Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.3)

376 CONCEPCION. March, 1835. tain. The side walls, though exceedingly fractured, yet re- mained standing ; but the vast buttresses (at right angles to them, and therefore parallel to the walls that fell) were in many cases cut clean off, as if by a chisel, and hurled to the ground. Some square ornaments on the coping of these same walls were moved by the earthquake into a diagonal position. The buttresses of the church of La Merced, at Valparaiso, and some heavy pieces of furniture in the rooms, were similarly affected by the shock of 1822.* Mr. Lyell f has also given a drawing of an obelisk in Calabria, of which the separate stones were partially turned round. In these instances, the displacement at first appears to be owing to a vorticose movement beneath each point thus affected ; but such can hardly be the case. May it not be caused by a tendency in each stone to arrange itself in some particular position, with respect to the lines of vibration, — in a manner somewhat similar to pins on a sheet of paper, or on a board, when it is shaken ? Generally speaking, arched doorways or windows stood much better than any other kind of building. Nevertheless, a poor lame old man, who had been in the habit, during trifling shocks, of crawling to a certain doorway, was this time crushed to pieces. I have not attempted to give any detailed description of the appearance of Concepcion, for I feel it is quite impossible to convey the mingled feelings with which one beholds such a spectacle. Several of the officers visited it before me, but their strongest language failed to communicate a just idea of the desolation. It is a bitter and humiliating thing to see works, which have cost men so much time and labour, over- thrown in one minute ; yet compassion for the inhabitants is almost instantly forgotten, from the interest excited in finding that state of things produced in a moment of time, which one is accustomed to attribute to a succession of ages. In my * Miers's Chile, vol. i., p. 392. f Lyell's Principles of Geology, chap, xv., book ii.