Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1873-05-10
THE GREAT EARrHWAvE.
Details Of the Terrible Earshuuake
In Nan RslvAAAR

IhE GREAT EARTHWAvE.
Details Of the Terrible Earthquake
In San salvador.
Special correspondence Of the New York
Volt from Acapulta, San Salvador, April
8. says Captain Kennedy1s story OF the
exceeded ne dlsnai truth The subteTrancsn
CONNIE oon hAs not yet cDme TO an end. shocks
n ore or kss sicaers h.se been felt almost daily
and over an eFisnt Of country some forty miiss
in ng by twenty In width. Several small
vi ages scateered over this area have been
OF tie wors doss by the earthquake at San
Sal, ador itself can now speak more CONT
dei tly. 1t was /" thorough" enough to satisfy
Suaford hinseG Houses, churches, gardsns,
barracks, ~ that made up lively fiourishipg
little city of 1900 souls, you may look for now
HEAPS OF AsHEs AND PILES or STONES.
In Il Q chief plaza the Government Is encAmp-
ed, although the work Of restoration which
was begun &C once by order of the President
70 going On very rapidly in respect to the pub
the National Palace the main ~s Of ssss
were left standing, was rooted in anew. In the
interior of the National Palace temporary
quarters have been provided for the garrison.
The water-works are under repair and they
are reopening the sewers. In the vestibule or
the Cathedral they are preparing a sort of
chapel for divine Service during the Holy Week
now begun. The work OF restoration Is going
on mole slowly with the private houses. Many
persons who have property buried under the
ruLs are living in tents and eXcavating what
they suppose 10 be the
SITES OF THEIR FORMER HOMES.
But so completely has the city been obliterated,
that IT is not easy for them to lind those sites
at once. Thus will no doubt seem eXtraordi-
mar enough to the average citizen, who has
accustomed himself unconscioasly 10 consider
the piles of bricks and mortar which make up
broadway or Wall street a. per manent natural
landmarks But let an earthquake throw down
all buildings from 1wenty-third street to Four
teenth, and from Sixth avenue to Fourth and
then set the average citizen, without a compass
to finding in that shapeless field of ruin, his late
'brown-stone 'front.'" This earthquake which
destroyed San Salvador was essentially an UNI
dulatory, as extinguished from a vbratory
in the form of a continuous wave-like motion
Of sudden shaking Of the earth to and fro.
THE EFFECT OF THE UNDULATIoN
was to throw forward wall upon wall, and thus
to overlap, as 1t was, house with house from
end to end of the city; and this made the oblit-
Grafton OF streets and squares more complete
than 1t would otherwise have been. The tower
Of the Cathedral, which still stands leaning out
of the perpendicular, bears witness very Curl
ously to the undulatory action of the shocks
The tower was first shifted and thrown forward
solid mass of masonry retaining its conference,
and fitting where the earth wave left it, pre-
cisely as vessel might which had been thrown
up by sea-wave on an inclined beach. The
general impression in Central America seems
to be that as rule the undulatory earthquakes
are less destructive in their effects as well As
much wider in their range than the Migratory
earthquakes This impression will not be for
titled by the experience OF San Salvador in
1873. 1t would be difficult to imagine vibra-
tory earthquake doing its work more terribly
All the descriptions have had from persons
cur in this, that =
THE sHuDDRRING KARrH
actually threw objects forward from their
places precisely as waves OF water might have
done. / have already mentioned the case OF
cant tower, it is true, but no light thing to be
lifted bodily along the surface of the ground
In many cases heavy iron safes were shifted in
like manner for distances more or less consid-
cradle. One person described his sensations to
me by saying that he "felt the ground swim
Ining away from him." On a hillside near
the city stood potrero or grazing farm for cat
Tie. When the owner went out to look at il a
day or two after the catastrophe he could not
find his land !! The superfices of the soil had
been lifted up and thrown forward, the grass
turned upside down, and the roots mingled with
the debris from the upper slopes presented 70
the astonished grazier an entirely unrecognlza-
bic wilderness, an
"ABoMINATIoN OF DRsoLArIoN.,
This received as the exact truth from res
pectable foreign merchant of San Salvador.
An American gentleman, well known in San
r rna1 Mr: Banks, coffee buyer in the
ton In the Hotter de Parque In an asto nishing
manner. He was in bed in a large room of the
hotel lreputed the best in Central America,)
II
that he had better dress and 60 out. He went
out, his room not falling at an, into the patio,
came back treasured, and only on attempting
little later to pass into the street, discovered
that he was in the midst of a widespread desc
lation. A foreign resident of San Salvador,
with his family, fed out Of the house after the
first shock into the ample patio. The inner
walls of the house for q time Remained stand
ing, while from without came the awful roar of
falling buildings, and with each new shock the
doleful jangle Of small bell swinging in the
one oasis OF safety In the general ruin, and
there they remained. Then at last came
THE GROWING BLOW
was full Of dust. falling timbers, and bricks.
They resolved to escape, but to their horror
they found the door way had disappeared un-
thither seeking an exit. At last one of the
number, climbing over the chaos, discovereda
narrow passage which seem med to lead into the
street. He called to the others, and one by one
opened to them into the outer world. But the
street itself they found TO be q mass Of debris,
and after picking their way painfully along for
their bearings, and hastily resolved to retrace
their steps. They did 50, but 70 no purpose. In
those few moments the exit through which they
closed up or become undiscoversble. For half
an hour they wandered about at random, until
at last they happily came out at the plaza, and
found S Themselves In safety. The head Of this
people here commonly keep their counting
houses under one roof with their dwellingsja
large sum of noney-many thousand dollars,
in fact. He has been ever since occupied and
is now occupied in endeavoring to ascertain
where his stood that he may excavate in the
ruins. Three-fourths at least of the persOas
now actually in San Salvador are engaged in a
like manner. Their families are not there, but
in some other town OF village, or hacienda
They themselves, afterrecoverfnR ali that canbe
recovered from the wreck, will probably fix
themselves elsewhere. The action OF President
Gonzalez IN publishing on the 21st decree
the same site appears to have been dictated
rather by polite consideration Of the peculiar
position which he himself now occupies than
by any deliberate expectation that the capital
will really be built.
The Death Of Shack Nasty Jack
tFyoms the st. Losss Dem0crat.l
Again are We called upon TO perform the pain