In February, 1798, San Salvador was badly shaken and after a rather long rest, broken by “no great shakes,” two very destructive earthquakes were felt in March and October, 1839. On Sept. 2, 1841, Cartago, in Costa Rica, was destroyed; in June, 1847, the Balsam Coast was greatly ruined; on May 16, 1852, the disturbances occurred northward, in the vicinity of Quezaltenango; on April 16, 1854, San Salvador was destroyed,—not, however, for the last time. On Nov. 6, 1857, Cojutepeque was badly shaken, and the same misfortune came upon La Union Aug. 25, 1859. The following December houses were shattered in Escuintla and Amatitlan; Dec. 19, 1862, Antigua, Amatitlan, Escuintla, Tecpan Guatemala, and the neighboring towns were severely shaken; June 12, 1870, Chiquimulilla was destroyed, and much damage done in Cuajinicuilapa; a month later a severe earthquake was felt in the Departments of Santa Rosa and Jutiapa; March 4, 1873, San Salvador and the neighboring towns were destroyed,—a process they must have become quite accustomed to by this time,—and eighteen months later it was the turn of Patzicia to be destroyed, while Chimaltenango, Antigua and the vicinity were only ruined. The year 1878 was marked by the destruction of several towns in Usulutan, San Salvador, and on Dec. 27 and 30, 1879, most of the small towns in the neighborhood of the Lago de Ilopango were overturned. Hardly a month passes without some slight tremor in western Guatemala. In recent years so much more attention has been paid to seismology, or the observation and record of the time, duration, and direction of earthquake shocks, that the longer lists seem to indicate the increase of slight tremors; but this is not probable, and certainly the volcanic eruptions have diminished in force and frequency. Fuego, the most important, lays claim to twenty-one of the fifty recorded eruptions of the Central American volcanoes; but during the present century it has cast out merely sand, and no lava streams. [Illustration: VOLCAN DE FUEGO.] I have never had the experience of a very severe earthquake, although I have had the pictures swing on the walls and the plastering crack and fall; therefore I must borrow the description of an earthquake, that the list just given may seem more real. The following account is considered very truthful:—