CHAPTER XXIV.

EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES.

“The thunder roared his signal to the sea, While shook the frightened earth through all her coasts, And mountains bowed their trembling heads in awe, And yawning gulfs leaped up amid the plains. The fountains of the mighty deep were rent, The waves, long prisoned in their rocky bounds, Roared, in a strange new freedom rushing forth, And sprang on forest, plain, and mount, and hill, and vale, Exulting in destruction; while the frightened hordes Of men, with birds and beasts of every sort, Fought each with each for refuge from the flood, Yet none escaped.”

Records and myths of great earthquakes go back almost to prehistoric times. The Greeks tell of an immense flood--perhaps a sea wave--which overwhelmed Attica immediately after an earthquake in the nineteenth century before Christ. It is known as the deluge of Ogyges, from the name of the reigning king. Some three centuries later is the story of a great earthquake and flood in Thessaly, from which Deucalion and Pyrrha escaped. There is a still vaguer legend of an immense earthquake about 2400 B. C., that shook all Southern Europe, and Asia Minor, opening an outlet for the Black Sea, which had before been entirely inland. In the convulsion of the seas, we are told almost all the people of Greece and Asia Minor perished. Chinese traditions and monuments tell of an immense earthquake at the same period, which suddenly raised the bottom of the great Northern Sea, pouring its waters out upon all North China and drowning the people. Where the great sea once was is now the great Mongolian Desert.

Likewise the Egyptian priests told Plato of a great island, Atlantis, lying off the coast of North Africa, stretching an unknown distance to the west; the home of a mighty nation that ruled all the western world, to the shores of the Mediterranean, and threatened the liberty of the European world. It is said that they made war on the combined forces of Greece and Egypt; and in the crisis of the struggle a fearful earthquake swallowed up the Grecian soldiery in a single night, and sunk Atlantis in the ocean since called from its name, Atlantic.

Doubtless all these traditions relate to the same terrible catastrophe described in Genesis. The Chinese even tell us in what way the “fountains of the great deep were broken up.” It would seem that a great sea once extended northeastward from the present basin of the Caspian over the deserts of Central Asia; and that an awful upheaval of this basin was the chief factor in the flood. Isthmuses were torn asunder: vast oceans hurled their gigantic waves over the continents, and over islands engulfed forever. The extraordinary evaporation from the unusual expanse of water, the sudden chilling of the atmosphere, produced torrents of rain. “The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” Whatever be the truth of the traditions, it is certain they preserve the memory of a catastrophe unparalleled in recent days.

Of a later date, there is the story that the Ciminian and Alban lakes near Rome were created by a terrible earthquake; but the date of this event is not very definite. The Japanese tell us that the great volcano, Fujiyama, was thrown up in a single night, and at the same time the lake in Oomi was created, near by, on the site of a number of flourishing villages.

Occasionally an earthquake has brought about a historic crisis. In the year 464 B. C., “in the fourth year of the reign of Archidamus, there happened the most dreadful earthquake in Sparta that had ever been known. In several places the country was entirely swallowed up: Täygetus and other mountains were shaken to their foundations; many of their summits, being torn away, came tumbling down; and the whole city was laid in ruins, five houses only excepted. To heighten the calamity, the Helots, who were slaves to the Lacedemonians, looking upon this as a favorable opportunity to recover their liberty, pervaded every part of the city, to murder such as had escaped the earthquake; but finding them under arms, and drawn up in order of battle, by the prudent foresight of Archidamus, who had assembled them around him, they retired into the neighboring cities, and commenced that day open war, having entered into an alliance with several of the neighboring nations, and being strengthened by the Messenians, who at that time were engaged in war with the Spartans.” But for the timely aid of others, Sparta might have been overthrown. The most striking feature is the astonishing coolness and presence of mind of the Spartans in the face of such a dire calamity.

This is, perhaps, the earliest earthquake of which careful historic mention is made. But from that time, the record thickens rapidly. In the year 373 B. C., a great shock did fearful damage throughout all Greece, destroying thousands of lives and damaging millions of dollars worth of property in a single night. The inhabitants of the Peloponnesus, roused by the convulsion, waited in fear for the morning. Dawn showed that the two beautiful cities of Bura and Helice were no more. The sea rolled above. Long after, on calm, clear days, Helice, once an inland town, could be seen at the bottom of the Corinthian Gulf; silent and beautiful in its ruin, marble temples and shattered homes presenting a literal “city of the dead.”

The year B. C. 217 found Rome and Carthage locked in deadly combat. While Hannibal and Flaminius fought by Thrasymene, earth felt the throes of war, and shook Italian cities down, while lakes and streams were tumbled from their beds. North Africa suffered, perhaps, the greatest shaking recorded in her history; one hundred towns were lost, and tens of thousands of people perished.

In A. D. 17 thirteen cities of Asia Minor were thrown to the ground. The Emperor Tiberius rebuilt them at his own expense. The grateful people presented him with a magnificent pedestal, which he had placed in the forum at Pozzuoli.

A. D. 27 Egypt was shaken, and the great statue of Memnon overthrown. In A. D. 63 came a great earthquake in Central Italy.

The earthquake in A. D. 33, at the time of the crucifixion, was felt throughout Asia Minor, Greece, Sicily and Southern Italy. In the Syria corpses were tumbled from their rock-hewn tombs. The town of Nicaea, in Bithynia, was totally destroyed. How many perished in this widespread shock is not known. Tradition has it that a fissure in a great rock, which overhangs the shore at Gaeta, was made by this earthquake. Till quite recently passing vessels were wont to salute the rock in commemoration of the great event.

No city has suffered from these terrible throes of Mother Earth as much as Antioch. In the year 115, the Emperor Trajan, extending his territories to the wilder regions of the Caucasus, was in the city with his army. There came heavy thunders, great winds, fearful subterranean rumblings; the earth shook; down tottered temples, towns, palaces, colonnades, statues, homes and huts, in irretrievable ruin. The Emperor sprang from a window and ran for his life, like a peasant, through the streets resounding with the groans and cries of the unfortunates buried in the ruins. Mountains were rent asunder, rivers turned from their courses, new streams were created, old valleys disappeared. Eighty thousand people are believed to have perished at Antioch alone.

In A. D. 365 a fearful earthquake was felt throughout the entire Mediterranean region. The sea rolled back, leaving fishes and vessels high and dry; then, suddenly returning, it carried large boats two miles inland. Fifty thousand people were lost at Alexandria. Shortly before, a number of towns in Palestine had been destroyed. This second great disaster shook all Asia Minor. In every town men began to talk, with bated breath, of the fearful wrath the Lord manifested because of those who had lent a willing ear to heretical doctrines. “This was why only the priests and holy men of the church could appease the Divine wrath; and if the town of Epidaurus had escaped the ruin which befell all the other towns along the coast, it was because the inhabitants had taken the statue of St. Hilary to the sea-shore. The Saint made the sign of the cross, and the mountain of water, bending low before him, forthwith receded.” Whence, it seems the Lord was supposed to have greater regard for crooked saintly fingers than for heretical doctrines. Numerous were the direful prodigies said to have accompanied this fearful shock.

The next century brought calamities once more upon Asia Minor. A series of tremendous shocks were felt in 458, wrecking many of the finest cities. The renowned Antioch, rebuilt in its pristine splendor, was once more humbled in the dust. Eighty thousand people perished within its walls; many thousands more in the adjacent regions. Probably one hundred and twenty-five thousand in all were slain in this earthquake.

Years passed by, bringing, from time to time, minor shocks which destroyed hundreds in different locations, but which passed with but little notice amid so many greater disasters, and wars and rumors of wars. Antioch had been gradually rebuilt, and was more splendid than ever before. The first quarter of the sixth century was past. The time of the great festival of the Ascension was at hand, A. D. 526. From all the country round came people flocking to the celebration, to witness the pageantry and procession. Without a moment’s warning, a great earthquake came, as fearful as the shock four hundred and eleven years before. The destruction was vastly greater. The tottering walls crushed thousands in the crowded streets. Every avenue and alley became a death-trap. There is not, in all the pages of history, record of an earthquake of greater destructiveness. Gibbon estimates the number of victims at two hundred and fifty thousand.

Nor was Antioch the only sufferer. The number of victims at other points in Asia Minor might be fifty thousand more. The whole sixth century is noted for the unusual number of appalling disasters of this sort which occurred at different places in the then known world. Probably a million people perished during this period in earthquakes alone. Such unwonted havoc may well cause us to wonder what manner of convulsions were occurring in the great volcanic regions of the Pacific and the then unknown western world. If the same general rule prevailed then that has been noticeable in more recent periods; if great convulsions were then, as now, comparatively synchronous, it would be difficult to form any adequate idea of the magnitude of the disturbances.

In 742 there was a tremendous earthquake in Egypt and Arabia, which overturned scores of cities and villages, rent mountains asunder, buried people in the wrecks of their dwellings, tossed the sea to and fro, swallowed up towns, wiped out thriving seaports, and numbered its dead by many tens of thousands. Four years later Jerusalem and all Syria experienced a dreadful shock, which made terrible havoc. In 823, Central Europe was shaken and Aix-la-chapelle nearly destroyed. In 860 Persia and Syria were again shaken; and in 867, Antioch, after its three centuries of comparative rest, was again ravaged by the destroyer. This shock extended to Mecca, which was fearfully rent. Part of a mountain in Syria was hurled into the sea. The century closed with a fearful convulsion in far distant India, wherein no less than one hundred and eighty thousand people were killed. Western Syria suffered again in 1169 and 1202. All the cities of the Mediterranean coast were shaken to pieces, with the usual terrible loss of life. The valleys of the Lebanon district were upheaved and altered throughout their whole extent.

Shock after shock came in the succeeding decades. One of these destroyed forty thousand persons at Bagdad alone. In 1759, the long list of catastrophes in Asia Minor was increased by one of the most terrible on record. At the first shock the proud Antioch was once more totally destroyed. Within the next forty-five days Baalbec, Sidon, Acre, Foussa, Nazareth, Safit, Tripoli, and scores of lesser towns and villages were almost blotted out. The horrors of that period are too awful for description. Even more fearful, if possible, was the earthquake of 1822, which once more made Antioch a shapeless mass of ruins. Aleppo, Djollib, Riha, Gisser, Chugra, Dieskrich, and Armenas shared a like fate. In the whole pashalic of Aleppo not a house or hut was left standing. Several severe earthquakes have followed during the century. In one, we are told the force of the shocks was so peculiar and powerful that in some places stone walls were converted to heaps of dust or lime.

This record, which is but a partial one, is enough to explain the utterly ruined condition of Baalbec, Palmyra, and many other relics of ancient grandeur. They have contended with a force more terrible than ever was shot or shell of the cannonier. Thousands are familiar with the views of such massive columns and walls of the Temple of Jupiter as are still standing, eighty-four feet high from base to capital. The marvel is, that after such a succession of fearful quakings there is the slightest semblance of their former condition remaining.

Terrible as these calamities are, not a great deal beyond the bare fact is known of many of them. To learn more exactly the dreadful capabilities of this stupendous agent, it is necessary to examine European and South American earthquakes that have come directly under the observation of scientific men. From these we may learn more particularly of the details of various fearful shocks.

In all Italy, so famed for its warmth and beauty, there is not a more lovely district than Calabria, which lies in the Southern portion of the peninsula. Yet no part of Italy has suffered such great calamities. An earthquake in 1693 shook the whole of Calabria and Sicily, totally destroying sixty towns and villages, and not fewer than one hundred thousand people. Eighteen thousand perished at Catania alone. Forty-eight years later a violent earthquake shattered one hundred and ninety towns in Calabria and completely swallowed up Eufemia, leaving only a stinking lake. But these were before the day of minute scientific observation.

In 1783, a series of shocks, unequalled in recent years in violence, began in Calabria and continued through four years. The scene was visited and carefully examined by several able men, and from their accounts a fine conception of the whole may be obtained.

The subterranean concussions were felt beyond the confines of Sicily; but if the city of Oppido, in Calabria, be taken as the center, a circle around it, whose radius is twenty-two miles, would include the space which suffered the greatest calamities. Within this circle all the towns and villages were almost entirely destroyed. A radius of seventy-two miles would include the whole region affected.

It was a calm, hazy day in February, 1783. At a

quarter to one o’clock was felt the first shock, which “threw down, in the space of two minutes, a greater part of the houses within the whole space above described. The convulsive motion of the earth is said to have resembled the rolling of the sea, and that in many instances it produced swimming of the head, like sea-sickness. This rolling of the surface, like the billows of the sea, was like that which would have been produced by the agitation of a vast mass of liquid matter under the ground.

In some walls which were shattered, the separate stones were parted from the mortar, so as to leave an exact mold where they had rested, as though the stone had been carefully raised from its bed in a perpendicular direction; but in other instances the mortar was ground to powder between the stones, as though they had been made to revolve on each other.

It was found that the swelling, or wave-like motions, and those which were called _vorticose_, or whirling, often produced the most singular and unaccountable effects. Thus, in some streets in the town of Monteleone, every house was thrown down, except one, and in some other streets all but two or three;” and these were left uninjured, though differing in no respect from others. In some houses which were wrecked, deep foundations were thrown clear out of the ground, as though upheaved by a direct lifting. Sometimes very massive buildings escaped; sometimes they suffered most. Obelisks and pillars made in sections showed the effects of the vorticose motion. The separate portions were partly turned upon each other, without being thrown down.

The number and size of the fissures in the soil is astonishing. “In many instances, these fissures were so wide, as in an instant to swallow up men, trees, and even houses; and when the earth sunk down again, it closed upon them so entirely, as not to leave the least vestige of what had happened, nor were any signs of them ever discovered afterwards. In the vicinity of Oppido, the center of these convulsions, many houses were precipitated into the same great fissure, which immediately closed over them; and,

in the same neighborhood, four farm-houses, several oilstores and dwelling-houses were so entirely ingulfed that not a vestige of them was seen afterwards.

In some instances these chasms did not close. In one district a ravine, formed in this manner, a mile long, one hundred feet broad and thirty feet deep, remained open; and in another a similar one remained, three-quarters of a mile long, one hundred and fifty feet wide, and one hundred feet deep; in another instance there remained such a chasm, thirty feet wide and two hundred and twenty-five feet deep.” In another place a gulf three hundred feet square was left open; again, we are told of one seven hundred and fifty feet square. A calcareous mountain, Zefirio, was rent in twain for half a mile. Similar effects were observed in Sicily, where Messina was almost totally destroyed, and the ruins devoured by the flames. “In various places the ground sunk down, and lakes were formed, which, being fed by springs, have remained ever since. The convulsions also removed immense masses of earth from the sides of steep hills into the valleys below; so that, in many instances, oaks, olive-orchards, vineyards and cultivated fields, were seen growing at the bottoms of deep hollows, having been removed from the side hills of the vicinity. In one instance, a mass of earth two hundred feet thick and four hundred feet in diameter, being set in motion by one of the first shocks, traveled four miles into the valley below.

The violence of the upward motion of the ground was singularly illustrated by the inversion of heavy bodies lying on the surface, and which can hardly be accounted for, except on the supposition that they were actually thrown to a considerable distance into the air. Thus, in some towns, a considerable portion of the flat pavingstones were found with their lower sides uppermost. Mr.

Lyell accounts for this effect by supposing that the stones were propelled upwards by the momentum which they had acquired, and the adhesion of one end of the mass being greater than the other, a rotary motion had been communicated to them. It is difficult to conceive how a whirling motion, so rapid as to produce such an effect, could have been communicated to a whole town without producing some consequences still more extraordinary.”

In many places in the plain of Rosarno, funnel-shaped pits were formed, with crevices radiating in every direction like fractures in a pane of glass. These were partially filled with sand and water.

Polistena was so absolutely wrecked that not the least semblance of the plan of the town could be detected. Terranova was precipitated, with its fourteen hundred inhabitants, three hundred and twenty-five feet into a deep gorge, and turned upside down. Moluquello, on an opposite hill between two streams, was rent in twain--one-half fell into the stream on the right, the other on the left. There was left a ridge so narrow at the top one could not keep his balance on it. Santa Cristena was hurled from the top of a sandy hill into the valley beneath. Out of three hundred and seventy-five towns and villages, three hundred and twenty were destroyed. Two hundred and fifteen lakes and morasses were created by displacements of the ground and blocking of water-courses. The pestilence bred by these vied with the direct power of the earthquake.

Some slight disturbance was manifested on the day before the great shock. Prince Scylla, an old man, warned his people to take to their boats, and himself set the example. When the first shock came, many of these people were sleeping in their boats near the shore, while the others were on the shore at a little place elevated above

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.