The Wonder Book of Volcanoes and Earthquakes

by Edwin J. Houston

On the 1st of November, 1755, this frightful catastrophe, according to Lyell, from whose excellent account much of the information contained in this chapter has been obtained, struck the beautiful city almost without any warning. Terrible sounds came suddenly from underground; almost instantly afterward a violent shock threw down the greater portion of the city; in less than six minutes 60,000 people were killed.

The place from which this earthquake started must have been situated on the bed of the ocean at some distance from the coast; for the great wave thus raised in the Atlantic Ocean did not reach the mouth of the Tagus River until about half an hour after the most severe shocks were over. The arrival of this wave at the mouth of the Tagus was announced by the sea retiring to such an extent as to leave the bar dry. Then a huge wave, sixty feet in height, rolled in from the ocean and completed the work of destruction that had been commenced by the earthquake.

So great was the shock that the mountains in the neighborhood were violently shaken and some of them split or fractured in a most wonderful manner.

Particularly large was the loss of life in the churches whither hundreds hastened for refuge when the shakings of the earth began, for most of these buildings fell and buried the worshippers. Another immense loss of life was caused by the destruction of a large marble quay or wharf that was suddenly swallowed up by the sea. While the buildings in the city were being overthrown by the violent shakings of the earth, a multitude sought the quay as a flat place where they could not be injured by the falling buildings. Suddenly, however, this structure sank into the water and not only were all the people drowned, but none of the bodies was ever afterwards found.

Failure to find any remnants of the pier or any of the people who perished on it has been attributed to the formation of eddies or whirls that were sufficiently strong to carry down vessels by suction similar to that of the famous maelstrom off the coast of Norway. Of course, in a time of boundless excitement like that of the Lisbon earthquake, accounts are apt to be highly exaggerated. For example, assertions are made in many books that the water left in the harbor after the sinking of the quay was unfathomable. Now, in point of fact, the depth of this place has been measured and found to be less than 100 fathoms.

When it is remembered that not one of the bodies of the people on that quay was ever again seen, it is possible, as Lyell suggests, that a deep fissure or chasm opened immediately on the ground on which the quay stood, so that it, together with all on it, were dropped into the chasm, which, closing, buried them deep in the earth.

The Lisbon earthquake was especially noted for the extent of country affected by it. Humboldt estimated this area as being more than four times the size of Europe. In parts of this area immense mountain ranges, such as the Pyrenees, Alps, etc., were violently shaken. When the size of these mountains is considered one realizes that it must have required a mighty force to shake them. These shakings were so severe that they produced a deep fissure in the ground in France. Continuing towards the north the solid earth was shaken as far as the shores of the Baltic and Norway and Sweden, generally. This, of course, included the flat country of Northern Germany. The hot springs of Toplitz disappeared for a time, but, breaking out afterwards, discharged such quantities of muddy water that the surrounding country was inundated.

The waves crossed the Atlantic, causing high tides on the island of Antigua, Barbadoes, and Martinique, of the Lesser Antilles, where, instead of the usual tides of two feet, tides of twenty feet high were observed. Further to the north the waves reached the eastern shores of North America, and shook the continent as far west as the Great Lakes, and spread in the North Atlantic as far as Iceland.

Toward the south the waves affected parts of northwestern Africa, where much loss of life occurred in the villages some eight leagues distant from the city of Morocco. Here from 8,000 to 10,000 people were killed, being swallowed up by deep fissures in the earth, which afterwards closed on their bodies.