ts usual limits.

At Islay and Iquique similar phenomena were manifested. At the former
town the lava flowed in no less than five times, and each time with
greater force. Afterward the motion gradually diminished, but even an
hour and a half after the commencement of this strange disturbance the
waves still ran forty feet above the ordinary level. At Iquique the
people beheld the inrushing wave while it was still a great way off. A
dark blue mass of water some fifty feet in height was seen sweeping in
upon the town with inconceivable rapidity. An island lying before the
harbor was completely submerged by the great wave, which still came
rushing on black with the mud and slime it had swept from the
sea-bottom. Those who witnessed its progress from the upper balconies
of their houses, and presently saw its black mass rushing close
beneath their feet, looked on their safety as a miracle. Many
buildings were indeed washed away, and in the low-lying parts of the
town there was a terrible loss of life. After passing far inland, the
wave slowly returned sea-ward, and, strangely enough, the sea, which
elsewhere heaved and tossed for hours after the first great wave had
swept over it, here came soon to rest.

At Callao a yet more singular instance was afforded of the effect
which circumstances may have upon the motion of the sea after a great
earthquake has disturbed it. In former earthquakes Callao has suffered
terribly from the effects of the great sea-wave. In fact, on two
occasions the whole town has been destroyed, and nearly all its
inhabitants have been drowned, through the inrush of precisely such
waves as flowed into the ports of Arica and Chala. But upon this
occasion the centre of subterranean disturbance must have been so
situated that either the wave was diverted from Callao, or, more
probably, two waves reached Callao from different sources and at
different times, so that the two undulations partly counteracted each
other. Certain it is that, although the water retreated strangely from
the coast near Callao, insomuch that a wide tract of the sea-bottom
was uncovered, there was no inrushing wave comparable with those
described above. The sea afterward rose and fell in an irregular
manner, a circumstance confirming the supposition that the disturbance
was caused by two distinct oscillations. Six hours after the
occurrence of the earth-shock the double oscillations seemed for a
while to have worked themselves into u