The general character of the fault-scarp changes with the surface
features. On flat ground, where the throw is small, it cuts up the
soft earth into enormous clods, or makes a rounded ridge from one to
two feet high, so that it resembles, more than anything else, the
pathway of a gigantic mole (Fig. 46). When the throw is
considerable--and in one place it reaches from 18 to 20 feet--the
fault-scarp forms a terrace, which from a distance has the appearance
of a railway embankment (Fig. 47). Or, again, where the rent traverses
a mountain ridge or a spur of hills, "it caused extensive landslips,
one side of it descending considerably in level, carrying the forest
with it, but with the trees complicatedly interlocked or prostrate on
the ground."
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--Displacement of Field Divisions by the
Fault near Nishi-Katabira. (_Koto._)]
At its southern end, the fault was seen for the first time crossing a
field near the village of Katabira. The field was broken into clods of
earth, and swollen up to a height of 5-1/2 yards, while a great
landslip had descended into it from an adjoining hill. A little
farther to the north-west, the ground was sharply cut by the fault,
the north-east side having slightly subsided and at the same time been
shifted horizontally through a distance of 3-1/4 to 4 feet to the
north-west Adjoining fields were formerly separated by straight mounds
or ridges running north and south and east and west, and these mounds
were cut through by the fault and displaced, as shown in Fig. 48. From
this point the fault runs in a general north-westerly direction, the
north-east side being always slightly lowered with respect to the
other and shifted to the north-west. Near Seki it takes a more
westerly direction, and continues so to a short distance east of
Takatomi, where the north side is lowered by five feet, and moved
about 1-1/4 feet to the west. At the north end of Takatomi, a village
in which every house was levelled with the ground, the fault is
double, and the continuous lowering towards the north has converted a
once level field into sloping ground. At this point, the small river
Toba, flowing south, is partially blocked by the fault-scarp, and an
area of about three-quarters of a square mile, on which two villages
stand, was converted into a deep swamp (Fig. 49), so that, as the
earthquake occurred at the time of the rice-harvest, the farmers were
obliged to cut the grain from boats. After passing Takatomi, the fault
again turns to the west-north-west, but, the throw being small, it
resembles here the track of an enormous mole. At Uméhara it crosses a
garden between two persimmon trees, appearing on the hard face of the
ground as a mere line; but the trees, which were before in an
east-and-west line, now stand in one running north and south, without
being in the least affected by the movement (Fig. 50). From here to
Kimbara, where the fault enters the Neo valley, the north side is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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