Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-08-11
THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF LISBON
In 1766

TEE GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF LISBON
IN 1755.
tsir Charles Lyell {born at Kinnordy. Scotland
1871 died 1879, wrote The Principles Of Geology"
and many contributions to the Geological Society Of
LondonJ .sE&
In no part of TIE volcanic region of
Southern Europe has SO tremendous an
earthquake occurred in modern times as
that which began on the LIST of November,
l755, at Lisbon. A sound of thunder was
heard underground, and immediately after
wards violent shock threw down the
greater part of that city. In the course of
about ak minutes, GO, 600 persons persisted.
The sea first retired and laid the bar dry
1t then rolled in, rising City feet above its
ordinary level. The mountains of ARA
bida, Estrella, Julio, Maryan and Cintra
being some OF the largest in Portugal, were
impetuousiy shaken, as it were, from their
very foundations; and some of them opened
at their submits, which were split and
rent in wonderful manner, huge masses Of
them being thrown down into the subia
cent valleys. Flames are related to have
issued from these mountains, which are
supposed to have been electric: thew
are also said to have smoked but vast
clouds of dust may have given rise to this
appearance.
The most extraordinary circumstance
which occurred at Lisbon during the catas.
trophe was the substance of a new quay.
built entirely of marble, at an immense ex.
pense. A great concourse of people had
collected there for safety, as a spot where
they might be beyond the reach of falling
ruins but suddenly the quay sank down
with all the people on it, and not one of the
dead bodies ever tiosted to the surface. A
great number of boats and small vessels
anchored near ii, all full of people, were
swallowed up as in whirlpool. No frag.
ments Of these wrecks ever rose again to
the surface, and the wateriu the place where
the quay had stood is stated, in many ac-
counts, to be unfathomable but White
hurst says he ascertained it to be one hum
dred fathoms.
In this case, we must either suppose that
certain tract sank down into subter-
ranean hollow, which would cause fault
IN the strata to the depth of six hundred
feet, or we may infer, as some have done,
from the entire disappearance OF the SUBJ
stances engulfed, that chasm opened and
closed again. Yet in adopting this latter
hypothesis, we must suppose that the up.
per part OF the chasm, to the depth of one
hundred fathoms, remained open after the
shock. According to the observations made
at Lisbon, in 1897, by Mr.. Sharpe, the de-
stroying effects OF this earthquake were
confined TO the tertiary strata, and were
most violent on the blue clay. on which the
lower part OF the city is constructed. Not
building, he says, on the secondary lime.
stone or the basalt was injured.
The oreat araa oyar ,rh;oL
earthquake extended is very remarkable.
The movement was most violent in Spain.
Portugal, and the north of Africa hut
nearly the whole of Europe, and even the
West Indies, felt the shock ON the s.ms
day. A seaport called st. Ubes, about
twenty miles south of Lisbon, was en-.
quilted. At Algiers and Fec, in Africa,
the agitation of the earth was equally vio
lent and at the distance of eight leagues
from Morocco, a village with the inhab.
itants, to the number of about eight or
ten thousand persons, together with all
their cattle, were swallowed I'D. Soon
after the earth closed again after them.
The shock was felt at sea, on the deck of
a ship to the west of Lisbon, ard produced
very much the same sensation as on dry
! land. OH st. Lucas, the Captain of the
! ship Nancy felt bis vessel SO violently
shaken that he thought she had struck the
ground, but, on heaviug the lead, found a
great depth OF water. Captain Clark, from
Denia, In latitude SO "a N, batween 0
and 10 IN the morning, had his ship shaken
and strained as if she had struck upon
rock. Another ship, forty leagues west of
ST.. Vincent, experienced so violent a con.
cusslon that the men were thrown foot
and a hall perpendicularly up from the
deck. In Antigua and Barbados, a. also
IN Norway, Sweden, Germany, Holland,
Corsica, Switzerland and Italy, tremors
and slight oscillations of the ground were
felt. = 5G
The agitation of lakes, rivers and springs
IN Great Britain was remarkable. At Lock
Lomond, IN Scotland, for example, the wa
ter, without the least apparent cause, rose
against its banks, and then subsidized below
its usual level. The greatest perpendicular
hight of this swell was two feet four inches,
1t Is said that the movement of this earth
quake was undulatory, and that it travelled
at'the rate of twenty miles minute, A
great wave swept over the coast of Spain.
and is said to have been sixty feet high al
Cadiz. At Tangier, in Africa, it rose and
fell eighteen times on the coast at Fun.
chal, in Madeira, it rose full fifteen feet
perpendicular above high-water mark. al.
though the tide, which GIBBS and flows there
seven feet, was then at half ebb. Besides
entering the city and committing great
havoc, it overdowed other seaports in the
island. At Kinsale, in Ireland, a body of
water rushed into the harbor, whirled round
several vessels and poured into the market
place.
1t was before stated that the sea first re.
tired at Lisbon and this retreat of tine
ocean from the shore at the commence.
ment of an earthquake, and its subsequent
return IN violent wave, is a common &C.
currence. In order to account for the
phenomenon, Michel imagined subsistence
at the bottom of the sea from the giving
way OF the roof OF some cavity, in conse.
quence OF a vacuum produced by the con.
densation of steam. Such condensation,
he observed, might be the first effect of the
introduction of large body of water into
assures and cavities already filed with
steam, before there had been sufficient time
for the heat of the incandescent lava to
turn so large supply of water into steam,
which, being soon accomplished, causes 0
greater exnlasinn