the
capitol, did not take place at night,
when the inhabitants were buried
in sleep or otherwise so many lives
could not have been lost. At the
time of the disaster the city con-
tanned between 10000 and 10000
inhabitants. 1t was situated on q
plain beneath the volcano, and cov-
cred an area having q radius of
about two miles. The houses, with
the exception of the churches and
the Government palace, were of
brick and stone, strongly built, and
having but one story each, They
were between fifteen and eighteen
feet high, covered with tiles, and
each extended over space such as
would be occupied by about four of
our ordinary houses The streets
were narrow, being rarely over thir-
ty-six feet wide; the sleeping apart
ments Of the houses were large, and
the beds generally placed near the
walls. When an earthquake takes
place in day time, the people have
ample time to run into the streets
and thus escape the danger, but at
night o shock more than ordinarily
severe might cause the walls to fall
in upon them, or the tiles and beams
to drop down and crush them in
their beds. TWAS in all probabil-
ity thus that the 800 deaths an
nounced met their fate Suddenly,
beneath the ground, was a noise
like the discharge Of artillery, then
q creeping together or sundering of
the earth, chilling the marrow in
their bones, and then the crash oil
the tumbling walls upon them. I'll
is probable that the churches were
left standing, as such buildings are
erected in Central America with
.eari.tff PHI