The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1886-12-17
THE EARTHQUAKE.
Its Peculiar Roar and Intense Violence &
Described by Can't. j. w. Dawson.

The first unusual thing that surprised
me was the long rumble and gradually
increasing roar of which you have heard
SO much. Then came the swaying back
and forth, the rotary motion, and the
heaving as of ship in q heavy sea.
To give you some notion of the noise
which accompanied the earthquake
and about which little has been said,
although it was one of the most potent
factors in creating uncomfortable terror
among the people, may say that /
never knew that about twenty tons of
brickwork from the front of my house
had fallen forty or fifty feet, demolish-
ing everything IN its way and making
the whole approach TO the house mass
of ruin. So great was this horrible roar,
which can be likened to nothing else
than the bowling of terrific storm in
tensified ten-fold, that heard nothing
of the fall of this tremendous mass, and
knew nothing of what had happened
in front of my house until tried to get
out by the front door, when the COM
motion had ceased, and tumbled into a
mass of ruins, nearly breaking my neck.
Almost the same thing had happened at
the Ne,0s and Courier office. There
seems to be terrific something in the
noise of an earthquake which browns
out all other noises by its effect upon
the nerves. 1t is perfectly indescribable,
but it is the most appalling hubbub Of
which we have any notion; the noise of
battle is nothing compared to it.
would rather 60 throug Oh all the battles
OF the war over again than one more
such earthquake, and find that this is
the general feeling among the old SOL
diers' Of Charleston. Many of us had
been through scores of battles, had seen
pretty hard storms at sea, and yet moth
ing can equal the terror-producing
effect of that horrible roar which pre-
cedes an earthquake. At the Nes0s and
Courier office the parapet fifty feet
above the sidewalk, is composed of near
ly one hundred tons of granite blocks,
one of which required forty men to turn
it over. These were all brought down
to the sidewalk in the first shock, and
yet no one in the building heard them
fall.
To give you some idea of the violence
OF the shaking we got, the experience
of my own house may best be described.
have on the first story tank holding
about 1000 gallons of water. When the
earthquake reached its height l stood
under door-lintel in my house, and as
the noise of falling plaster had subsidized
/ heard the rush of waters from above,
and found that torrents were pouring
down through the broken ceiling. OF
course came to the conclusion that my
tank had been knocked all to pieces,
and | found that the water would not
run in any of the rooms. thought no
more about the matter until the next
day. when l got a plumber, as a per-
sonal favor to ME, to come and see how
could get some water supply. He found
that my tank and pipes were in as good
a condition as ever. The house had
rocked SO violently as to pitch all the
water out of my tank and completely
empty it, The rotary motion which &C
companied the earthquake was plainly
shown by the manner in which statu-
airy, amps, ETC., were turned half way
round on pedestals or tables. From the
fact that some houses escaped almos,
unframed, while stronger buildings
near them were almost demolished,
infer that the earthquake came in
waves somewhat like the waves Of
the sea, one much higher than the
other.
If we had had no more earthquakes
since the first shock, the people Of
Charleston would by this time be pretty
well restored in body and mind, bu
these continued shocks make every ont
uneasy, and keep up the nervous ten.
sion which must result in breaking
down sooner or later. The scientific
people tell us that these after shocks
should inspire confidence, as indicating
that the original was land slide upon
q tremendous scale, and that these little
shocks are the minor readjustments Of
the vast mass of matter. We are glad to
think that this is so, but confidence will
not be restored until they cease. One
feature of the shocks we are now ex-
periencing every few days is the peculiar
sharp detonation which precedes the
familiar rumble. To an old soldier
should say that it resembled the crack
of rife-gun in the distance, and many
of us who have been to the war in
stinctively listened for the whizz of the
projectile. 1t is this defamation, which
is heard distinctly about half way be.
tween Charleston and SummervIlle
which throws some doubt upon the land
slide theory.