The earthquake which, July 18, 1880, shook the Philippines caused many fissures to be found, which in some places were so numerous that the ground was broken up into steps. Near to the village of San Antonio the soil was so disturbed that the surface of a field of sugar-canes was so altered that in some cases the top of one row of full grown plants was on a level with the roots of the next. Into one such fissure a boat disappeared, and into another, a child.
Subsequently the child was excavated, and its body, which was found a short distance below the surface, was completely crushed.[40]
At the time of the Riobamba earthquake, not only were men engulfed, but animals, like mules, also sank into the fissures which were formed.
The fissures which were formed at the time of the Owen’s Valley earthquake in 1872 extended for miles nearly parallel to the neighbouring Sierras. In some places the ground between the fissures sank twenty or thirty feet, and at one place about three miles east of Independence, a portion of the road was carried eighteen feet to the south by a fissure.[41]
Speaking generally, it may be said that all large earthquakes are accompanied by the formation of fissures. The Japanese have a saying that at the time of a large earthquake persons must run to a bamboo grove.
The object of this is to escape the danger of being engulfed in fissures, the ground beneath a bamboo grove being so netted together with fine roots that it is almost impossible for it to be rent open.
Materials discharged from fissures.—Together with the opening of cracks in the earth it often has happened that water, mud, vapours, gases, and other materials, have been ejected.
At the time of the Mississippi earthquake water, mixed with sand and mud, was thrown out with such violence that it spurted above the tops of the highest trees. In Italy such phenomena have often been repeated.
From the fissures which were formed in 1692 at the time of the earthquakes in Sicily, water issued which in some instances was salt.[42]
By the Cachar earthquake (January 10, 1869) numerous fissures were formed parallel to the banks of a river, from this water and mud were ejected. Dr. Oldham, who describes this earthquake, says that the first shot of dry mud or sand was mistaken for smoke or steam. The water was foul, and hotter than surface water at the time, but only slightly so; and the sulphurous smell was nothing more than you would perceive in stirring up the mud at the bottom of any stagnant pool which had lain undisturbed for some time.[43]