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Show 406 SUBSIDENCE lN THE DELTA OF TIIE INDUS, one common mass of ruin. 'l'he shocks continued some days until the flOth, when, thirty miles from Hhooi, a volcano burst out in eruption, and the convulsions ceased. Although the ruin of towns was great, the face of Nature in the inland country, says Captain Macmurclo, was not visibly altered. In the hills some large masses only of rock and soil were detached from the precipices ; but the eastern and almost deserted channel of the Indus, which bounds the province of Cutcb, was greatly changed. This estuary or inlet ?f the sea was, before the earthquake, fordable at Luckput, bemg only about a foot deep when the tide was at ebb, and at flood tide never more than six feet; but it was deepened at the fort of Luckput, after the shock, to more than eighteen feet at low water*. On sounding other parts of the channel, it was found, that where previously the depth of the water at flood never exceeded one or two feet, it had become from four to ten feet deep; and this increase of depth extended from Cutch to the Sindh shore, a distance of three or four miles. 'l'he channel of the Runn, which extends from Luckput round the north of the province of Cutch, was sunk so much, that, instead of being dry as before during that period of the year, it was no longer fordable, except at one spot only. By these remarkable changes of level, a part of the inland naviga~ion of that country, which had been closed for centuries, became· again practicable. The fort and village of Sindree, situated where the Runn joins the Indus, was overflowed; and, after the shock, the tops of the houses and wall were alone to be seen above the water, for the houses, although submerged, were not cast down. Had they been situated in the interior, where so many forts were levelled o the ground, their site would perhaps have been re.gar.ded as having remained comparatively unmoved. From this ctrc~tmstance we may feel assured that gre~t permanent upheavt~gs and depressions of soil may be the result of earthq~akes, without the inhabitants being in the least degree conscious of any change of level. . . . Cones of sand, six or e1ght feet m height, were thrown out of the lands near the Rutin. Somewhat farther to the ~ast of the line of this earthquake lies Oojain ( cal1ed Ozene m the Peryplus Mari~ Erythr). Ruins of an old town are there • Ed. Phil. Jouru., vol. iv., p. 106. EARTHQUAKE OF CARACCAS, A.D. 1812. 407 found, a mile north of the present, sunk in the earth to the dt epht h ofb from fifteen to sixteen £eet ' wh 1' c h sm. k'm g 1. s k nown th o t~ve efenththeRc?n 1 seq ~ence of a tremendous catastrophe in e tme o e aJa 1 VIermaditya. . C1 arachc as,k 18f1 ~.-0n the ~6th of M arc h ' 181a 1 N' severa vio ent s oc s o an earthquake were ~elt . C Th • 1' 1n araccas. e surface undulated hke a boiling liqui'd ' an d t ern. fic soun d s whe re hhe ard un· dergro. und. The whole city with t't s sp1 e n d'd 1 c urc es was m .an m.stant a heap of ruins, under which ten thousand of the mhabttants were buried. On the 5th of April en~rmous rocks were detached from the mountains. It wa~ beheved that the mo.untain Silla lost from three hundred to thhr' ee hundred · an. d sixty feet of its height by ~Q ubs1'de nce,. b u t t Is was an ?Pinion not f~unded on any measurement. On the ~7th of April, a volcano m St. Vincent's threw out ashes; and on the . 30th, lava flowed from its crater 1'nto the sea, wh 1'l c I· ts explos~ons were h.eard at a distance equal to that between Vesuvius and Switzerland, the sound being transmitted, as Rumbold~ supposes, through the ground. During the earthquake winch destroyed Caraccas, an immense quantity of water. was thrown out at V ~lecil1o near Valencia, as also at Porto Cabello, through openmgs in the earth ; and in the Lake Maracaybo the water sank *. Althoug~ t~e great change of level in the mountain Silla was not dtstu~ctly proved, the opinion of the inhabitants deserves attentwn,.because we shall afterwards have to mention some ~ell-authenticated alterations in the same district during precedmg earthquakes. Humboldt observed that the Cordille. ras, compos~d of gneiss and mica slate, and the country immediately at their foot, were more violently shaken than the plains. So~th Carolina, 1 811.-Previous to the destruction of ~agmra and Caraccas in 1811, South Carolina was convulsed dy earthquakes, and the shocks continued till those cities were I estroyed. The ~alley also of the Mississippi, from the viltge of New Madnd to the mouth of the Ohio in one direc- IOn, a~d to the St. Francis in another, was convulsed to such 18;9~umboldt's Pers. Nar., vol. iv., p. 12; and Ed. Phil. Journ., vol. i., P• 272. |