Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, Volume III, 1863-1867

by Various

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.

During a period of thirty-nine years the records of the country exhibit the fact, that there were but twenty-three days on which earthquakes occurred and were deemed worthy of record. If we compare these figures with those recorded from 1850 to the close of 1863, we shall find much more ground for prophecy during the latter period than for the eighty-two years of which records were kept on this coast previous to that time.

From the above extracts from the archives we are left to infer one of two facts; either that earthquakes were entirely unknown during the intervals of the record dates, or that they were of so trivial a character as not to merit the notice of the early padres during this time; the latter is the probability, for we can scarcely conceive that nothing of this nature had taken place. If, however, such be the fact, it cannot be looked upon in any other light than a manifest anomaly in the history of this or any other country.

It appears from all the testimony on the subject, that in May, 1812, the south part of the State was frequently agitated with shocks of greater or less severity, and their continuance was literally incessant for about four and one-half months. Their frequency was not less than one each day or two; four days seldom elapsing without a shock. As many as thirty shocks occurred in a single day on more than one occasion. So frequent were they, that the inhabitants abandoned their houses for the greater part of this period, and lived under trees, etc., and slept out of doors at Santa Barbara.