The Big One

the long version

"In the early 1800s a series of gargantuan earth tremors seized the American frontier. Tremendous roars and flashes of eerie light accompanied huge spouts of water and gas. Six-foot-high waterfalls appeared in the Mississippi River, thousands of trees exploded, and some 1,500 people - in what was then a sparsely populated wilderness - were killed. A region the size of Texas, centered in Missouri and Arkansas, was rent apart, and the tremors reached as far as Montreal. Forget the 1906 earthquake - this set of quakes constituted the Big One." "Jake Page and Charles Officer rely on historical accounts and the latest scientific findings to tell a long-forgotten story in which the naturalist John James Audubon, the Shawnee chief Tecumsch, scientists, and charlatans all play roles."--BOOK JACKET.