Digitalphilologie

Titel

[Earthquake at Caraccas]

Jahr

1820

Ort

Hallowell, Maine

Nachweis

in: Hallowell Gazette 7:18 (3. Mai 1820), [o. S.].

Sprache

Englisch

Typografischer Befund

Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung.

Identifikation

Textnummer Druckausgabe: III.62
Dateiname: 1819-Baron_Humboldts_Personal_Heft1-13-neu

Statistiken

Seitenanzahl:	1
Spaltenanzahl:	2
Zeichenanzahl:	6782

Weitere Fassungen
	Baron Humboldt’s Last Volume. Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent. Vol. 4. London, 1819 (New York City, New York, 1819, Englisch)
	The gymnotus, or electrical eel (New York City, New York, 1819, Englisch)
	Humboldt’s Travels (London, 1819, Englisch)
	Electrical eels (Cambridge, 1819, Englisch)
	[Earthquake at Caraccas] (Cambridge, 1819, Englisch)
	Account of the Earthquake which destroyed the Town of Caraccas on the 26th March 1812 (Edinburgh, 1819, Englisch)
	Account of the earthquake that destroyed the town of Caraccas on the twenty-sixth march, 1812 (Liverpool, 1819, Englisch)
	Sur les Gymnotes et autres poissons électriques (Paris, 1819, Französisch)
	An Account of the Earthquake in South America, on the 26th March, 1812 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1820, Englisch)
	[Earthquake at Caraccas] (Hartford, Connecticut, 1820, Englisch)
	Account of the Elecrical Eels, and of the Method of catching them in South America by means of Wild Horses (Edinburgh, 1820, Englisch)
	Observations respecting the Gymnotes, and other Electric Fish (London, 1820, Englisch)
	[Earthquake at Caraccas] (Hallowell, Maine, 1820, Englisch)
	Earthquake in the Caraccas (London, 1820, Englisch)
	Sur les Gymnotes et autres poissons électriques (Paris, 1820, Französisch)
	[Earthquake at Caraccas] (Hartford, Connecticut, 1821, Englisch)
	Earthquake at Caraccas (London, 1822, Englisch)
	Earthquake at the Caraccas (Shrewsbury, 1823, Englisch)
	Electrical eel (Hartford, Connecticut, 1826, Englisch)
	Baron Humboldt’s observation on the gymnotus, or electrical eel (London, 1833, Englisch)
	The gymnotus, or electric eel (London, 1834, Englisch)
	Earthquake at Caraccas in 1812 (Hartford, Connecticut, 1835, Englisch)
	Earthquake at Caraccas (London, 1837, Englisch)
	Electrical eels (London, 1837, Englisch)
	Female presence of mind (London, 1837, Englisch)
	An earthquake in the Caraccas (London, 1837, Englisch)
	An Earthquake (Leipzig; Hamburg; Itzehoe, 1838, Englisch)
	Das Erdbeben von Caraccas (Leipzig, 1843, Deutsch)
	The Gymnotus, or Electrical Eel (Buffalo, New York, 1849, Englisch)
	Anecdote of a Crocodile (Boston, Massachusetts; New York City, New York, 1853, Englisch)
	Battle with electric eels (Goldsboro, North Carolina, 1853, Englisch)
	Anecdotes of crocodiles (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1853, Englisch)
	Das Erdbeben von Caracas (Leipzig, 1858, Deutsch)

|4||Spaltenumbruch|

The following description of a great Earth-quake on the 26th of March, 1812, by whichthe city of Carraccas in South-America wasdestroyed, is taken from the 4th volume ofde Humboldt’s Travels published in Eng-land during the present year.

[N. Y. D. Adv. “A great drought prevailed at this periodin the province of Venezuela. Not a singledrop of rain had fallen at Carraccas, orin the country 90 leagues round, during thefive months which preceded the destruction ofthe capital. The 26th of March was a remark-able hot day. The air was calm and the skyunclouded. It was holy Thursday, and a greatpart of the population was assembled in thechurches. Nothing seemed to presage thecalamities of the day. At seven minutes afterfour in the afternoon the first shock was felt;it was sufficiently powerful to make the bellsof the churches toll; it lasted five or six sec-onds, during which time the ground was in acontinual undulating movement, and seemedto heave up like a boiling liquid. The dan-ger was thought to be past, when a tremendoussubteraneous noise was heard, resembling therolling of thunder, but louder, and of longercontinuance, than that heard within the tropicksin time of storms. This noise preceded a per-pendicular motion of three or four seconds,followed by an undulatory movement some-what longer. The shocks were in opposite di-rections, from north to south, and from east towest. Nothing could resist the movementfrom beneath upward, and undulations cross-ing each other. The town of Caraccas wasentirely overthrown. Thousands of the inhab-itants (between nine and ten thousand) wereburied under the ruins of the houses andchurches. The procession had not yet setout; but the crowd was so great in the church-es, that nearly three or four thousand personswere crushed by the fall of their vaulted roofs.The explosion was stronger towards the north,in that part of the town situate nearest themountain Avila, and the Silla. The churchesof la Trinidad and Alta Gracia, which weremore than one hundred and fifty feet high, andthe naves of which were supported by pillarsof twelve or fifteen feet diameter, left a mass ofruins scarcely exceeding five or six feet in ele-vation. The sinking of the ruins has been soconsiderable, that there now scarcely remainany vestiges of pillars or columns. The barrackscalled In Quastel de San Carlos, situate farthernorth of the church of the Trinity, on the roadfrom the Custom-house de la Pastora, almost en-tirely disappeared. A regiment of troops ofthe line, that was assembled under arms, readyto join the procession, was, with the exceptionof a few men, buried under the ruins of thisgreat edifice. Nine-tenths of the fine town ofCaraccas were entirely destroyed. The wallsof the houses that were not thrown down, asthose of the street San Juan, near the CapuchinHospital, were cracked in such a manner, that itwas impossible to run the risque of inhabitingthem. The effects of the earthquake were some-what less violent in the western and southernparts of the city between the principal squareand the ravine of Casagusta. There the cathe-dral, supported by enormous buttresses, re-mains standing. “Estimating at nine or ten thousand the num-ber of the dead in the city of Caraccas, we neednot include those unhappy persons, who dan-gerously wounded, perished several months af-ter for want of food and proper care. Thenight of Holy Thursday presented the most dis-tressing scene of desolation and sorrow. Thatthick cloud of dust, which rising above the ru-ins darkened the sky like a fog, had settled onthe ground. No shock was felt, and never wasa night more calm, or more serene. The moonnearly full, illumined the round domes of theSilla. and the aspect of the sky formed a per-fect contrast to that of the earth, covered withthe dead, and heaped with ruins. Motherswere seen bearing in their arms their children,whom they hoped to recal to life. Desolatefamilies wandered through the city seeking abrother, a husband, a friend, of whose fate theywere ignorant, and whom they believed to belost in the crowd. The people pressed alongthe streets, which could no more be recognizedbut by long lines of ruins. “All the calamities experienced in thegreat catastrophes of Lisbon, Messina, Lima andRiobamba, were renewed on the fatal day of the26th of March, 1812. The wounded, buriedunder the ruins, implored by their cries thehelp of the passers by, and nearly two thousandwere dug out. Never was pity displayed in amore affecting manner: never had it been seenmore ingenuously active, than in the efforts em-ployed to save the miserable victims whosegroans reached the ear. Implements for dig-ging and clearing away the ruins were entirelywanting; & the people were obliged to use theirbare hands, to disinter the living. The wound-ed, as well as the sick who had escaped fromthe hospitals, were laid on the banks of thesmall river Guara. They found no shelter butthe foliage of trees. Beds, linen to dress thewound, instruments of surgery, medicines, andobjects of the most urgent necessity, were bu-ried under the ruins. Every thing, evenfood, was wanting during the first days. Wa-ter became alike scarce in the interior of thecity. The commotion had rent the pipes of thefountains, the falling in of the earth had choak-ed up the springs that supplied them; and itbecame necessary, in order to have water, to godown to the river Guayra which was consid-erably swelled; and then vessels to convey thewater were wanting. “There remained a duty to be fulfilled towardthe dead, enjoined at once by piety, and thedread of infection. It being impossible to interso many thousand corpses half buried under theruins, commissaries were appointed to burn thebodies; and, for this purpose, funeral pileswere erected between the heaps of ruins.This ceremony lasted several days. Amid|Spaltenumbruch|so many public calamities the people devotedthemselves to those religious duties which theythought were the most fitted to appease thewrath of Heaven. Some assembling in proces-sion, sang funeral hymns; others, in a state ofdistraction, confessed themselves aloud in thestreets. In this town was now repeated what hadbeen remarked in the province of Quito, afterthe tremendous earthquake of 1797; a numberof marriages were contracted between personswho had neglected for many years to sanctiontheir union by the sacerdotal benediction.Children found parents by whom they had nev-er till then been acknowledged; restitutionswere promised by persons who had never been ac-cused of fraud; and families who had long beenenemies, were drawn together by the tie of com-mon calamity.”

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