the sea. With this convulsion the earth rocked, and suddenly there was precipitated a great mass of rock from Mount Jaci on the plain where the people had taken refuge; and immediately after the water arose to a great height above its ordinary level and swept away the sleeping multitude. The wave then instantly retreated, but soon after returned again with increased violence, bringing back many of the people and animals which it had carried away. At the same time every boat in the vicinity was overwhelmed, or dashed against the beach, and thus destroyed. The Prince, who was an aged man, with thirteen hundred of his people was swept away and perished in the sea. The total loss of life resulting from this earthquake is estimated at eighty thousand. A shock which came on the 4th of March was as violent as the first one. Eleven hundred shocks were felt in two years.

Doubtless not a few of those who perished died merely from hunger or confinement. Quite a number of those rescued after several days were uninjured.

If it be true that prosperity shows men in their true colors, the reverse is equally marked. It is hard to believe the tales of barbarous inhumanity of the occasion. Says Dolomieu: “As egotism and the instinct of self-preservation crushed all other feeling, no help was brought to the unhappy victims buried beneath the ruins; yet many of them might have been rescued. When calm was restored, the lower orders, succumbing to the vilest passions of nature, thought of nothing but pillage.”

Like a certain class of ghouls who follow in the wake of armies to enrich themselves by plundering the slain, “men might have been seen scouring the fallen ruins, braving imminent danger, and treading under foot dying persons who appealed piteously for help, in order to go and plunder the houses of the wealthy. They robbed

the very injured, who would have paid them handsomely for rescuing them. At Polistena a person of quality had been buried head downwards beneath the ruins of his house, and when his servant saw what had happened he actually stole the silver buckles off his shoes, while his legs were in the air, and made off with them. The unfortunate gentleman managed, however, to rescue himself from his perilous position. For several days cries of anguish were heard coming from underground.” For days afterward the fearful stench of putrefying corpses filled the atmosphere. Such were the horrors of this memorable occasion. So sudden was the calamity that many of those buried supposed only their own houses were overthrown and wondered why their neighbors were so slow to aid them. Many suffered greatly from thirst, and in consequence hardly felt the pinch of hunger, though entombed several days.

One of the most notable of the earthquakes of the last century is the one which overturned Lisbon, November 1, 1755. In extent of territory affected, it is the greatest of any known; but because it bears the name of the place where it was most violent, it is supposed by many to have been confined to a single district.

The morning was magnificent. At 9:35 A.M. there was a loud underground roar, like distant thunder, followed at once by a tremendous shock, which overthrew churches, convents, and many others of the finest buildings of the city. This shock lasted five seconds. There was two minutes pause, during which thousands of shrieking people rushed about the streets to escape the falling ruins. Then came a second shock, and two minutes later a third. In five minutes the Portuguese capital had become a ruin, filled with fifty thousand corpses.

The churches were filled with people, it being All Saints’ Day, and the hour of high mass. The great cathedrals were but death-traps. All apparatus that could be of use in the work of rescue was buried in the wreck. The streets were crowded with sobbing multitudes, calling in vain for friends and kin.

At the sea-shore was the magnificent quay, Cays de Prada. It was built entirely of marble, and just finished at an immense expense; and on it, after the first shock, a vast concourse of people had collected as a place of safety, having left the city to escape the fall of the houses. But it proved the most fatal spot in the vicinity; for at the next shock the earth opened and instantly swallowed up the whole quay, with the multitude which had there assembled; and so completely were the whole retained by the closing of the earth, that not a single dead body ever rose again to the surface. A great number of small boats and other vessels near the quay, and filled with people as a place of safety, were also precipitated into the yawning vortex; and it is stated that not a single fragment of any of these boats was ever seen afterwards. When the disaster was over, soundings were taken. Six hundred feet of water rolled above the marble quay and its countless victims. St. Ubes was swallowed up by sea-waves, while rocks fell from its promontory into the sea.

Then the sea suddenly retired, leaving the bed of the harbor exposed. A moment later a gigantic wave, fifty feet in height, rolled in upon the doomed city.

Two hours later fire broke out in the wreck, and driven by a high wind, swept the ruins, and also the houses left standing. The furious flames raged three days, burning hundreds imprisoned in the wreck. Every element seemed in conspiracy against the city.

In addition to threatened famine and pestilence among the survivors, the rabble, as in Calabria, showed a disposition to indiscriminate plunder. Upon this “the King gave orders immediately for gallows to be placed all round the city, and after about one hundred executions, amongst which were some English sailors, the evils stopped.” The King was very prompt and energetic, initiating every practicable system of relief, and having the really needy cared

for at the expense of the State. Several lighter shocks were felt in the succeeding two months. At the end of three months the Government began to rebuild the town. In fifteen years it was well restored, and to-day is one of the handsomest in Europe.

The immense area over which this earthquake was felt is very remarkable; for not only was every part of Spain and Portugal convulsed, but the shocks were perceived, with greater or less intensity, in England, Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Corsica, the West Indies, at Morocco and Algiers in Africa, and in a part of South America. At Algiers the shock was so violent as to throw down many buildings; and an oasis, with all its population, not far from Morocco, was swallowed up. Fez and Mesquinez were destroyed, with fifteen thousand people. The town of Setubal, seventeen miles from the Tagus and twenty-two miles southeast of Lisbon, was almost entirely swallowed up. The shock was almost as severe at Oporto as at Lisbon. The premonitory roar was compared to the rattling of many carriages over a rough road. The loftiest mountains were shaken, and many cleft or shattered. Masses of rock tumbled from the crags into the valleys. At Colares, seventeen miles from Lisbon, flames and smoke were seen to burst from the Alviras, and also out of the sea. These phenomena continued for some days. A chasm fifteen miles long opened in the Pyrenees. Towns were seriously damaged in Switzerland, France and Italy. Vesuvius, in a state of eruption for a period, suddenly ceased. The shock was also felt by ships far at sea, and, in several instances, the concussion was such as to make the people suppose their vessels had struck on a rock. In one instance, it is said that the people on board a vessel off the West Indies were thrown up a foot and a half from the deck. This circumstance may be

accounted for by the inelasticity of water; so that a violent and sudden movement of the bottom of the ocean would be communicated to the surface and to the ship, through the medium of the fluid, with nearly the same force as though the vessel had been on the ground itself.

Quite as remarkable was the immense wave produced. At Cadiz its height was sixty feet, and the damage in proportion. Rolling to the northward it inflicted vast injury upon Cornwall, England. At the Canaries and Azores the waves rose repeatedly to an immense height; and at Madeira the injury was still greater. In less than an hour the wave had traveled to Leyden. Norway and Sweden felt its presence, even to the recesses of the Gulf of Finland. On the western border of the Atlantic, among the lesser Antilles, where the tide scarcely exceeds twenty-nine inches, a black wall of water twenty-two feet high rushed upon the coasts. The steep and rocky islet of Stabia was dashed over by the waves. In Martinique the water rose to the roofs of the houses, and then receded from the shore for more than a mile. The unusual commotion stirred up the bituminous sediment of the sea bottom, and at Barbadoes the waves were in consequence black as ink.

There have been numerous earthquakes since in Europe which must pass without mention. One in 1817 completely destroyed Vostitza, a town in Greece not far from the site of ancient Helice. Another well-remembered one in 1855 desolated the Canton of Valais in Switzerland. This country has had numerous shocks—sixteen hundred or more, in the past few centuries, and once or twice Basle has been almost totally destroyed. Valais itself is a beautiful vale accessible only by a cleft in a mountain range eighty-five hundred feet deep. Numerous small towns and hamlets are scattered about the vale, and the precipitous slopes around are dotted with shepherds’ and hunters’ huts.

On July 25, 1855, after an extremely hot morning, the people were astounded by a great earthquake—an abrupt and vertical shock. Then came wave-like motions throwing every one prostrate. Houses tumbled in all directions. People were rolled about like logs of wood. Nearly every village in the canton was destroyed. Great landslips and avalanches rushed down from the hills. So tremendous was the shock that the mountain tops could be seen to sway to and fro. Crags and blocks of ice fell into the vales, crushing and grinding. The terrible uproar sounded as though the whole range of the Alps was about to collapse. The terrible shocks were felt at Lyons, at Paris, at Heidelberg, at Milan, at Genoa. Lisbon had no severer shock. And this great convulsion, that dandled mountains as though mere puppets, and destroyed towns and villages by the score—killed one person. It is one of the most remarkable occurrences in European history.

Among the more destructive recent shocks in Europe are those of 1881-84. Chio, one of the most beautiful islands of the Grecian archipelago, and the home of a thrifty and enterprising people, was visited by an earthquake on April 3, 1881. The whole city, with its hospitals, schools, libraries and works of art, was laid in ruins in a few seconds. This convulsion forms a strange contrast to the more violent one just described. Numerous adjacent villages were overthrown; and after the shock was past it was found that more than five thousand persons were killed and ten thousand others more or less injured. After making all possible efforts at restoration, the authorities were compelled to pull down many still tottering walls and scatter disinfectants over the wreck to

avoid an epidemic from the thousand corpses left beneath the ruin.

The entire adjacent coast of Asia Minor was more or less shaken, and several scores of people were killed in some seaport towns. The shocks continued several days, each being accompanied by a peculiar subterranean roaring. Two years later, ere the town was fairly rebuilt, there was another earthquake, which, however, did more damage in Asia Minor than in Chio.

But the most striking example of great damage done by an earthquake in a very small tract is the case of the island of Ischia. This tiny islet, the Imarina of Horace and Virgil, was well known to the Greeks, who at one time endeavored to establish themselves upon it, but were finally driven away by repeated volcanic outbursts. Since the activity of Vesuvius, Ischia has remained quiet, though a dozen extinct craters bear witness to its former fury. Its highest point is two thousand, seven hundred and seventy-two feet above the sea, while the entire island is but six miles in diameter. It is evidently cast up by an ancient, submarine volcano.

Situated a few miles from Naples, Ischia has for years been a favorite summer resort for the Italians of the neighboring coast. A score of little towns and villages dot its shores and hills, and the view of the Gulf of Naples, Baiae, and adjacent islands and coasts forms one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.

After its abandonment by the Greek colonists the islet was quiet for sixteen centuries. In 1302 an eruption and earthquake occasioned considerable loss of life and property. After that, though the main peak, Epomeo, has been occasionally muttering and fuming, no serious disturbance occurred for nearly six centuries. The subterranean heat occasions numerous hot springs, the water reaching a temperature of 178 degrees. These baths, and the abundance of choice fruits afforded by the island, afford additional attractions to visitors, and the twenty-five thousand inhabitants would seem to have an earthly paradise.

March 4, 1881, the people were suddenly roused from their slumbering security by two sharp shocks half an hour apart, which overthrew seven hundred houses in the little town of Casamicciola, killing one hundred and twenty-six people and wounding one hundred and seventy-seven more. The only premonition was that a few minutes before the hot springs suddenly reached the boiling point.

Yet this disaster was comparatively insignificant when we consider the one of July 28, 1883.

It was the height of the summer season. The little island was thronged with pleasure-seeking visitors. The night was dark and cloudy; the sea was unusually agitated. The small theatre at Casamicciola was filled with an animated throng, who cared not for the boding storm. The play opened with an earthquake scene. As the clock pointed to 9:32, the Punchinello rushed on the stage, shouting, “Un terremoto! un terremoto! alla mare! alla mare!” (An earthquake! an earthquake! to the sea! to the sea!) The audience thought it was part of the play; but ere they could applaud the vigorous acting, the lights were out, a thundering sound was heard, and the crashing roof was upon them. The appalling roar was followed by profound silence, as clouds of stifling dust were whirled up by the wind. Then in the darkness were heard the cries of terrified people, seeking one another in the gloom, and groping for the shore as in the days of Pompeii.

A visitor who was in the theater said, that at the first noise, which resembled the discharge of a heavy battery of artillery, “not a cry was uttered, though terror was depicted in every countenance; but when the first shock was followed by several others, a shriek of despair went up from every lip. The lights went out, pieces of timber were falling all about us, and cries of terror were succeeded by shrieks of pain from those who had been injured. It was a trying moment. When the shocks ceased, I crawled, like many others, out of the ruined building in order to reach the shore. The dust was literally blinding. Several times I stumbled over heaps of masonry and rubbish from which heart-rendering groans and shrieks were proceeding. Upon the shore I encountered many others as frightened as I was, and endeavoring to escape in fear of there being more shocks. Seeing that all remained quiet, we retraced our steps in order to relieve the injured. But it was not until the morning, upon the arrival of the authorities and the troops sent from Naples, that it was possible to take any effective steps for surmounting the difficulties by which we were surrounded. The firemen, assisted by volunteers, then set to work energetically to clear away the rubbish, laying the dead bodies in a row, and handing the injured over to the doctors. It was necessary to go to work very carefully, so as not to injure those still unhurt; and so the work continued very slowly, during which time we felt our heart-strings torn by the piteous appeals for relief. Some people were covered by so much debris that it took hours to reach them, and when we did so, some of them had succumbed to their injuries, while others had gone out of their minds. The dense clouds of dust had choked many of those who were not killed on the spot.”

Some strange scenes occurred; and there were instances of remarkable coolness. An Italian professor of surgery who had taken his child to the theatre, coolly took out his watch at the first crash, and noting the exact time, sat

perfectly still while the surging crowd endeavored to escape. There he sat with his child till morning, when the light enabled him to find his way out of the wreck.

The sea shore was a weird spectacle. Lighted up by a pile of blazing drift might be seen scores of naked children, and grown persons in their night clothes, scurrying wildly about. An eye-witness tells of many crazy with fear and grief. All night long the wreck resounded with groans and cries. One woman, whom he heard continually moaning, and crying “My children! my children!” was found at daybreak on the edge of a shattered terrace, and clad only in a chemise. Wondering what he could say by way of consolation, he chanced to observe two little ones playing not far away amid a tottering wreck that threatened at every moment to crush them. They were hers.

Further down a woman’s jewelled arm and shoulder protruded from the wreck, while her husband, buried nearly, kept crying “save her, never mind about me.” As a helping hand was reached to her a sudden landslip crushed out the remaining life.

A young English lady sat playing a funeral march. An Italian count sprang up, saying, “I cannot stand such music!” Just as he cleared the door the hotel fell in ruins behind him. The young lady was found dead at the piano.

For days the work went on, pressed by the energy of the Italian government. All the native police had been killed in the wreck. King Humbert in person visited the scene and had the work pressed as rapidly as possible.

There was no more complete wreck of any town than of Lacco Ameno. Of fifteen hundred and ninety-three people but five escaped. At Casamicciola but one house was left intact. Not a few houses in the former place were swallowed up in fissures. Floria was totally destroyed. Yet the largest town on the island, Ischia, with the adjacent villages, was scarcely hurt; and at Naples, on the mainland, the news of the catastrophe was a complete surprise. Yet on the half of the islet that was most severely shaken the earthquake numbered four thousand victims. A greater contrast to the great Valais earthquake could hardly be imagined.

Still more recent is the catastrophe of Southern Spain, one of the loveliest regions in the world. This district has several times been shaken; but notably at the time of the Lisbon earthquake, when so much damage was done by shocks and sea-waves at Cadiz; again in 1833, when in the single province of Murcia more than four thousand houses were destroyed, with hundreds of the inhabitants. Again the ground was in a state of constant tremor from November, 1855, to March, 1856.

But more severe than these was the shock of 1884. About the end of November slight vibrations were perceptible in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Southern France. The shocks did not manifest especial intensity at any especial locality, and no attention was paid to them, as such occurrences are so frequent that they cannot be regarded as indicative of greater shocks to come. For example, there were forty-six hundred and twenty shocks recorded in different portions of the earth during the years 1850-57; yet none of these were followed by earthquakes of great severity. So in the case of the November shocks of 1884, no one seemed concerned to know where they originated, or if they boded evil.

But on Christmas day, 1884, there came, a little past nine at night, an intense subdued roar like that of a hurricane; and at once the plateaux of Andalusia, the mountains of Murcia, and the sunny plains of Granada, Jaen

and Cordova shook from one end to the other. At Seville the terrified people rushed into the streets and camped there all night; but this city did not suffer so much as in the shock of 1755. In Granada the motions followed in rapid succession for several weeks; but though many other buildings were overthrown, the far-famed Alhambra was not injured. Twenty thousand people camped without the city gates.

The shocks were much severest in the mountainous districts. Villages and hamlets in ravines and along mountain slopes were speedily destroyed. The town of Alhama lost thirteen hundred and twenty houses at the first shock. Five hundred and seventy-six bodies were taken out of the ruins. Two hundred and eighty houses were overthrown by subsequent shocks. Abumelas lost five hundred and seventeen people, and four hundred and sixty-three houses out of four hundred and seventy-seven. More than three thousand houses were wrecked throughout Andalusia and Granada. Fifty-six towns and hamlets were greatly damaged, twenty of them entirely destroyed. Parts of mountain slopes slid slowly into the valleys. Deep crevices, like those of the Calabrian earthquakes, were opened in some localities. One of these is two miles long and of unknown depth. Boiling water burst from fissures in the mountains. The course of the river Gogollas was changed. Portions of the country were upheaved; others depressed. Shocks were felt at sea near the Azores.

Several thousands were killed and wounded, and the survivors suffered much from cold and hunger. The young King Alfonso took active part in the work of relief; but so numerous were the dead that many of them had to be buried in heaps or covered with quick-lime. There was not time to bury all properly.

Such are details of the more prominent European earthquakes. There have been others of almost equal importance; but three years ago a severe earthquake killed two thousand or more in the Italian Riviera; but the cases given well illustrate the destruction wrought in Europe, and other regions claim attention.

CHAPTER XXV.

EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES AND ENGLAND.

Something of the same effect is produced by the earthquake; but in a far more terrifying way. Each one is witness to the panic of his neighbor; and no fright is so terrible as that which is infectious. In moments of great peril a single calm master-spirit may quiet a mob. But when the eternal hills are shaken, when the groaning earth reels beneath the feet, and the mountains are removed and cast into the midst of the sea, who is there that retains his presence of mind? Man’s social arrangements are calculated upon a supposition of the earth’s stability: and when he finds himself the victim of misplaced confidence, there is neither courage nor spirit nor reason left in him. Numerous are the cases where men have been rendered insane by such convulsions.

To the ravage of the hurricane, the roar of the storm, the surge of the sea, the rush of the flood, one becomes in a measure accustomed, and in the moment of danger may take precautions for personal safety. But in the case of earthquakes the reverse is the rule; none dread them more than those who know them best. The stranger in tropical America may sit at his ease on a summer evening, enjoying the beauties of the landscape; or he may stand in a crowded hall, amongst a galaxy of wits and beauties, observing the kaleidoscopic movements of the gorgeous costumes before him. There comes a faint peculiar quiver of the earth, so insignificant that the uninitiated foreigner may hardly observe it: but there goes up a wild shout of “Tembla! Tembla!” and in an instant a terror-stricken, breathless throng surges wildly into the streets, the fields, the parks—anywhere: anywhere away from the heavy roofs and massive walls that would defy a hurricane; all blindly seeking to be under the open sky, only too often to be engulfed in gaping crevices.

It is preternaturally terrible; this emblem of solidity quivering beneath our feet, reminding us that the days of unbridled chaos, the wild war of all the elements, the tremendous geological convulsions that have exterminated so many races of animals in the days of the past, may be as ready and powerful for destruction in the present! The sensation of utter powerlessness is so overwhelming, that amid the crash of falling houses, the cries of entombed victims, the shrieks of flying multitudes, the rumblings in the earth beneath, and the trembling of the soil like that of a steed in the presence of a lion, the boldest and bravest can but sit with bowed head, in silent, motionless despair, awaiting whatever fate a grim capricious chance may determine. In the strange mysterious phenomena, which strike and do their work in a few seconds, one is disposed to see the disturbing dreams of fever, or the touch of a horrible nightmare, rather than any possible reality.

It is no wonder that insanity, hallucinations, or graver nervous disorders, in such moments fasten themselves on people for life. When a power, which despite its constant recurrence, remains almost unknown, holds the lives of untold thousands in its grasp, the mind is affected beyond the power of pen to describe. Long stress of poignant grief finds its effects equalled in a few seconds. People dash convulsively on the ground, as though seized with epilepsy. Some may become paralyzed: paralytics may recover the use of their limbs: others lose the power of speech: yet others are hopelessly idiotic. Not less marked are the effects on the brute creation. The owl, with nervous twitching head, and feathers all awry, flits to the trees near the house, as though imploring the protection of man. The panther forgets his ancient enmity, and creeps within the city gate. The screaming swallow leaves the eaves, and wings her way to other lands. The long-silent crocodile scrambles from his native lair and rushes moaning about the sand. The frightened nightingale forgets her song. The doleful dog howls loudly in the street. The trembling ox and horse together huddle, and groan as they tremble. The air itself is chill, as though it were turned cold at the manifestation of some awful being. All things are awed by the terrible “Wrath of God.”

The “Wrath of God!” Yes, such is the actual name of the earthquake among the modern Greeks—Theomenia. No other title will they give it. They have braved the

storm and the flood, the famine and the pestilence for three thousand years, and recognize in each the operation of law, and against each may take precautions; but the earthquake, absolutely beyond control, is to them inexplicable by natural causes, and any attempt to explain it is resented. They know the quicksand in which the victim, erect, vigorous, in full possession of his faculties, stares his fate in the face; stands for hours with death grinning from the sand at his feet, as it slowly drags him down; but this fearful opening of the soil, that in an instant swallows young and old, rich and poor, the loved and hated, the city and the castle—it can only be the “wrath of God!” So to the Jew was the fall of Sodom.

Not a single agent of nature can equal it in sudden destruction. It comes and it goes in a few seconds; almost ere you are aware of its presence it has claimed its thousands. There is no escape; no ruin so absolute; no desolation so pitiful; no death so remorseless. You stand chatting with a friend, the earth shakes, gapes, and the friend at your side finds a grave in the foundations of the earth. “Two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left.”

“Think ye that those twelve on whom the tower of Siloam fell were sinners above all that are in Jerusalem? I tell you nay.”

So, as we have already seen, the phenomena of earthquakes are as clearly under the domination of law as any other forces of nature. We know the forces that produce them, and though we can not tell with certainty what combination of them existed at the location of any particular shock. We can not hope to control the causes, but we can to a large extent avert the seriousness of the results. With this in view, we can consider seriously the extent of the ravages of this strange destroyer, without considering them as direct visitations upon the sins of a people.

Such views as those of the Greeks, however, have been common among all Christian nations of non-Saxon origin, and still prevail to no small extent. But the peculiar sense of personal responsibility and power that belongs to the Teuton, Scandinavian and Saxon stock has given a different impress to British and American ideas. Perhaps, too, the fact that Britons and Americans have suffered less from earthquakes than many others, has gone far to modify the trend of their thought. Be that as it may, the dominant element of the race—reverence, awe, and with common sense and a dash of contempt for those of more superstitious disposition, may be found in the old hunter’s comment on the outburst of Cosequina: “What was the meaning of those shakes in New Granada a month agone? Natur’ don’t mostly toss about this big earth just for sport and idleness; there’s a meaning and a reason and a secret in every movement she makes. But eighty earthquakes in twenty-four hours aren’t sent just to scare a pile of Nicaraguan Greasers. Guess earthquakes don’t take no more regard of Greasers than of other big folks!”

So long as superstitious ideas prevail among a multitude of people, it is not surprising that they find portentous signs in earth and sky betokening the near approach of the dread visitation. This is naturally increased by the desire to have due warning. The ancient Greeks were especially anxious in this regard. So we find one of their grave geographers, Pausanias, declaring that earthquakes are preceded by unusual rain or drought, eclipses, sudden disappearing of springs, great hurricanes, fiery apparitions in the sky with long trains of light, and the appearance of new stars in the sky. The people of Mendoza, South America, when overtaken by a great earthquake, suddenly remembered that but a short time before, a flaming meteor of a brilliant blue color and awful appearance had hissed past their town. So before the Riobamba earthquake, a brilliant shower of meteors took place; so, also, at the Cumana earthquake. At other times the weather has been unusually rainy; again, long drought has prevailed. Sometimes springs have become suddenly muddy, and cleared as suddenly after the shock. Again, muddy streams have become clear till the shock passed. Again, we are told that all animals manifest great fear before the earthquake comes; that lizards, snakes, mice and rats rush from their holes in terror. Doubtless many smaller animals perceive tremors of the earth that pass unnoticed by men; but as to the efficacy of such signs in general, it is suggestive of Hotspur’s reply to Glendower. The fiery Welshman, endeavoring to prove that he, too, is some great one, asserts that at his nativity

To which Hotspur answers:

So much for popular beliefs. Quite generally there are subterranean rumblings, or slight tremors preceding the more violent shock; but even these are not sure signs, as they may occur alone, or the earthquake may come unannounced. A notable case of the former sort is the remarkable subterranean roaring heard at Guanaxuato, in Mexico, in 1784. It lies in a rich mining district, with no volcano in the vicinity. On January 9 there broke out, after some preliminary muttering, a great uproar which seemed as if a thunder storm were going on beneath the surface of the earth. A short distance from the town it could not be heard; and not the slightest tremor of the soil was perceptible, even in mines sixteen hundred feet deep. But so great was the panic it created, that thousands fled from the town, leaving it entirely to the mercy of thieves and bandits. The alcaldes, with true Spanish grandiloquence, asserted that the government would “be able in its wisdom to say when danger is imminent, and to take measures for enabling the people to fly for refuge;” and it determined to impose a penalty of one thousand piasters on the rich, or of two months imprisonment on the poor who fled ere the word was given. But though it was easy to make laws, it was not so easy to feed the people; for the affrighted peasantry would not set foot in the city; so the month of uproar became one of famine as well.

A similar rumbling occurred in Melada, an island off the coast of Dalmatia, in 1822, and the frightened inhabitants besought the Austrian government to transport them to a place of safety; but though the explosions continued during two years, sometimes more than one hundred in a single night, nothing ever resulted therefrom.

So with regard to all popular beliefs on this topic—no dependence can be placed on any of them. There is nothing to warn us of the approach of the earthquakes, neither in the heavens above, nor the earth beneath, nor the waters under the earth.

Has the reader ever experienced one of these strange earthstorms? Perhaps not. Is it believed they are rare? They are as common as storms in the atmosphere. Within a period of seven years, four thousand six hundred and twenty have been recorded. Many more, doubtless, occurred completely beyond the pale of civilization. Hundreds have passed unnoticed save by delicate instruments. Not a day passes without several being recorded. They are as widely various in power as the storm and the breeze. Not a region on earth is unvisited by them.

Yet the reader will be disposed to think that the United States is almost free from these visitants. To a certain extent it is; we have not in all our history, had a shock of extreme violence, or one that can compare in destructiveness with the strange convulsions of tropical regions: but in the rarity of shocks we are not so favored as might be supposed. A few moments consideration of the records will be sufficiently convincing.

In the memoirs of the “Academy of the Arts and Sciences” in Boston, is a paper read in 1783 by Prof. Williams, recounting the story of some of the earlier earthquakes in our history.

The first one noticed after the landing of the Pilgrims occurred June 1, 1638. We are told it was preceded by a rumbling noise like remote thunder, which gradually grew louder and nearer. Then the earth began to quake till pewter and crockery tumbled from the shelves, stone walls

toppled over, and chimneys crumbled and fell. The shock passed from northwest to southeast, and was followed by a second in half an hour. People found it difficult to keep their feet. It occurred in the afternoon but there is no means of knowing what area was affected. As the country was then unsettled, the damage done was of course nil. Nearly four years later occurred a light shock, barely noticeable, in the same region. In 1653 an earthquake on the 29th of October stirred up the Puritan divines to admonish their flocks of the wrath of God. Still another occasion of the same sort was given in 1658. But of this latter, though we are told it was a very great earthquake, we have neither day nor month, nor any record of its violence, extent or duration.

The first convulsion of which there is any detailed account, occurred in 1663, January 26-28, Old Style. An old narrative thus records it:

“About half an hour after five in the evening a most terrible earthquake began. The heavens being serene, there was suddenly heard a roar like the noise of a great fire. Immediately the buildings were shaken with amazing violence. Doors opened and shut of themselves with a fearful clattering. The bells rang without their ropes being touched. Cracks appeared in the walls of buildings, and floors separated and in some cases fell down. Chasms appeared in the fields, and the hills seemed to be in motion. The fright of the inhabitants was shared by the beasts and birds, who sent forth fearful cries, howlings and bellowings. The duration of this earthquake was very uncommon. The first shock continued half an hour before it was over, but it began to abate about a quarter of an hour after it began.” (Probably there were a considerable number of shocks, gradually lessening in violence.)

“The same day about eight o’clock in the evening, there came a second shock, equally violent as the first, and within the space of half an hour, there were two others. The next day about three hours from the morning, there was a violent shock, which lasted a long time, and the next night counted some thirty-two shocks, of which many were violent. Nor did the trembling of the earth cease until the July following. Many trees were torn up, and the outlines of the mountains appeared to be much changed. Many springs and small streams were dried up; in others the waters became sulphurous, and the channels in which some had run were so altered as to be unrecognizable. Half way between Tadousac and Quebec two hills were thrown down and formed a point of land which extended half a quarter of a league into the St. Lawrence River. The island Aux Coudres became larger than it was before, and the channel of the St. Lawrence was greatly changed.”

This is, perhaps, as severe a shock as has been felt in this country; but though the shock extended southward to Pennsylvania, its chief energy was centered in a narrow strip on the St. Lawrence, giving our Canadian neighbors the lion’s share of the fright. Other light shocks were noticed in New England in 1665, 1668, 1669, 1670, 1705, and 1720.

October 29, 1727, another severe earthquake was experienced about 10:40 P.M. It seems to have had Southern New Hampshire as its focus, extending thence to the Delaware and Kennebec rivers. Its approach was heralded by a subdued roar from the northwest, which, as it drew nearer, “was thought to be the roar of a blazing chimney near at hand, and at last was likened to the rattling of carriages driven fiercely over pavements. In about half a minute from the time the noise was first heard, the earthquake was felt. It was observed by those who were abroad that, as the shake passed under them, the surface of the earth rose and sank.” Houses trembled and rocked, as though about to fall to pieces. Movables were dashed about with a fearful clatter. Crockery was smashed; stone walls and chimneys thrown down.

At Newbury, ashes and sulphur were cast forth from the earth, and also volumes of sand. Sulphuretted hydrogen seems to have been present in large quantities: also chemicals readily decomposed by warmth and moisture.

A correspondent of the Royal Society wrote that a clergyman near Boston assured him “that immediately after the earthquake there was such a stink that the family could scarce bear to be in the house for a considerable time that night.” Another clergyman writes that in the following April the fine sand thrown up by the earthquake “had a very offensive stench—nay, it was more nauseous than a putrefying corpse: yet, in a very little while after, it had no smell at all. How long it was before it began to have this stench, I am not certain; but I believe it was covered with snow until a little while before.” Another minister records that “about three days before the earthquake there was perceived an ill-stinking smell, in the water of several wells. Some searched their wells, but found nothing that might thus affect them. The scent was so strong and offensive that for eight or ten days they entirely omitted using it. In the deepest of these wells, which was about thirty-six feet, the water was turned to a brimstone color, but had nothing of the smell, and was thick like puddle water.” Some wells, dry just before the shock, immediately filled up. Occasional shocks were felt for some months after.

From the phenomena present here, and in many similar cases, it will appear that large volumes of pent-up