Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, Volume III, 1863-1867Various
Science
Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, Volume III, 1863-1867
Various
California Academy of Sciences -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
The sea on its return flowed inland a little more than half a
mile, and reached the lower part of the town, doing but little
damage, destroying only three small adobe buildings.
Here again I take the liberty of quoting the late writer above
noticed, in corroboration of its effects upon the sea. “The sea
was seen to retire all at once, and to return in an immense
wave, which came roaring and plunging back, over the beach.
This wave penetrated the low lands and gulches a mile from the
shore, forming one of the most terrific sights possible to
conceive.”
Very little damage was done to the houses in town from the
effects of the shocks, while the Mission at San Inez was
prostrated almost instantly. There is no evidence that I can
find, that this earthquake was felt in San Luis Obispo, though
such has been the report.
In addition to my former paper I will now add some information
relating to this and other earthquakes, touching more
particularly a series continuing through a long period for such
phenomena, but preceding the great event of September of that
year.
So far as the archives of the old missions assist us, it is
found that from the foundation of the first mission in 1769, up
to the year 1800, a period of thirty-one years, not an entry
was made of these phenomena. In the latter year an earthquake
is recorded as occurring at San Juan Bautista, on the eleventh
of October. On the eighteenth of the same month, at supper
time another shock was felt, and another still at about eleven
o’clock on the same night. From the records of the Presidio
of San Francisco, we are able to glean the fact, that between
the twenty-first of June and seventeenth of July, 1808, there
occurred twenty-one shocks of earthquakes at this post.
I will here correct the popular error relating to this
earthquake or series of earthquakes during that year. It
is generally stated that this was contemporaneous with
the earthquake which destroyed San Juan Capistrano and La
Purissima; by reference to the dates it will be seen that the
destruction of those missions did not occur until four years
later.
The above are the only records of these phenomena that have
as yet made their appearance in the archives of the province
during the existence of the Mexican Government; and, from the
fact that these archives are all in our possession, there is no
hazard in stating that they constitute all, of which we have
any positive knowledge. As they stand, they are a sufficient
rebuke to the mendacity of sensational itemizers of the public
press; they will find in those records, no basis on which to
indite column articles of such doleful prophecies as the public
of late have been surfeited with.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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