The Earthquake of Lisbon, 1755

The Earthquake of Lisbon, 1755.

By Uriah Smith

“The great earthquake of Lisbon commenced on Nov. 1, 1755. The rumbling sound below the surface was immediately followed by the shock, which threw down the principal portion of the city. In the short space of six minutes it is believed that 60,000 persons perished. The sea retired, leaving the harbor dry, and returned in a great wave 50 feet or more in hight. The mountains around were shaken with great violence, and were even rent and thrown into the valleys below. Multitudes of people sought safety from the falling buildings by crowding upon the marble quay, which had just been constructed at great expense. It suddenly sank with them like a ship foundering at sea; but when the waters closed over the place, no fragments of the wreck, none of the boats and vessels near by that were drawn into the whirlpool, and not one of the thousands of bodies carried down, reappeared upon the surface. Over the spot the water stood 600 feet deep; and beneath this, locked in the fissured rocks, in chasms of unknown depth, lie the relics of what was the life and wealth of this portion of the earth's surface in the middle of the 18th century. . . . The portion of the surface of the earth that was shaken by this earthquake was estimated by Humboldt as equal to four times the extent of Europe. The shock was felt in the Alps and on the coast of Sweden. In Germany the thermal springs of Toplitz disappeared for a time, and again burst forth, deluging the region around with ochre-stained waters. The waters of the lakes in Scotland, as Loch Lomond especially, rose suddenly more than two feet, and then subsided below their usual level. On the shores of Barbadoes, Martinique, and Antigua, the tide suddenly rose twenty feet, and the sea was of inky blackness. Even the distant waters of Lake Ontario were strangely agitated, and the shock was sensibly felt along the coast of Massachusetts. In Deane's ‘History of Scituate’ it is stated that the earth was seen to wave like the swellings of the sea, and occasionally break into fissures. This lasted for fifteen minutes, during which chimneys were shaken down and houses disjointed. The sea roared with the unusual commotion, and with the rumbling of the earth the noise was more appalling than that of the loudest thunder. Water spouts burst forth, and springs opened which continue to flow to this day. As the movement passed beneath the ocean, it was felt by several ships, the impression being like that produced by striking upon rocks. The motion is described as undulatory, and proceeding at the rate of about twenty miles a minute.”