were
exceedingly destructive to property. On the morning of September 7,
the inhabitants of Panama were roused from their beds by the
occurrence of one of the longest and most severe shocks ever
experienced in that earthquake-vexed region. Preceded by a hollow
rumbling noise, the first shock lasted nearly thirty seconds, during
which it did great damage to buildings. It was severely felt on board
ship, passengers declaring that the vessel seemed as if it were lifted
bodily from the sea and then allowed to fall back.

Its effects on the Panama railway were very marked. The stone
abutments of several of the bridges were cracked, and the earthworks
sank in half a dozen places. In other places the rails were curved as
if they had been intentionally bent. Other shocks less severe followed
the first, until at 11:30, another sharp shock alarmed the whole city,
and drove the inhabitants at once from their houses into the squares.
This earthquake was also severely felt at Colon, where it lasted for
fully a minute, moving many buildings from their foundations, and
creating intense alarm. A deep fissure, 400 yards in length, was
opened in the earth.

To what extent this tendency to earthquake shocks threatens the
proposed Panama Canal, it is difficult to say. Beyond question a great
earthquake would do immense damage to such a channel and its lock
gates, but the advocates of the Panama route argue with apparent truth
that even so it has a great advantage over the Nicaragua route. In the
latter, volcanoes are numerous, and eruptions not infrequent. Lake
Nicaragua itself, through which the canal route passes, has in it
several islands which are but volcanic peaks raised above the water,
and the whole region is subject to disturbances from the interior of
the earth.

CHAPTER XXXII.

EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES IN CENTRAL AMERICA AND MEXICO.

BY TRUMBULL WHITE.

=A Region Frequently Disturbed by Subterranean
Forces--Guatemala a Fated City--A Lake Eruption in
Honduras Described by a Great Painter--City of San
Jose Destroyed--Inhabitants Leave the Vicinity to
Wander as Beggars--Disturbances on the Route of the
Proposed Nicaraguan Canal--San Salvador is Shaken--Mexican
Cities Suffer.=

Central America is continually being disturbed by subterranean forces.
Around the deep bays of this vast and splendid region, upon the shores
laved by the waters of the Pacific, and also about the large inland