stern duty and necessity induced me to stay an
hour in the place."   Many wounded ladies
refused to be placed under shelter, shrieking in
their terror that the roofs would fall on them.

By the great earthquake on the 20th March
several villages in the neighbourhood of
Mendoza were also completely destroyed. Its
effects were also slightly felt at Valparaiso and
other cities on the western slope of the Andes,
and more distinctly at Cordova and throughout
the Argentine Confederation, even so far
eastward as Buenos Ayres, where, on the night
of the 20th, a French watchmaker noticed that
all the pendulums of his clocks, which were
swinging from north to south, had become
endowed with a most singularly irregular motion,
concerning which phenomenon he wrote a letter
on the day following to the leading journal
of the city; but no explanation was given till
the next week, when the mail from Mendoza
brought the truth.

On the eastern slopes of the Andes the
earthquake seems to have exerted its extreme
violence, as may be seen in a letter, dated San
Juan, 25th March, 1861:  "Paula has just
arrived from Chili. The earthquake which
destroyed Mendoza caught her, with Corina and
Emilia, at the foot of the central Cordillera of
the Andes. The mercy of God has alone
preserved them. It is horrible to hear their
account of the fearful scene they witnessed.
Deep caverns were opened into the bowels of
the mountains; the mountain summits were
parted asunder; the road was blocked up with
rocks rolled down from above, and with the
rubbish brought with them in their fall. The earth
in places burst open like a bomb-shell, ejecting
water, all the way from Uspallata. Enormous
stones were thrown from one mountain to another
with the report of cannon. Some passengers
on the road were crushed by the falling
rocks. It was a scene of indescribable horror
which surrounded them; they fearing every
moment that they would be buried under the
rocks which came rolling down the sides of the
mountain."

Professor Forbes, who had been making
geological researches in Peru and Bolivia, was in
Rosario at the time of the earthquake, and
immediately proceeded to Mendoza to examine
the phenomena of the catastrophe, concerning
which he reports somewhat as follows to the
Government of the Argentine Republic, by
whom he was appointed their commissioner:
"Data have enabled me to arrive at the decisive
conclusion that the earthquake was caused by a
revival of volcanic action on the eastern side
of the principal chain of the Cordilleras, and the
endeavour to find outlet for the escape of gases
by the fracture of supervening rocks. To
examine the effects of the earthquake in the
Cordilleras, I proceeded direct to the hills in
front of the city, and found the stripe (the
course of the earth-wave as marked on a map
annexed) here marked in all directions by ruins,
which track I followed up to Uspallata for six
days. Within its limits rocks had been broken
in pieces, and borne or thrown to other places;
there were fissures in the earth, and the springs
had increased their flow."  Mr. Forbes also gives
some practical advice concerning the rebuilding
of the city. The north-east portion of the old
city was built on low marshy ground, which
"sunk from one to eight feet, and was torn up
as though it had been ploughed for a width of
about tliree hundred varas (about two hundred
and eighty yards); and in some places springs
had come to the surface."  Thus he recommends
an extension of the city to the westward,
on the rocky slopes of the Sierra. The old city
was almost entirely built of adobes, a large
thick brick, about two feet long, baked in the
sun, and put together without lime, mud only
being used to fill the interstices; concerning
which he says: " The old system of brick
houses will, of course, be rejected, nor ought
the streets to be so narrow as before, this
having occasioned the chief loss, the hollowed
walls falling into them from both sides upon the
people. With broad streets, and with houses
of wooden framing, filled in with lath and
plaster, no danger need be feared from any
subsequent earthquake."

M. Bravard, a French naturalist, resident at
Mendoza, had predicted the destruction of the
city by an earthquake, basing his prediction
upon the volcanic formation of the whole of the
north-western portion of the province. This
peculiarity is also noticed by Sir Woodbine
Parish, in his valuable work on Buenos Ayres
and the Argentine provinces. Bravard perished
while sitting on the corner of his bed pulling
off his stockings, on the night of the 20th of
March.

Mendoza was one of the most important cities
of the Argentine Republic; situated at the foot
of the Andes, and commanding the principal
pass to Chili at Uspallata, it was the centre of
all the traffic with the west coast. The population
was variously estimated at from fourteen
to seventeen thousand, of whom not more than
two thousand escaped. The loss may be
estimated at thirteen thousand, which is below the
number usually named by men well acquainted
with the city; of these the greater part found
death and burial at the same moment, but many,
it is believed, languished for days under the
ruins, there being none to dig them out. A large
proportion also of those who were rescued died
from gangrene, before surgeons could arrive from
Chili to perform the necessary amputations.
All the surgeons of the city itself were killed.
Numbers of children escaped, and, strange to
say, nearly all the blind people! The former
were taken charge of by the Chilian government,
and removed to an asylum at Santiago de Chili.

To the traveller accustomed to the interminable
plains of Buenos Ayres, Santa Fe, and Cordova,
or wearied with the sandy deserts of San
Juan, the province of Mendoza has always been
a most welcome oasis on the tedious journey
across the continent of South America; here he
finds himself once again in an enclosed country,
riding along well-kept roads, between water-