Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1894 — The Tidal Disaster of 1868. [ARTICLE]

The Tidal Disaster of 1868.

The biggest solitary wave ever known was that caused by the Peruvian earthquake of August 18, 1868. In no other instance, we are assured, has it been known that a well-marked wave of enormous proportions has been propagated over the largest ocean tract of the globe by an earthquake whose action has been limited to a relatively small region not situated in the center, but on one side oi the wide area traversed by the wave. At Arica it was 50 feet high, and enveloped the town, carrying two warships nearly a mile beyond the railway to the north of the town. The single sea traveled northward and westward. Its height at San Pedro, California, was 60 feet. It inundated* the smaller members of the Sandwich group, 6,800 miles away, and reached Yokohama, in Japan, in the early hours of the morning, after taking in New Zealand on the way. It spent itself finally in the South Atlantic, having traversed nearly the whole globe.— [Ashton Reporter,