May 10th, 21h. 10m.—A light shock was felt in San Francisco. The shock was accompanied by a loud report, like the discharge of a cannon; people mistook it for the signal gun of the mail steamer. This was felt at Monterey, and in Contra Costa County.
May 2d, 0h. 10m.—A severe shock was felt at Los Angeles. It caused much trembling among the buildings, and considerable alarm among the people, many leaving their beds. The shock was preceded by two loud reports like the blasting of rock; it apparently came from the north-west; no damage was done.
August 2d, 5h. 20m.—A light shock was felt in San Francisco. It was sufficiently strong to awaken persons in bed; it was evidently more severe in Stockton.
August 27th, 21h. 15m.—An earthquake was felt at Mission San Juan, Monterey County. There were two distinct shocks with short intervals elapsing, the second being the heaviest. The motion is described as undulatory and coming from the west. It was felt at Monterey and at Santa Cruz.
September 6th, 3h.—A smart shock felt at Santa Cruz. It created considerable consternation and many persons left their beds.
September 20th, 23h. 30m.—A very severe shock was felt in different parts of San Diego County, and at that town. At Santa Isabel the ceilings of the dwellings were shaken down; the cattle stampeded and ran bellowing in all directions, and the Indians seemed equally terrified. The walls of the adobe buildings were many of them cracked. The motion is described as oscillatory. A light shock occurred on the following Monday morning.
November 12th, 4h.—A smart shock occurred at Humboldt Bay. Another shock was reported but no date given.
From the record before us it will be seen that of fifteen, the total number of earthquakes recorded during 1856, seven have been felt in San Francisco in common with other parts of the State; seven have occurred south of this locality that were not observed here, and four north of it. Of the seven shocks noticed here five only were not observed in any adjacent district, and may be considered as strictly local. The periods of the year at which the shocks have occurred, are as follows: During the winter months, five; during the autumn, three; during the spring and summer, six. None have taken place between the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.
We have records of considerable and violent volcanic phenomena throughout the northern seas, and islands both to the east and west of Alaska. The Russian frigate Dwina, while lying at Shuam Shu, brings intelligence of the outburst of a volcano in that vicinity about the twenty-second of June, and on the twenty-fifth of the same month passed through fields of floating pumice; the latitude by observation being fifty degrees fifty-three minutes, and longitude one hundred and fifty-eight degrees thirty-two minutes east, per chronometer.