The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1899-09-27
EARTH SWALLOWED A TIDAL WAVE.
VIOLENT EARTHQUAKE.
Awful Experience OF Inhabitants in Alaska
Miners Carried TO Sea and Again
Cast Upon Shore.

Concerning the recnt earthuuake
along the coast Of Alaska, Rev. Shell
don Jackson, eductional agent for AL
aska, writes as follows from Yakutat
under date OF September II.
The nrst shock was experienced on
Sunday, September 3, but being slight,
caused no alarm. During the follow
ing i've hours there were flfty-two dis
tinct shocks, eliminating at 9 u. m. in
shock so severe that people of Yak
utat were hurled violently across their
rooms, or If outside, they were thrown
to the ground, while picures fell from
the walls, dishes and crockery crashed
on the shelves houses rocked and
swayed and whirled and the mission
bell rang violently in the shaking
church tower.
"Panic-stricken, the inhabitants re-
gained their feet and attempted to flee
TO the hills, only to be again and again
thrown to the earth. Gaining the hills
and looking seaward they were trans
fixed with horror as they saw a great
tidal wave, apparently wall of water
thirty feet high approaching with the
speed of a race horse that would on
gulf their village and sweep away their
homes. Before the shore was reached,
the earth opened I'm the bottom of the
harbor. Into this chasm the tidal
wave spent its force and around II the
sea swirled like great maelstrom.
This saved the village from destriic-
tion. The tide would rise ten feet and
In an equally short time go down
again. These sudden fluctuations were
frequently repeated.
"Tents were pitched on the hills back
of the village, and nearly the. whole
population Is camping out fearing that
another tidal wave may come. From
the 10th to the present there have been
frequent shocks, one having occurred
this fornoon.
Near Hubbard glacier, on Disen-
chantment bay, were encamped three
miners. \. Fleur, w. Rock and ]. W.
Johnson. and six miles from them at
an elevation of sixty-four feet above
the sea Messrs. r. Smith. Cox and son,
]. Falls and ID. Stevens. When the
heavy shock Of Sunday the 10th was
experienced the Fleur party had rlgged
n machine and were taking the oscilla-
ton of the earthquakes waves, when
without n moments warning they
We're thrown violently across the tent.
At the same moment large fresh wa
ter lake back of their camp and about
forty feet above IL was split open and
the waters were thrown upon the
camp, and before the miners could re-
gain their feet they were being swept
out to sea. There almost at the same
instant they were met by tidal wave
which picked them up. and not only
washed them ashore, but over hill
forty feet high, landing them on the
crest Of n divide.
"Regainng their feet they ran along
the crest with the tidal wave boiling
and seething at their feet alongside
of the hill. Afterwards one Of the party
found his baggage and clothes one and
one-half miles upon a mountain side
where the wave had left them. The
great spruce forests for miles along
the shore were uprooted, broken into
pieces and massed into great piles with
roar that was deafening. Large rocks
weighing forty tons and more were
rolling over one another down the
mountain like so many pebbles"