August 13th, 1868, one of the most terrible calamities which has ever visited a people befell the unfortunate inhabitants of Peru.  In that land earthquakes are nearly as common as rain storms are with us; and shocks by which whole cities are changed into a heap of ruins are by no means infrequent.  Yet even in Peru, “the land of earthquakes,” as Humboldt has termed it, no such catastrophe as that of August, 1868, had occurred within the memory of man.  It was not one city which was laid in ruins, but a whole empire.  Those who perished were counted by tens of thousands, while the property destroyed by the earthquake was valued at millions of pounds sterling.

Although so many months have passed since this terrible calamity took place, scientific men have been busily engaged, until quite recently, in endeavoring to ascertain the real significance of the various events which were observed during and after the occurrence of the earthquake.  The geographers of Germany have taken a special interest in interpreting the evidence afforded by this great manifestation of Nature’s powers.  Two papers have been written recently on the great earthquake of August 13th, 1868—­one by Professor von Hochsteter, the other by Herr von Tschudi, which present an interesting account of the various effects, by land and by sea, which resulted from the tremendous upheaving force to which the western flanks of the Peruvian Andes were subjected on that day.  The effects on land, although surprising and terrible, only differ in degree from those which have been observed in other earthquakes.  But the progress of the great sea-wave which was generated by the upheaval of the Peruvian shores and propagated over the whole of the Pacific Ocean differs altogether from any earthquake phenomena before observed.  Other earthquakes have indeed been followed by oceanic disturbances; but these have been accompanied by terrestrial motions, so as to suggest the idea that they had been caused by the motion of the sea-bottom or of the neighboring land.  In no instance has it ever before been known that a well-marked wave of enormous proportions should have been propagated over the largest ocean tract on our globe by an earth-shock whose direct action was limited to a relatively small region, and that region not situated in the centre, but on one side of the wide area traversed by the wave.

We propose to give a brief sketch of the history of this enormous sea-wave.  In the first place, however, it may be well to remind the reader of a few of the more prominent features of the great shock to which this wave owed its origin.