Two shocks of an earthquake were felt yesterday in this city and vicinity, of more violence than are usual in this latitude. The first shock occurred about five minutes past four o'clock, and was preceded by a loud, continuous noise, like thunder or the roar of artillery. The earth then commenced shaking, and the houses seemed to rock from East to West. After a pause of eight or ten minutes the second shock came on, but was much less violent than the first. Deeming the house we were in—a tall, narrow, five story building, and we in the fifth—unsafe, we soon found our way to the ground, in Georgia costume, when we observed that the sky presented a singular appearance, an unusual thing was around the moon, and a peculiar fog hung close to the earth. A gentleman informed us that he also saw a very brilliant meteor about the time of the first shock. Whether these signs had anything to do with the earthquake, we leave others to determine. Earthquakes, if we may believe the testimony of the rocks, have been no unusual thing in this vicinity in ages past. And not to go back to antiquity, many of our oldest citizens well remember the terrible earthquake that occurred at New Madrid, in 1811, when that village was partially destroyed, and a large section of that part of the State sunk and submerged, rendering an act of Congress necessary to grant other lands to the settlers in place of those that were destroyed. For many years after the occurrence, the inhabitants experienced violent shocks periodically, and emigrants were afraid to settle in that quarter. After a while, however, they became used to them, and whenever one happened, they would remark, "It is only an earthquake," and go about their business.
We do not remember to have felt the shock of an earthquake since the evening of the presidential election of 1852, just as the sun was going down and Franklin Pierce had been elected President of the United States. If it took an earthquake to herald the defeat of Gen. Scott, who knows but that this second earthquake was intended to announce that the financial crisis is over, and that nothing more is going to burst on the top of the earth, just at this time.—St. Louis Leader, Oct. 9.