USA > Missouri > History of southeast Missouri : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 34
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The effects of the earthquake on the surface of the earth itself may be summed up as con- sisting of fissures, sand-blows, a rising of parts of the earth and sinking of other portions, faulting of the crust and in some cases land slides. One of the most common of these phenomena was fissuring; the earth waves which we have described as accompanying the shocks burst in many cases, leaving a fissure, some of these as long as five miles. This was an estimate made by LeSieur ; others mention fissures 600 or 700 feet long and 20 to 30 feet wide .*
Flint says that some of the fissures were wide enough to swallow horses or cattle.t He also says that people fell into these fissures and were gotten out with great diffi-
* Foster, The Mississippi Valley, p. 19.
+ Flint, Recollections of the Last Ten Years, p. 226.
culty. In some instances the inhabitants felled trees crosswise of the fissures and took refuge on their trunks to prevent being swal- lowed up. Out of these fissures there were ejected quantities of water and sand; mixed with the sand in many cases were particles of coal or lignite. This lignite seems to have been a feature of the sand which was thrown out from the fissures, and much of it is still to be found in many places throughout the district. Most of the contemporary accounts speak of it as "carbonized wood" or lignite. The material seen by Lyell near New Madrid is described in one place as bituminous coaly shale (clay), such as outcrops in the river bank and is found in shallow wells 35 feet or so below the surface and in another as lignite. The best description of its behavior on combustion is given by Mitchill, who ex- amined samples submitted by a correspondent. I found it very inflammable ; it consumed with a bright and vivid blaze. A copious smoke was emitted from it, whose smell was not at all sulphurous, but bituminous in a high de- gree. Taken out of the fire in its ignited and burning state, it did not immediately become extinct, but continued to burn until it was consumed. While blowed upon, instead of being deadened it became brighter by the blast. The ashes formed during the combus- tion were of a whitish color and when put into water imparted to it the quality of turn- ing to a green the blue corolla of a phlox whose juice was subjected to its action
Some specimens of the lignite matter were coated with a whitish or yellowish substance, suggesting sulphur, but it was probably the sulphate of iron common in lignite and cer- tain coals. Wood not lignitized was also re- ported by some observers .¿
Another form of fissure seems to have been formed only near banks of streams; the por-
# U. S. Geological Survey, Bulletin 46.
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tion of the alluvial soil between the fissure and the stream bank moved in the direction of the stream and left a considerably larger fis- sure than would otherwise have been formed. All these fissures of both characters extend in the general direction of the earthquake shocks. To understand their formation and also to account for the depth to which they extended, it must be remembered that practically all of the country affected by the earthquake is underlain at a depth of 10 to 20 feet by quick- sand and that over this quicksand is a coating of alluvial soil consisting at the top of loam and then of layers of sand and clay alternat- ing. The fissures opened out usually to the layers of quicksand, a depth of 10 to 20 feet. There are numbers of these fissures still to be seen. They have been partly filled by the action of the weather and by blowing in of leaves.
When Lyell visited the New Madrid region in 1849 he saw a number of fissures still open, some of which he followed continuously for over a mile. They ranged in depth from five to six feet and from two to four feet in width. Lyell also saw a fault produced by the earth- quake near Bayou St. John east of New Mad- rid, where the descent was eight to ten feet. Fuller says that at Beechwell, northeast of Campbell in Dunklin county, is a fine fissure filled with sand. Pieces of lignite and shaly clay were seen in the trench, which appears to have been pushed diagonally upward into the clay alluvium, but not with sufficient force at least on one side, to break through.# He also gives an account of various fissures seen by him near Caruthersville, near Blythes- ville, and many of them across the Arkansas line. They are also to be seen east of the Mississippi river.
These fissures in many cases were partly, if * U. S. Geological Survey. Bulletin 494, p. 54.
not entirely, filled. This was caused by the caving in of banks or walls and also by the pushing up of material from below. As the walls of the fissure opened, sand and water below the alluvium were pushed up, in some cases overflowed the walls of the fissure. It seems evident, too, that many of these cracks or fissures did not extend entirely to the sur- face of the earth but were stopped before reaching it. Into these cracks sand was forced up from below, filling the cracks and forming what geologists term a dike. These dikes are sometimes seen in the digging of wells or cellars and take the form of a narrow streak of sand pressed in between the other mate- rials. Thomas Beckwith of Charleston photo- graphed a remarkable dike of this character in Mississippi county.t
Besides these fissures there were also formed what geologists term "faults" in the surface, though these were nothing like so common as the fissures. It was probably due to these that falls were formed in the Mississippi river, the faults running erosswise of the channel. Sev- eral accounts speak of these falls, some of them being as much as six feet in height and extending entirely across the river.
No other effect of the earthquake has caused so much discussion or so wide a difference of opinion as that effect which geologists call "warping," a term used to include the rising of part of the crust and the depression of other parts. The accounts given by several of those who witnessed the shocks speak of the uplifting of parts of the surface of the earth. In the account of Mrs. Bryan it is said that the beds of some ponds were lifted up so that the ponds were drained and their former beds raised several feet. A. N. Dillard says: "Previous to the earthquake keel boats would come up the St. Francois river and t U. S. Geological Survey, Bulletin 494, plate 3.
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pass into the Mississippi river three miles be- low New Madrid; the bayou is now dry land."#
Others mention the terrible depression in the river, which was probably due to the up- lift of part of its bed.
More general and much more important, probably so far as Southeast Missouri is con- cerned, were the effects of the earthquake in producing a depression of the surface. Fuller divides the lands which were depressed and which are characterized as sunk lands, into three divisions-the first, those marked by sand-sloughs; second, those characterized by river swamps, and third, those covered by lakes of standing water.
The sand-sloughs are broad, shallow sloughs generally of considerable length, several feet in depth and marked by well defined ridges covered by extruded sand and interspersed with depressions, in which the timber has been killed by standing water.
The river swamps include the depressed areas along certain of the streams, the level of which is such that water stands over them for considerable periods but does not cover them so deep as to prevent the growth of timber. They are, therefore, characterized by wet-land timber, most of which is young growth. Often the stumps of characteristic upland varieties of trees killed by the sub- sidence may be seen.
The sunk-land lakes are broad, shallow and essentially permanent bodies of water occur- ring in depressions of the bottom lands near the Mississippi and other streams or along the depressed channels of streams like the St. Francois.t
The amount of depression caused by the earthquakes varied in different localities from
* Foster, The Mississippi Valley, p. 9.
+ U. S. Geological Survey, Bulletin 494, p. 65.
two to probably twenty feet. According to Fuller the sunk lands are limited to the flat bottom lands in Mississippi, Little and St. Francois rivers. The testimony of those who were present is that the land where New Madrid now stands subsided fifteen feet. Lyell, who visited the region in 1846, when the evidences were much clearer than at pres- ent, says: "The largest area affected by the convulsions lies eight or ten miles westward of the Mississippi and inland from the town of New Madrid, in Missouri. It is called the 'sunk country' and is said to extend along the course of the White Water (Little river ?) and its tributaries for a distance of between 70 and 80 miles north and south and 30 miles or more east and west. Throughout this area innumerable submerged trees-some standing leafless, others prostrate-are seen, and so great is the extent of the lake and marsh that an active trade in the skins of muskrats, minks, otters and other wild animals is now carried on there. In March, 1846, I skirted the borders of the sunk country nearest to New Madrid, passing along the Bayou St. John and Little Prairie, where dead trees of various kinds-some erect in the water, others fallen and strewed in dense masses over the bottom, in the shallows and near the shore- were conspicuous." (Lyell.)
Farther south similar conditions existed. Dillard says: "I have trapped there (in the region of the St. Francois) for thirty years. There is a great deal of sunken land caused by the earthquake of 1811. There are large trees of walnut, white oak and mulberry, such as grow on high land, which are now seen submerged ten and twenty feet beneath the water. In some of the lakes I have seen cypresses so far beneath the surface that with a canoe I have paddled among the branches."
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According to the map published by the United States geological survey in 1912, the principal areas of depression due to the earth- quake which are to be found in Southeast Missouri are as follows: The low land lying south of Morley and on both sides of the Sikeston ridge, two narrow strips between Sikeston and Charleston, a part of the valley of Little river lying west of Lilbourn, a small area northwest of Hayti and another similar area lying south of Ilayti, the bed of Little river south of the crossing on the Frisco be- tween Hayti and Kennett, the section called Lake Nicormy and extending south of Big lake, a large section lying east and south of Malden, the section west of Malden known as West Slough and extending as far as Chillete- caux Slough, a large part of the valley of Buffalo creek, the sloughs lying between Buf- falo creek and the St. Francois river includ- ing Seneca and Kinnamore, the bed of Varner river, and a part of the valley of the St. Francois west and south of Kennett. These are the principal areas of land submerged at the time of the earthquake in Southeast Mis- souri. Other large areas are to be found in Craighead and Green counties in Arkansas and include the territory about Lake City and the St. Francis lake.
In some places the sinking was enough to cause the land to be covered with water dur- ing the entire year. This resulted in the death of the timber. Some of this was timber found only on high land. The stumps are still to be seen. In many places the remains of these old trees are still to be seen, sometimes stand- ing up above the water and in other cases entirely submerged. The writer remembers to have seen the bed of Little river, east of Hornersville, at a time of low water, when the stumps of hundreds of trees were visible, showing conclusively that this channel of the
river was at one time much higher land. Its level was in all probability changed by the earthquake and the timbers killed by the incoming of the water.
At other places throughout the submerged region old cypress trees are to be found grow- ing in the water, having still a feeble, linger- ing life in them, although the large bole at the root of the tree which is characteristic of the cypress, is entirely submerged. Some of these old trees were at Coker Landing on Little river and at many other places along that stream.
The sinking of the land is evidenced not alone by the existence of the stumps and trunks of trees killed by the water, but also by the existence of parts of the old banks of Little river. It was said by the inhabitants of the section before the earthquake, that the territory now known as Little river swamps, extending from within New Madrid county to within Dunklin county, was formerly a level plain covered with timber, but not a swamp; and that through this level plain Little river made its way, a stream with high banks and a well defined channel. That this was the case seems to be shown by the fact that at a num- ber of places along the course of Little river there are still to be seen parts of these high banks. Throughout the greater part and course of the river it spreads out over im- mense territory, with scarcely anything to define its banks; but at places there are seen what are believed to be the remains of its former banks.
One other effect of the earthquake on the land is still to be described, and that is the forcing out upon the surface of water, sand, mud and gas. Bringier says the water forced its way by blowing up the earth with loud explosions. "It rushed out in all quar- ters bringing with it enormous quantities of
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carbonized wood reduced mostly into dust, which was ejected to the height of 10 and 15 feet and fell in a black shower mixed with the sand which its rapid motion had forced along. At the same time the roar and whis- tling produced by the impetuosity of the air escaping from its confinement seemed to in- crease the horrible disorder. *
* * In the meantime the surface was sinking and a black liquid was rising to the saddle-girths of my horse."*
Great quantities of this water were thrown out. Flint says that the amount ejected in the neighborhood of Little Prairie was suffi- cient to cover a tract many miles in extent from three to four feet deep. Some districts were still covered when he saw them seven years after the earthquake.t
Out of the fissures and small craters there was blown, along with other material of vari- ous kinds, great quantities of sand, which came from below the strata of clay which underlies the alluvial top soil of the district. It was in this sand that the lignite was prin- cipally contained.
The sand thus ejected formed the sand blows characteristic of part of the New Madrid area. The name seems to have been given then from the fact that the sand was blown out of the craters or fissures. The ordinary sand blow is a patch of sand nearly circular in shape, from 8 to 15 feet across, and a few inches higher than the surrounding soil. Some of them are much larger and many of them are not circular. The material contained in the sand blows is a white quartz sand, mixed in some cases with clay, and in nearly all cases with lignite.
These sand blows at the present time are
* Bringier, Amer. Jour. of Science, 1st Series, Vol. III, p. 15.
+ Flint, Recollections of the Last Ten Years, p. 222.
found scattered over a considerable part of the area covered by the earthquake. They do not occur, however, in all parts of it. They are not found immediately along the river nor seldom upon the domes or uplifts previ- ously described. Many of them are to be found in the neighborhood of New Madrid, along the railroad leading to Campbell, about Campbell, in the neighborhood of Lilbourn and Portageville. There are also many be- tween Hayti and Caruthersville, and about Pascola, and some are found on the ridge extending south from Dexter, especially in the southern part of Dunklin county.
The origin of these sand blows, as we have said, seems fairly evident. Out of the cracks opened in the alluvial top soil was forced sand and water in the form of a fountain and the sand was distributed over a small area about this crack.
Besides the sand blows there are certain depressions three to five feet in depth bor- dered on either side by ridges of sand parallel with one another, which are called sand sloughs. Some of these sloughs are wide and they are found only in the lower lands of the district. It has been considered by some stu- dents that they were formed at the time of the earthquake. The fissures which were opened were in many cases large, and out of them were forced enormous quantities of sand, which was piled in ridges coinciding in part with the sides of the fissures and spread over the area between them, helping to form the channel now known as a sand slough.
Of the phenomena of the earthquake among the most interesting are the sinks still to be seen in some places of the earthquake area. They are perhaps the most conspicuous of all the evidences of the shocks and perhaps the rarest. They are circular depressions in the alluvium originally from a few feet up to fifteen yards or more in diameter, and from
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5 to 30 feet in depth. Lyell gives this account of the cavities which he saw at New Madrid : "Hearing that some of these cavities still existed near the town, I went to see one of them, three-quarters of a mile to the west- ward. There I found a nearly circular hol- low, 10 yards wide and 5 feet deep, with a smaller one near it, and I observed, scattered about over the surrounding level ground, fragments of black bituminous shale, with much white sand. Within a distance of a few hundred yards were five more of these sand- bursts, or sand blows, as they are sometimes termed here, and rather more than a mile farther west, near the house of Mr. Savors, my guide pointed out to me what he called 'the sink hole where the negro was drowned.' It is a striking object, interrupting the regu- larity of a flat plain, the sides very steep and 28 feet deep from the top to the water's edge. The water now standing in the bottom is said to have been originally very deep, but has grown shallow by the washing in of sand and the crumbling of the bank caused by the feet of cattle coming to drink. I was assured that many wagon loads of matter were cast up out of this hollow, and the quantity must have been considerable to account for the void; yet the pieces of lignite and the quantity of sand now heaped on the level plain near its borders would not suffice to fill one-tenth part of the cavity. Perhaps a part of the ejected substance may have been swallowed up again and the rest may have been so mixed with water as to have spread like a fluid over the soil."
Bringier says: "The whole surface of the country remained covered with holes which, to compare small things with great, resembled so many craters of volcanoes surrounded with a ring of carbonized wood and sand, which
rose to the height of about seven feet. I had occasion a few months after to sound the depth of several of these holes and found them not to exceed 20 feet ; but I must remark the quicksand had washed into them."
Perhaps the most noticeable of these sinks still to be found in the earthquake region are along the west side of the Little river bottoms. Just east of the town of Caruth in Dunklin county there are a number of these sinks well defined in portions and still known to the inhabitants as having been caused by the earthquake shocks. They exist, of course, in other parts of the section, but are not numer- ous. It is difficult to determine exactly how they were caused, but in all probability were the result of the forcing out of large quanti- ties of sand through the cracks in the allu- vium, or through the sinking away of the sand at the bottom into the nearby bed of some stream. It must be remembered that the sand was in a semi-fluid condition and would easily flow away through a crack opened in the bank of a stream.
Various conjectures as to the cause of these shocks have been suggested. A few persons at the time advanced the idea that they were caused by volcanic action. This idea was rejected, however, by those acquainted with the country, owing to the absence of any indi- cation of volcanic action. Another opinion was that they were due to disturbances in the mountains to the west.
Some have thought the earthquakes were caused by some change taking place in the alluvial soil itself; they have suggested the caving of the banks of the river, the filling in of underground caverns, the explosion of masses of gas and oil. The quotation of Nut- tall in another place refers to the earthquake
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as caused by the decomposition of beds of lignite near the level of the river and filled with pyrites.
It is sufficient to point out in an analysis of these suggested causes that they are entirely inadequate to account for the violence of the shocks and especially for the wide area over which they were felt. The caving of the banks of the river, no matter how extensive, could have affected the soil for only a few feet, and no explosion of gas could have shaken the western half of the United States. In fact, no disturbance of any character what- ever, taking place within the alluvial soil, could have been communicated through the Appalachian mountains to the east coast. There seems to be but one alternative and that is to suppose the earthquakes to have been caused by a movement not in the alluvial soil but in the underlying rocks, which extend not only under the alluvium but also throughout the eastern half of the country. Faulting or other disturbances in these underlying rocks, no matter where originating, might have been communicated to any part of the country, Such movement seems on the whole to be the most probable origin of these tremendous dis- turbances.
There follow the accounts of a number of persons who witnessed the scenes of the earth- quakes or studied them shortly afterward. They are given in order to preserve as many as possible of the facts of that time. The first of these is a letter written in 1816 by Mrs. Eliza Bryan, who at the time of the shock was at New Madrid.
NEW MADRID, Territory of Missouri, March 22, 1816.
On the 16th of December, 1811, about 2 o'clock a. m., we were visited by a violent
shock of an earthquake, accompanied by a very awful noise resembling loud, distant thunder, but more hoarse and vibrating, which was followed in a few minutes by a complete saturation of the atmosphere with sulphurous vapor, causing total darkness.
The screams of the affrighted inhabitants running to and fro, not knowing where to go or what to do; the cries of the fowls and beasts of every species; the cracking of trees falling, and the roaring of the Mississippi, the current of which retrograded for a few min- utes, owing as is supposed to an eruption in its bed, all formed a scene truly horrible. From that time until nearly sunrise a number of lighter shocks occurred, at which time one still more violent than the first took place, with the same accompaniments as the first, and the terror which had been excited in everyone, and indeed in all animal nature, was now, if possible, doubled. The inhabitants fled in every direction to the country, suppos- ing that there was less danger at a distance from than near the river.
There were several shocks of a day, but lighter than those mentioned, until the 23d of January, 1812, when one occurred as vio- leut as the severest one of the former ones, accompanied by the same phenomena as the former. From this time until the 4th of February the earth was in continual agitation, visibly waving as a gentle sea. On that day there was another shock nearly as hard as the preceding ones. Next day four shocks, and on the 7th about 4 o'clock a. m., a concussion took place so much more violent than those which had preceded it that it was denominated the hard shock. The awful darkness of the atmosphere, which was as formerly saturated with sulphurous vapor, and the violence of the tempestuous thundering noise that accom- panied it, together with all the other phenom-
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ena mentioned, formed a scene the description of which required the most sublimely fanciful imagination. At first the Mississippi seemed to recede from its banks and its waters gath- ered up like a mountain, leaving for a moment many boats on the bare sand, in which time the poor sailors made their escape from them. It was then seen rising fifteen or twenty feet perpendicularly and expanding, as it were, at the same moment, the banks were overflowed with a retrograde current rapid as a torrent. The boats which before had been left on the sand were now torn from their moorings and suddenly driven up a creek at the mouth of which they laid, to the distance in some in- stances of nearly a quarter of a mile. The river falling as rapidly as it had risen, receded within its banks again with such violence that it took with it whole groves of young cotton- wood trees which hedged its borders. They were broken off with such regularity in some instances that persons who had not witnessed the fact would be with difficulty persuaded that it had not been the work of art. A great many fish were left on the banks, being unable to keep pace with the water; the river was covered with the wrecks of boats.
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