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EFFECTS OF AN EARTHQUAKE.
A few minutes more, and darkness brooded over the land ; and then, as it cleared away, the devastations presented themselves to the wondering gaze, and caused the strongest mind to quail ! Yet, who could repine? for how signal was the mercy of God, who, amid all the dire convulsions, spared the lives of so many of his trembling creatures ! At the Savannah, besides many other places in the Union, the shock, which extended north as far as New York, was felt. On the 8th February, the day of the great earthquake, the wraters of the river Tiber, which washes the city of Rome, rose suddenly to such an immense height, as to inundate the houses to the first story. In Portugal, about the same time, loud subterranean thunder was heard ; and soon after, the earth opened, and sent up large volumes of water, which overflowed the country for some miles. In the course of the following month, (March,) shocks of earthquake were felt in several places, from Liverpool and London north, as far as Van Dieman's Land south. In Jamaica, several smart shocks were experienced, which caused great excitement, and a day of public fast and humiliation was set apart by the government. The Grand Cayman (one of the three islands called Caymanas, lying between Jamaica and Cuba) has disappeared. This group of islands is inhabited principally by the descendants of the old buccaneers, who used to frequent these seas in former years, and negro turtle-fishers. They take their name from being a resort for the cayman, or alligator, who frequent these shores for the purpose of depositing their eggs in the sand. Trinidad has also been visited by several shocks of earthquake. These several instances shew how very general these awful convulsions have been within the space of a few weeks ; and prove to us (setting aside superstitious notions) that we ought seriously to consider " the signs of the times." Great fears were expressed by many of the credulous in America, upon feeling, or hearing of the earthquake; as on 1st January, the same year, a proclamation had been issued, by an American Millerite, in the following alarming words :—