Show A great shake an thet upset thing things highly eighty years ago one of the most violent earthquakes of this century was that which destroyed the town of new madrid mo in 1811 the first shock occurred december and wai waa followed by others of constantly increasing violence until 1 february the town stood on a bluff blut fifteen or twenty feet above the summer floods and sunk so low that the next rise covered it to the depth of five feet the moat most marked phenomena says the be st louis weekly democrat occurred in the mississippi river the bed of which rose carrying great waves which swamped many boats and drowned the crews other boats were wrecked on snags thrown up from the bottom of the river where they bad had lain buried for ages the ted gases discharged during the shocks tainted the air and rendered the water of the river poisonous for many d days aye in st louis county fowls fell from the trees as though dead crockery fell from shelves and was broken and the inhabitants of the p pioneer loneer 8 settlements left their homes in in fear of being crushed for several years the earthquake of 1811 was known as the great shake the center of its violence seemed to be at little prairie twenty five or thirty miles below new madrid although the vibrations were felt all over the valley of the ohio and as far up as pittsburgh sand bars and projecting points of land were swallowed up in the flood with great cottonwood trees which were entirely submerged |