Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1886-09-11
SOUTH AMERICAN QUAKEs

man TO whom it is addressed. 1t can
hardly fail to interest this community at
| this time. The writer of it has had con-
| siderable experience In South American
countries, and was for a long time the
Chllian Consul at Boston,:
Boston, Sept. 8, 1886.
DR.. William II. Elliott, 70 Brought0n
street, Savannah:
DEAR ELLIOTT have Just returned
from the country and learned that Savan-
nah, as well as Charleston, is suffering
from earthquake shocks. Though the
number Of oasu alties is relatively small,
the decentralization must be naturally Sc
rious-especia!ly in those whose health is
delicate. Therefore, allow me to make
some suggestions, based on my own eX.
perience in the earthquake countries Of
South America.
The South Americans classify earth
quakes as TemblOrs and Terrem0tos.
The former is accompanied by subterra-
neous rumblings and sometimes slight
shaking, enough to set the chandeliers
swinging and the dishes on the sidebo ard
gathering; but there is no danger worth
speaking of if people will stay still III
the house and not expose themselves by
running out into the street where loose
bricks falling from the chlmneys make it
dangerous at tines.
The safest place in any earthquake of
this class-in fact of almost any claes-is
to stand on the threshold OF the room, be-
cause the partitions Of the house are the
firmest part and the doors are merely pas
sages through the partitions. Think
moment, if any part of u room is shaken
the ceiling Is the part of maximum vi
bration and the partition walls are the
least exposed to the vibration. Again, If
any part of the house is to fall the I'M
supported upper work, chimneys or cor
nices are the most liable to fall, conse-
quently, as they fall outward tho street
beneath is the most dangerous. Therefore,
the best thing to do case of an earth
quake, unless far removed from falling
bricks, is TO sit still near the wall of tie
room, or on the threshold, until it is over.
The TerremOtU. or genuine earthquake,
is a rare event, even in earthquake coun-
tries. 1t generally comes suddenly and
instantaneOusly, without subterranean
rumbling. Its results may be disastrous,
but the danger is quite as much from fires
afterwards catching from the kitchen.
Nevertheless, the shook which causes
the danger is brief; it is
past within the space OF
n single minute-s0mething like cannon
ball-slthough the TemblOrs, with under
walls for several days before the force of
the conVulsiOn is spent. 1t is comforting
TO know that the Temblor is simply an
underground thunderstorm, and not more
dangerous to life than an ordinary spring
thunderstorm, with which we are accus-
toned.
A study of earthquakes will probably
develop their laws, for am satisfied from
my own observations that those laws can
be found out; in fact, made some expert
ments when in Chill to register the Vlbra-
tiOns and oscillations caused by earth
quakes. But it is not my purpose now to
discuss the cause or laws of this phenO-
menOn Of which science really knows but
little; rather to indicate the general point
that the danger is more apparent than
real 80 far as life or limb are concerned,
il people will stay indoors until the dan
ger is passed.
l am assured by prominent citizens of
Santiago that, since the great Santiago
earthquake OF l647, no man or woman has
been killed at Santiago, the capital of
Chilli, by earthquakes, although several
have been hurt by running into the street
when bricks were falling. The cities OF
Valparaiso and Conception have been re-
peatedly damaged, almost destroyed, by
the tidal waves which followed the earth
quakes. But-thOugh each of those two
seaDOrts has been, so to speak, destroyed
once during the present century-the en-
tire number of casualties throughout
Chilli by earthquakes since 1900 does not
reach 100, according to my friend Benja-
min Vienna Mackenna, the Gillian his
tortan.
In July, 1880, it was my good fortune to
witness the great Iliapel earthquake, the
greatest of the recent earthquakes in
re mn r-erf Of ,I1
200 miles long and half mile wide. Start
ing at Illapel, little town in the Andes,
100 miles from the sea. it swept round
through the village OF Placilla, ten miles
from the sea, ana not more than $50 feet
above the sea level, and thence to Santa
go, 100 miles inland and 1900 feet above
the sea. Though many masonry
buildings were shattered In its
course, / believe that no person was
either killed or seriously injured. thap-
pened that detained by freshets, | spent
the previous night at Placilla. and the
earthquake came rumbling along as !
stood at the door OF the house looking
down the valley. 1t seemed at first more
like cyclone by the way the trees in its
path waved and bent. The village was
almost in the centre of its path; the tiles
on the roofs hoped up and down so that
many were broken; but the thing was
over III u lew iHpuiSHiS, perhaps HNe nin-
utes from the time the TILES commenced
to clatter until everything was quiet as
usual. No one was hurt, but the stucco
cornices and tile roofs and chimneys were
cracked and shattered, and in some cases
the brick walls In houses and churches
were cracked, due quite as much to their
bad quality and construction as TO the
violence of the shock.
The Mendoza ear thquake of 1868 on the
east side of the Andes, in the Argentine
Republic was the most destructive OF
this century. 1t was TerremOto and its
force stopped pendulum clocks in VaIpa-
raisO, 300 miles west, on the Pacific, and
IN Buenos Ayres, 1000 miles east on the
Atlantic coast. j met a Major Of Arpen-
tine engineers, who, being near Mendosa
at the time. made an official report to the
government with fun details. There was
no rumblng or preliminary warning; the
shock was so utterly sudden that three
gentlemen on the sidewalk together
jumped for the centre Of the street, but
two Of them were caught in the falling
walls; there were three quick, short. horl-
Zontal vibrations, and only one building
WAS left standing in Il town OF 10000 peo-
pie; that building was a summer house
on an island surrounded by little pond
in a garden; that little cushion OF water
was sufficient NOT even the plates on the
table We're shaken of. So superficial
seemed the disturbance of the earth that
a canal, six feet wide and three feet deep
.,h l.