DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70303#0055
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GREAT EARTHQUAKE AT JAMAICA, IN 1692,
Jamaica has been always a place remarkable for earth-
quakes, and, indeed, they are so common, that the inha-
bitants expect one every year. Dr. Sloan gives us the
history of one in 1687, and we have accounts, by several
authors, of the following, still more terrible, in 1692. In
two minutes time, it shook down, and drowned nine-tenths1
of the town of Port-Royal. The houses sunk outright
30 or 40 fathoms deep. 'The earth opened and swallowed,
up the people in one street, and threw them up in another ;
some rose in the middle of the; harbour, and yet were saved.
-—While the houses on one side of a street were swallowed
up, on the other they were thrown on heaps ; and the
sand in the street rising like waves in the sea, lifted up
every body that stood on it, and then suddenly sinking into
pits, and at the same instant a flood of water breaking in,
rolled them over and over, some catching hold of beams
and rafters, or whatever came in their way. Ships and
sloops in the harbour were overset and lost; and the Swan,
frigate in particular, by the motion of the sea and sinking
of the wharf, was driven over the tops of many, houses.
All this was attended with a hollow rumbling noise, like
that of thunder. In less than a minute, three quarters of
the houses, and the ground they stood on, with the inhabi-
tants, were all sunk under water : and the little part left
behind, was no better than aheap of rubbish. The shock
was so violent, that it threw people down on their knees or
their faces, as they ran about to seek a place of safety. The
earth heaved and swelled like the rolling billows, and seve-
ral houses still standing, were shifted and moved some
yards out of their places. A -whole street was now twice
as broad as before ; and in many places the earth cracked
opened and shut, with a motion quick and fast, and of these
openings, two or three hundred might be seen at a time ;
Vol. IL o in,
GREAT EARTHQUAKE AT JAMAICA, IN 1692,
Jamaica has been always a place remarkable for earth-
quakes, and, indeed, they are so common, that the inha-
bitants expect one every year. Dr. Sloan gives us the
history of one in 1687, and we have accounts, by several
authors, of the following, still more terrible, in 1692. In
two minutes time, it shook down, and drowned nine-tenths1
of the town of Port-Royal. The houses sunk outright
30 or 40 fathoms deep. 'The earth opened and swallowed,
up the people in one street, and threw them up in another ;
some rose in the middle of the; harbour, and yet were saved.
-—While the houses on one side of a street were swallowed
up, on the other they were thrown on heaps ; and the
sand in the street rising like waves in the sea, lifted up
every body that stood on it, and then suddenly sinking into
pits, and at the same instant a flood of water breaking in,
rolled them over and over, some catching hold of beams
and rafters, or whatever came in their way. Ships and
sloops in the harbour were overset and lost; and the Swan,
frigate in particular, by the motion of the sea and sinking
of the wharf, was driven over the tops of many, houses.
All this was attended with a hollow rumbling noise, like
that of thunder. In less than a minute, three quarters of
the houses, and the ground they stood on, with the inhabi-
tants, were all sunk under water : and the little part left
behind, was no better than aheap of rubbish. The shock
was so violent, that it threw people down on their knees or
their faces, as they ran about to seek a place of safety. The
earth heaved and swelled like the rolling billows, and seve-
ral houses still standing, were shifted and moved some
yards out of their places. A -whole street was now twice
as broad as before ; and in many places the earth cracked
opened and shut, with a motion quick and fast, and of these
openings, two or three hundred might be seen at a time ;
Vol. IL o in,