Such were among the phenomena presented in the region where the earthquake itself was felt.  It will be seen at once that within this region, or rather along that portion of the sea-coast which falls within the central region of disturbance, the true character of the sea-wave generated by the earthquake could not be recognized.  If a rock fall from a lofty cliff into a comparatively shallow sea, the water around the place where the rock has fallen is disturbed in an irregular manner.  The sea seems at one place to leap up and down; elsewhere one wave seems to beat against another, and the sharpest eye can detect no law in the motion of the seething waters.  But presently, outside the scene of disturbance, a circular wave is seen to form, and if the motion of this wave be watched it is seen to present the most striking contrast with the turmoil and confusion at its centre.  It sweeps onward and outward in a regular undulation.  Gradually it loses its circular figure (unless the sea-bottom happens to be unusually level), showing that although its motion is everywhere regular, it is not everywhere equally swift.  A wave of this sort, though incomparably vaster, swept swiftly away on every side from the scene of the great earthquake near the Peruvian Andes.  It has been calculated that the width of this wave varied from one million to five million feet, or, roughly, from two hundred to one thousand miles, while, when in mid-Pacific, the length of the wave, measured along its summit in a widely-curved path from one side to another of the great ocean, cannot have been less than eight thousand miles.

[Illustration:  OVER A LARGE PORTION OF ITS COURSE ITS PASSAGE WAS UNNOTED.]

We cannot tell how deep-seated was the centre of subterranean action; but there can be no doubt it was very deep indeed, because otherwise the shock felt in towns separated from each other by hundreds of miles could not have been so nearly contemporaneous.  Therefore the portion of the earth’s crust upheaved must have been enormous, for the length of the region where the direct effects of the earthquake were perceived is estimated by Professor von Hochsteter at no less than two hundred and forty miles.  The breadth of the region is unknown, because the slope of the Andes on one side and the ocean on the other concealed the motion of the earth’s crust.

The great ocean-wave swept, as we have said, in all directions around the scene of the earth-throe.  Over a large part of its course its passage was unnoted, because in the open sea the effects even of so vast an undulation could not be perceived.  A ship would slowly rise as the crest of the great wave passed under her, and then as slowly sink again.  This may seem strange, at first sight, when it is remembered that in reality the great sea-wave we are considering swept at the rate of three or four hundred sea-miles an hour over the larger part of the Pacific.  But when the true character of ocean-waves is understood,