mena; as a rule they were satisfied with
mentioning the occurrence in a general and therefore vague way,
without any attempt at precision as to dates and places. Still the
writers in the Philippines did nothing worse than imitate their
colleagues throughout the rest of the world. This fact is responsible
for the great contrast exhibited by our catalogue as regards the
number and details of earthquakes which occurred prior to 1800,
records of which have been preserved, and the same data for the period
from 1800 to the present time. This same difference is observable in
all catalogues of a similar nature, even in those which cover
phenomena which occurred in Europe. As to the Philippine writers, an
additional excuse is found in the peculiar conditions of life in these
Islands. As far as we know, only two earthquakes which took place
during the period which alone can come under consideration--that is,
since the discovery of the Archipelago--have claimed a considerable
number of victims, and these in the capital, because outside of
Manila--if we except two or three of the principal cities--the
buildings which could become dangerous during an earthquake have
always been few.

Moreover, in a country in which fires consume every year thousands of
dwellings and where the terrible typhoons frequently destroy whole
towns with heavy loss of lives, the damage done by earthquakes has
rarely been so great as to impress those occurrences indelibly upon
the memory. This is beyond doubt one of the reasons why prior to the
beginning of the nineteenth century hardly any data can be found
concerning the numerous earthquakes which during the preceding two
centuries must have occurred in the Visayas and above all on the large
Island of Mindanao.

The first earthquake of which the chronicles contain a mention is that
of 1599. There is no reasonable doubt that during the twenty-eight
years which had then elapsed since the founding of Manila by Legaspi,
several strong and possibly even destructive earthquakes occurred in
this part of Luzon Island, but, as the author of the "Verdadera
relacion de la grande destruccion * * * del ano 1645" tells us, "when
first founded, Manila consisted of wooden houses roofed with a certain
kind of palm leaves, the same which the natives use in their
buildings." Hence the damage done by these earthquakes must have been
insignificant. Much more terrible were the losses caused by
conflagrations which within a fe