REMARKABLE EARTHQUAKE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 129, 1 June 1881, Page 4

REMARKABLE EARTHQUAKE.

An old yet well-recorded instance is the earthquake of Jamaica in 1692 Tbe ground swelled and heaved like a rolling sea, and was traversed by numerous cracks, 200 or 300 of which were seen at a time, opening and then closing rapidly again. Many people were swallowed up in these rents ; some the earth caught by the middle and squeezed to death ; the heads only of others appeared above ground ; and some were engulfed and then cast forth again with great quantities of water, such was the devastation that in Port JRoyal, then tbe capital, where more bouses are said to have been left standing than in the whole island besides, three-quarters of the buildings, together with the ground they stood on, sank down, with their inhabitants, entirely ■ under water, The large stone houses on the harbour side subsided so as to be from 24 to 43 feet under water ; yet many of them appear to have re- , mained standing, for it is stated that after tbe earthquake the mast-heads of . several ships wrecked in tbe harbour, together with tbe chimney-tops of the houses, were seen just projecting above the waves A tract of land round the town, about 1000 acres in extent, sank down in less than one minute during the first shock, and the sea immediately rushed in. The Swan frigate,

which was repairing at the wharf, was driven over the tops of many buildings and thrown upon one of the roofs, i through which it broke. The breadth of one of the streets ii said to have been doubled by tbe earthquake. Lyell spates that he was informed by tbe late Admiral Sir C. Hamilton that be fre» quently saw the submerged bowses of Port Royal in the year 1780, in that part of the harbor which lies between | the town and the usual anchorage for men-of-war; and that Lieut. Jeffery, 8.N., saw tbe remains of houses in four or eight fathoms of water. Out of the town the ruin was vast. Some plantations sank, and were covered in after years by a lake of fresh water ; several tenements were buried in land-, slips ; and one plantation was removed balf a mile by a slide from its place — growing crops and all. Between Spanish Town and " Sixteen-Mile Walk the high and perpendicular cliffs bounding tbe river fell in, stopped tbe p»Beage of the river and flooded tjie latter place. The Blue Mountains were much s v attered, fissured, and their soil sot lopss in landslips.— From Professor P. M. Duncan's paper on Earthquakes, in "Science for All."