earthquake at caraccas.

The shock felt at Caraccas in the month of December, 1811, was the only one that preceded the horrible catastrophe which desolated that unfortunate city in March, 1812.

The inhabitants of Terra Firma were ignorant of the agitations of the volcano in the island of St. Vincent, on one side, and of those felt in the basin of the Mississippi on the other, on the seventh and eighth days of February, 1812, in which places the earth was during that time in perpetual oscillation day and night.

A great drought at this period prevailed throughout the province of Venezuela; no rain had fallen at Caraccas, or in the country ninety leagues round, during the five months which preceded the destruction of that city.

The twenty-sixth of March was remarkable for excessive heat; the air was calm, the sky unclouded; it was Holy Thursday, and a great part of the population was assembled in the churches.

No presage of the impending calamity was observable.

Soon after four in the afternoon the first shock was felt; it was sufficiently strong to make the bells of the churches toll; and during five or six seconds the ground was in continual undulating movement, and seemed to heave like a boiling liquid.

The danger was supposed to be passed, when a horrible subterraneous sound struck terror into every heart. It resembled the rolling of thunder, but louder, and of longer continuance, than that which usually accompanies tropical storms.

This noise was followed by a perpendicular movement, which was instantly succeeded by a somewhat longer waving motion.

The shocks were repeated in opposite directions from north to south, and from east to west.

These crossing impulses were irresistible; Caraccas was entirely overthrown; thousands of its unfortunate inhabitants were buried under the ruins of their houses and churches.

The solemn procession had not begun its march, but so great was the crowd in the churches, that multitudes were crushed by the fall of their vaulted roofs.

The explosion towards the north was stronger in that part of the town nearest to the mountain of Avila, and the Silla.

The churches of La Trinidad and Alta Gracia, which were more than 150 feet high, and whose naves were supported by columns of twelve or fifteen feet diameter, yet left a mass of ruins scarcely exceeding five or six feet in elevation.

So wonderfully, indeed, have they sunk, that there now hardly remain any vestiges of pillars.

The barracks, situated farther north, almost entirely disappeared; a regiment of troops, assembled under arms, ready to join the procession, with the exception of a very few, were crushed beneath the ruins of that spacious building.

The cathedral, supported by enormous buttresses, withstood the fury of the shock.

The night of that fatal day presented the most distressing scenes of desolation and sorrow; the thick, black cloud of dust, which rising from the crush of so many edifices thrown down, darkened the face of heaven like an impenetrable fog, had settled on the ground; all nature seemed calm and tranquil; the moon nearly full, illuminated the rounded dome, like summits of the Silla; the aspect of the sky formed a perfect contrast to that of the earth, loaded with ruins, and heaped with dead bodies; mothers were seen bearing in their arms their children, whom they hoped to recall to life; desolate families wandered through the city, seeking a brother, a husband, a father, of whose fate they were ignorant, and whom they believed to be lost in the crowd.

The people hurried tumultuously along the streets, which could be recognized only by long lines of ruins.

Many lay wounded under heaps of rubbish, imploring with cries the aid of those who were passing by; and nearly two thousand mutilated wretches were extricated from that dreadful situation.

Never was pity displayed in a more affecting manner; never was it seen more ingeniously active than in the efforts made to save the miserable victims, whose groans reached the ear, and pierced to the heart.

Implements for digging and clearing away the wreck of private and public buildings were unfortunately wanting.

The compassionate used their bare hands to disinter their yet living fellow-citizens.

The maimed as well as the sick, who had escaped from the shattered hospital, were laid on the banks of the small river Guayra; the foliage of the trees was their only shelter; beds, linen for their wounds, surgical instruments, medicines, all the most necessary articles for the mitigation of such misery, were involved in the common mass of devastation.

During the immediately succeeding days, even food was wanting; in the interior of the desolated city water became alike scarce; the complete subversion had rent the pipes of the fountains; the falling in of the earth had choked up the springs that supplied them; it was necessary to seek water from the river Guayra, which was considerably swelled, and vessels could not be found for its conveyance.

There remained a duty towards the dead to be fulfilled, enjoined at once by piety and the dread of infection.

It being impossible to inter so many thousand corpses, commissaries were appointed to burn the bodies, for which purpose funeral piles were erected between the heaps of ruins.

This mournful operation lasted several days.

Amid so many public griefs, the people still attended to religious duties; some walking in procession, chaunted funeral hymns; some were offering up their humble supplications; while others, in a state of distraction, were confessing themselves aloud.

Shocks of earthquake, so violent as to subvert in the space of one minute, such a city as Caraccas, could not be confined to a small portion of the continent; their destructive effects extended as far as the provinces of Venezuela, Varinas, and Maracaybo, along the coast; and still farther among the inland mountains.

La Guayra, Mayquetia, and other places so situated, were entirely ruined.

Fifteen or eighteen hours after the great catastrophe, the earth remained tranquil; the night was fine and calm, and the commotions did not recommence till the day after.

They were then attended with a very loud and long continued subterranean noise, called bramids.

The inhabitants of Caraccas wandered into the country; but the villages and farms having suffered as much as the city, they could find no shelter till they were beyond the mountains of Los Teques, in the vallies of Aragua, and in the Llanos, or Savannas. No less than fifteen oscillations were often felt in one day.

On the fifth of April took place another earthquake, almost as formidable as that which overthrew the capital.

For several hours the ground was in a state of perpetual undulation.

Large masses of earth fell in the mountains, and enormous rocks were detached from the Silla of Caraccas.

After the recital of such calamities, it is soothing to fix the view upon consolatory remembrances.

When this dreadful desolation of Caraccas was known in the United States, the congress assembled at Washington, unanimously decreed that five ships laden with flour should be sent to the coast of Venezuela, to be distributed among the poorest inhabitants.