CHAPTER XXVI.

EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA.

“Hark! louder on the blast come hollow shrieks Of dissolution; in the fitful scowl Of night, near and more near, angels of death Incessant flap their deadly wings, and roar Through all the fevered air: the mountains rock And thousand meteors flame about their heads; The thunder long and loud gives out his voice, Responsive to the ocean’s troubled growl, While bellowing chasms rend th’ eternal hills. Earth trembles at the mighty march of death.”

The reader will be assured, from the facts given concerning volcanic eruptions, and the earthquakes of Asia Minor mentioned in the former chapter, that great earthquakes are as numerous in Asiatic districts as elsewhere; but beyond the bare fact, little is known of most of these. India has preserved no written history: and China and Japan have been till recently almost inaccessible to Europeans. So while the disturbances there are equal in importance to those of other lands, it is but lately that any definite information has been accessible; and our chief knowledge has come from personal narratives of white settlers and visitors to the islands of the western Pacific. In Japan, there is, to say nothing of numerous volcanoes, strong circumstantial evidence of the frequency of earthquakes in days past. Almost all dwellings are constructed of bamboo and lightest woods, one story high, with screens of paper as partitions: houses of stone are feared, the people preferring to take their chances on a great fire than on an earthquake. The same fact is noticeable

in the Philippines, Moluccas, and adjacent groups. Almost the only stone buildings are those of Spanish and Dutch settlers. China has apparently suffered less; but we learn that in 1556 two entire provinces were laid waste. The extent of the loss of life can not be estimated. The earth vomited ashes and flames, and ten great sea waves occurred in twenty-four hours.

Since European occupation of the East Indies, the convulsions have been frequent and alarming. The city of Manila was completely destroyed, with thousands of people, in 1645. Not one stone remained on another. Severe shocks occurred there again in 1699, 1796, 1825, 1852, and 1863. The last named wrecked the cathedral while filled with worshipers. The loss of property was from $8,000,000 to $10,000,000, or twice that of our Charleston earthquake. Four hundred people were killed. The shock lasted about half a minute, but opened many fissures, emitted volumes of gas and spoilt the river water. Again, in 1880, after some vague or irregular tremblings, there were several violent shocks. There was first experienced a peculiar sense of nausea and faintness, with a feeling of powerlessness or inability to flee. Horses stopped trembling in the streets, “standing with ears erect, with staring eyes, and stiffly extended legs, as though conscious of extraordinary peril.” The natives, heedless of appeals for help, wildly sought their own safety, or knelt devoutly invoking the saints. Clouds of dust filled the air, and heaps of ruin blocked the streets. The terrible hush that prevailed was broken only by an occasional cry for aid, or the crash of a ruined home. Portions of ground between great crevices were raised five or six feet; other parts fell as much. But the confusion rapidly subsided, and occupations of all sorts were resumed. One newspaper, true to the traditional enterprise of the fraternity, dragged its paraphernalia from its ruined building, and went to work in the middle of the street. An American publisher could hardly beat that.

But a region whose earthquakes have attracted greater attention, and have been more carefully noticed by scientific men than those of the eastern archipelago, is to be found along the western slope of the Andes, extending thence into Central America and Northern Venezuela and the West Indies.

Ever since the Spanish conquest, earthquakes have been numerous and violent in this whole region; and judging from the character of the native dwellings, the aborigines were for centuries accustomed to such movements. But it remained for Humboldt, in the last century, to give us a more careful description of some of the greater of these disasters.

Of the preceding disturbances, one of the most notable occurred in 1698, when the crater of the volcano Carguirazo fell in with a great crash during a shock of earthquake, and an area of twenty square miles was covered with mud containing numerous dead fish. A few years later, a similar occurrence north of Quito produced an epidemic of pernicious fevers.

But of the many great convulsions, that of Riobamba, in 1794, must rank as exceeding all within the range of authentic history, unless we except the one which destroyed Antioch in the year 526. The area disturbed was the great volcanic plain on which Quito stands.

No subterranean noise announced or accompanied the shock. Adjacent volcanoes were quiet; but the volcano of Pasto, sixty miles to the northward, had for three months been violently smoking; and at the moment the shock sixty miles away began, it suddenly stopped, nor did it again begin. The volcano of Cayambe, near Quito, seemed surrounded by meteorites. The pious people, alarmed at this manifestation of the divine wrath, formed a religious procession which walked through the principal streets. The result justified their belief in the potency of their prayers; for Quito remained unharmed. A great roar, since known as _el gran ruido_, was heard under the town some twenty minutes after the disaster; but at the scene of the latter it was not heard at all.

In the immediate vicinity of Riobamba, the destruction was fearful. The entire plain seemed rent into small independent fragments, which rose or sank at will. Humboldt tells that an eye-witness might have seen “fissures which alternately opened and closed, so that persons partially engulfed were saved by extending their arms, that they might not be swallowed up; portions of long trains of muleteers and laden mules disappearing in suddenly opening cross fissures, whilst other portions, by a hasty retreat, escaped the danger; vertical oscillations, by the non-simultaneous rising and sinking of adjoining portions of ground, so that persons standing in the choir of a church, sixteen feet above the pavement of the street, found themselves lowered to the level of the pavement without being thrown down; the sinking down of massive houses, with such an absence of disruption or dislocation that the inhabitants could open the doors of the interior, pass uninjured from room to room, light candles and debate with each other their chance of escape, during two days which elapsed before they were dug out; lastly, the entire disappearance of great masses of stones and building materials. The old town had possessed churches, convents, and houses of several stories; but in the places where they stood, we found, on tracing out among the ruins the former plan of the city, only stone heaps of from eight to twelve feet in height.”

Of some of the villages in the adjacent plain not a trace was left. They sunk bodily, and the earth closed over them. Of the others, only heaps of ruins were left.

Nor was this all. The great volcano of Tunguragua, at the southern extremity of the plateau, was rent asunder by the shock, or, according to others, had an eruption from the side. Immense torrents of thick, dark, sandy mud, mingled with pebbles, poured out and flooded adjacent portions of the plain, smothered scores still entangled in the ruins of their dwellings, filling numerous ravines and valleys, one of which was one thousand feet wide and seven hundred feet deep.

The total loss of life was terrible. One authority places the destruction at two hundred thousand. Forty thousand Indians were suffocated by the torrent of mud alone. It is the most destructive earthquake in modern history.

The town of Cumana has been visited almost as frequently as the far-famed Antioch. In 1530, we are told, the sea rose four fathoms, the earth was rent, a fort laid in ruins, the town wrecked, and dark, noisome liquids ejected from fissures. In 1766, a long drought, fifteen months in duration, had turned the thoughts of the people once more upon their manifold transgressions, and they were prepared for further chastisement. This came upon them. October 21 an earthquake blotted the town out of existence in less than a minute. The earth vomited sulphurous waters. The shocks were continued during fourteen months. The good people instituted an annual fast and procession in commemoration of the event.

Again, in 1794, Cumana was nearly prostrated. December 14, 1797, there was a tremendous, upward shock, with a noise like a mine explosion. Four-fifths of the town was laid in ruins. The atmosphere seemed converted to water, so great were the torrents of rain. The Indians held a religious festival and dance, believing the destruction and regeneration of the world was at hand.

The first days of November, 1799, were noted for the peculiar redness of the sky and the oppressiveness of the atmosphere, though the weather was not especially warm. At nightfall the sea breeze failed to begin, and the dusty earth began to crack in all directions. The people were sure some evil boded. November 4, as a heavy storm came up, there was a sharp gust of wind, which the natives say always precedes an earthquake; and a few minutes later came the shock; two others followed during the evening; but though all the tokens of a great shock, according to native ideas, were present in such force that the people abandoned their homes and slept in the parks and fields, the great quake never came. The redness of the sky continued, and a few nights later occurred a brilliant shower of meteors. Despite these signs and wonders, Mother Earth refused to tremble. Humboldt concluded native prognostications were unreliable.

During the past eighty years destructive earthquakes have been more frequent in South America than in any other region of the earth. First on the list is the great disaster at Caracas.

This town lies six miles from the seaport of La Guayra, in a valley “where reigns eternal spring.” Shut in by lofty mountains, its aspect is somewhat gloomy. The cold mountain air keeps the evening veiled with clouds. But as a whole, the situation is so fine that the people would hardly exchange it for a site less liable to earthquakes.

In December, 1811, when the disturbances were so great in the valleys of the Mississippi, Ohio and Arkansas, there was a sharp shock, which did no especial damage. At this time there was a severe drought, which continued during the succeeding months; but no word of the disturbances to the North, or in St. Vincent, reaching the people, they were not especially alarmed. So the days passed till Holy Week came, and hundreds were in the great churches.

At a few minutes past four there was a sudden shock which set church-bells to ringing. Then came a second, which made the ground seem as though it were boiling. This ceased, and the people supposed the danger was past, when there came the fearful subterranean roar but too well known in tropical countries, followed by series of alternating shocks at right angles to each other, and at once the beautiful city, with its palaces and homes and works of art was a shapeless ruin, with twelve thousand corpses lying amid the wreck. Four thousand people were slain in the churches alone. The great church of Alta Gracia, one hundred and fifty feet in height, whose nave was supported by pillars fifteen feet in diameter, was turned into a heap of rubbish but five or six feet high. Nearly all had sunk in the earth. Scarce a vestige of pillar or column could be found. A regiment of infantry, mustered in San Carlos barracks, was engulfed, but few escaping. Nine-tenths of the town was annihilated.

Night came. The cloud of dust, that like a mist had risen from the wreck, had settled to the ground. The full moon shone as calmly on the scene as in the past; and by the spectral light were seen strange figures hurrying to and fro. Here passed a mother with an infant’s corpse; while there a father groped amid the wreck, and called by turns the names of wife and child. No tools were left in reach in all the town; bare-handed creatures grappled with the stony heaps, and groaned in answer to the moans beneath. The aqueducts were shattered and the springs were stopped; the Guayra River was the sole supply. Scarce vessels could be found to fetch it in. Here hurrying feet bore wounded creatures to the stream; but lint and bandages were all beneath the wreck. Two thousand injured people lay upon the turf, with little of the needed help; but all their friends could do was done. Not even food enough could be procured at first.

Then anguish-stricken souls repented of their sins, and marched in procession that the wrath of God might be changed to mercy. Some driven to the verge of madness loudly confessed their sins in the open streets. Some promised to restore ill-gotten gains; often the peculation was known only to themselves. Marriages were solemnized between many who had hitherto not considered a ceremony necessary. Children were formally recognized by parents who had before repudiated them; long standing feuds and enmities were dropped.

Caracas was not the only place injured. La Guayra, Mayquetia, Antimano, Baruta, La Vega, San Felipe, and Merida were totally destroyed. Five thousand deaths occurred at San Felipe and La Guayra alone. It was impossible to give burial. Vast funeral pyres were made and corpse after corpse consigned to the flames. The total number of deaths from the earthquake, including those who perished from want and sickness induced by the exposure, was probably forty thousand; some have estimated fifty thousand. The shocks were felt as far westward as Bogota.

It does not appear that any especial commotion was felt in Central America, though shocks in the latter regions are nearly always felt in Venezuela or Columbia. Every portion of Central America has been repeatedly shaken. The town of Guatemala has been four times destroyed, the people each time selecting a new site and adhering to the old name. The people of San Salvador, on the other hand, have obstinately clung to their site, though visited by violent earthquakes in 1575, 1593, 1625, 1656, 1798, and 1839; and minor shocks are of such constant

recurrence that the locality is nicknamed “the hammock.” But the shock of 1889 was so severe that they seriously meditated leaving; but they finally settled in the old place, when four-fifths of their town had just been destroyed.

But in Holy Week, in 1854, as Mr. Squier tells us, unusual rumblings were heard on the morning of Holy Thursday. The inhabitants, somewhat alarmed, still went about their customary avocations. The remainder of the week passed without further cause for fear. At half past nine o’clock on Sunday night a severe shock so alarmed many people that they prepared to camp out for the night. At ten minutes to eleven there came without any warning a fearful quaking, which levelled the city to the earth in ten seconds; clouds of dust filled the streets; wells and fountains were choked; not a drop of water could be obtained. Not a house was left inhabitable; scarce one preserved the semblance of being erect; yet the town was composed chiefly of low, one-story structures. The air was filled with fumes of sulphur; the neighboring volcano threatened an eruption; and in addition to the usual horrors of an earthquake, other features were added.

The ex-president of the republic was so badly hurt as to be almost incapacitated for duty. Indians roamed pillaging the wreck, dropping on their knees and praying as fresh shocks terrified them; then returning to the plunder; for they were good Christians. Justice, police, clergy--all were gone. The venerable bishop, Soldana, when dragged from the ruin, bade the people flee in all haste, for “God had given the city over to the Evil One as a punishment for its sins; and in spite of the name it bore ‘(Holy Savior)’ it would be cast into the bottomless pit.” The good bishop promptly headed the retreat of the clergy from the forces of Satan, evidently under the impression that if the people could only leave the accursed locality, the devil would not be so scrupulously exact in tormenting them before the time. The people flocked after the clergy in large numbers, believing they would be safest in the neighborhood of the holy men. It is well known that even the devil respects the cloth.

The republic had been rent by civil war for years; and in this critical juncture, it seemed that it was about to be renewed. But a man of strong will and energy and coolness stepped forward--Duenas, ex-monk, lawyer, deputy, and president--from his farm, like Cincinnatus. Collecting a few friends and digging some arms from the wreck of the barracks, he inspirited the new president, and martial law was proclaimed. The shooting of a few Indian robbers imparted to the remainder a respect for law equalled only by their practical Christianity, and the work of rescue began. Large numbers of the populace permanently forsook the site.

Two years later there was a great earthquake in Honduras; but the area of disturbance was not so densely peopled, and the damage done was proportionately less. Disasters of this sort cause most Central Americans to emigrate. “Then women and children form themselves into groups and travel through the country. They set the drama in which they have taken part to music, and they go through the country singing the rude verses which they have run together in the different villages, and then send the hat around. After they have visited the whole of their own country, they cross the frontier into the neighboring State, where they are also assured of doing pretty well.”

During three centuries of Spanish occupation of South America, while scores of convulsions had visited the Pacific seaboard, none had shaken the eastern slope of the Cordilleras, or the great plains beyond; and there had resulted a settled belief that the entire region was, so to speak, earthquake-proof. But the illusion was rudely dispelled.

In the extreme west of the Argentine Republic, on the high road from Valparaiso to Buenos Ayres, lies the town of Mendoza, in full view of Tupungato and the mighty Aconcagua. Never having, in all their history, experienced any harm from these mountains, the people anticipated none.

“Mendoza had about 20,000 inhabitants and five hundred houses, nearly all of them very handsome. It also contained two very large hospitals, several schools, a splendid cathedral, and several churches. Its trade was prosperous, and more than a hundred large shops testified to the extent of its commerce. There was no such library in the whole of the Argentine Republic. Its theatre was most sumptuous, and the Alameda, its public promenade was regarded as the finest in South America.

“One evening, an immense red and blue meteor slowly traversed the sky from East to West, and the volcano of Aconcagua broke into an eruption upon the night following--20th March, 1861--without any premonitory sound or sign: the earth quaked violently, and in less than a minute the town of Mendoza had disappeared. It was transformed into a vast field of ruins, the highest of which were not more than three feet from the ground. Never within the memory of man has a town been so taken by surprise; for in this case the earthquake was not preceded by the underground mutterings which, even if only a few seconds in advance of the shock, give some sort of warning. Upon that night, and in less than four seconds, fifteen thousand people were buried in the ruins. Horrible noises, cries of terror, the heartrending howls of men and animals filled the air, and a thick cloud of dust darkened the sky.”

Mendoza was not the only place injured. At San Juan, one hundred miles northward, three thousand people were killed. Three hundred and fifty miles further away, Cordova lost a number of houses, and a slight shock was felt at Buenos Ayres. The wreck presented the scenes common in such cases; and, as in several similar disasters, bands of brigands pounced upon the town to pillage the ruins.

Of the many touching incidents, we must give place to two:

That the town was absolutely unwarned is hardly correct. A French geologist, M. Bravard, sent on a scientific mission by the Russian government, had found the volcanoes near by violently roaring, yet emitting no smoke or fire; and, nearing the valley of Mendoza, he found the soil in a constant tremor. Alarmed at these manifestations, he expressed his belief that if the pressure were not speedily relieved by eruption, a severe earthquake might follow. His assertion caused serious apprehension, for his high attainments gave his opinions great weight with the people. For nearly a week the possibility of a catastrophe was seriously discussed. One evening he stood at the door of M. Matussiere, wishing his friends good-night. Again he alluded to the earthquake--the shock came, and he was caught by the fall of the house.

Matussiere himself was on his way home from Valparaiso. When fifteen miles from Mendoza, in the mountains, a tremendous roaring was heard, but he felt no shock. The moon shone as calmly and clearly as ever, and no disturbance followed. Oppressed, however, by terrible fear, he hastened to Mendoza. He could not even guess where was the wreck of his own home. After a

long, despairing search, he saw his great house dog come bounding toward him. The dog led him to the wreck; and, after wearisome toil, the merchant found his wife and one child alive. The rest of the family, and the French geologist, were dead.

Another episode is related by M. Charton: There was at Mendoza a rich, French hotel keeper, M. Tesser. After the shock, “one of his intimate friends wandered among the ruins. His eyes were dry: he could shed tears no longer. He stopped on the site of the hotel, trying in vain to recall the old arrangements. He was retiring--his heart filled with sighs, thinking of the honest man and the family he had loved so well--when he perceived, through the shapeless mass of girders and calcined stones, M. Tesser’s dog, which moaned; he approached it. The poor animal, the two hind legs and part of the body of which were crushed, forced itself, in spite of his sufferings and weakness, to scratch with his front paws, and uttered, from time to time, a plaintive howl. As it saw its master’s friend come near, it exerted itself and howled louder. The friend understood that Tesser must be beneath this rubbish, and hoped he was not dead. He ran to fetch some persons, and, with their help, after much labor, he indeed discovered the body of poor Tesser; his left arm and leg, lying under the beams, were broken, his mouth and eyes full of earth, but he still breathed. Before trying to disengage his limbs, they washed his face, which seemed to relieve him; without saying a word, he instinctively stretched his right arm toward his dog, who drew himself to him, and died a few moments afterwards.

“Tesser scarcely was in a state to pronounce any words, before he asked where his family was. All had perished in the great disaster. Hearing this answer, he closed his eyes with despair; then, making a fresh effort, he pronounced the name of his little girl, and showed with his finger a separate place where he had put her to bed. Some of the people, in compassion for his grief, although without hope, made further search; others occupied themselves in dressing his broken limbs. A few minutes later, those rendering him this service saw him suddenly raise himself up--he gave a cry--they brought him his daughter, still living. A beam had fallen across the bed of the child and had protected it; but she was seriously wounded in the head; she had also her mouth and eyes filled with dirt, and was exhausted with hunger.” For two months the pair lay under a tent against a tree, more dead than alive. They only remained to each other of the once rich and happy family. But in this respect, they were no worse off than hundreds of others.

The people abandoned the site, unable to remain in view of so many monuments of former happiness. Strangers came in and a new Mendoza rose, but not so lovely as the former one. This town was also severely shaken in 1885.

With a notice of one other earthquake, which demands attention because of unusual results, this chapter must close.

This shock occurred August 13, 1868, in Peru. The center of the convulsion was at Arequipa, at the foot of the lofty volcanic mountain of Misti, which has not shown signs of activity since the great outburst of 1542. So far as their volcanic neighbor was concerned, the forty-four thousand people of Arequipa had apparently no reason for apprehension.

At five minutes past five, there came a light shock like the jar of a distant explosion. Half a minute later began the subterranean rumbling, with a rapidly increasing vibration, which made the people run for their lives into the streets. Then “the swaying motion changed into fierce, vertical upheaval. The subterranean roaring increased in a terrifying manner; then were heard the heart-piercing shrieks of the wretched people, the bursting of walls, the crashing fall of houses and churches, while over all rolled thick clouds of a yellowish-black dust, which, had they been poured forth many minutes longer, would have suffocated thousands.”

Tacna and Arica suffered little less. But the greatest damage in the coast region was from the sea wave. A few minutes after the shock, the sea rolled back, falling twenty-five feet; then a huge, black wall of water leaped up, fifty feet in height, and rushed for the shore. The American vice-consul at Arica, well versed in the phenomena of earthquakes, left his house at the first shock, and ran with his family to the hills to avoid any probable sea wave. The monster billow struck the mole to pieces, and swept clean the lower part of the town. Six vessels were lost in the bay, or tossed over rocks and houses; two, a Peruvian corvette and a United States war-ship, were carried inland and left high and dry, half a mile north of Arica, without a broken spar or tarnished flag. Similar feats were recorded at Iquique. Twelve hundred miles of sea-coast were more or less affected. Sixty million dollars worth of property were destroyed, and twenty thousand people killed.

The great sea wave was especially remarkable. Recoiling from the Peruvian coast, in three hours its southern expansion was observed at Coquimbo, eight hundred miles south. An hour later it was at Constitucion, four hundred and fifty miles further. Northward, the wave rushed, sixty feet high, into the harbor of San Pedro, California, five thousand miles from the shock.

To the westward, the Sandwich Islands were reached that night, and irregular waves broke upon the coast for three days. Before midnight it broke upon the Marquesas and the Paumotu archipelago. At half-past three in the morning it was at New Zealand. By daylight it was surging along the coasts of Australia, and by mid-day it was tossing even on the southwest coast of Australia. The same day, it was heaving on the shores of Japan.

This wave is doubtless surpassed only by the great wave set in motion by the convulsion of Krakatoa, mentioned in the chapter on volcanoes. It travelled to a distance of 10,500 miles from its starting point, at a speed of from 400 to 500 miles an hour, according to the direction. Yet it has had several strong rivals. Had the great wave of 1867, at the time of the earthquake at St. Thomas, been raised in the open sea, instead of in the comparatively shut in Caribbean, it might have travelled to an equal distance. The sea wave which followed the earthquake at Simoda, Japan, in 1854, completely wiped out that town, leaving only fragments of a temple-wall, and some wrecked vessels, two miles inland. Most of the people perished. Recoiling from the coast, the wave rolled in upon the shores of California, travelling 5,000 miles in twelve hours.

The terrible earthquake that ravaged Jamaica in 1692, produced a wave that swept thirty-three feet of water over the highest house in Port Royal, destroying 3,000 persons. An English frigate, the _Swan_, was deposited on the top of a large building, breaking in the roof. The waves of the Lisbon and Calabrian earthquakes have been noticed elsewhere.

This same district in Peru has suffered similarly several times. Callao, with the ground on which it was built, was swept away in 1746. Only fifteen of its people ever reached Lima, six miles inland. When the town was rebuilt, a second disaster of this sort nearly destroyed it. Iquique and Arequipa, in Peru, were again destroyed May 9, 1877; and a wave seventy feet high swept the coast, and recoiling reached Japan next day, travelling two hundred and eighteen yards per second.

The cases given illustrate well the stupendous power and destructiveness of vibrations in the earth’s surface. But few have been given, nor have all the greatest been detailed. Mention only must suffice for the one which shook Naples and vicinity, December 5, 1456, destroying forty thousand people. Another in Persia, June 7, 1755, destroyed Kaschan, with forty thousand people; one at Cairo, Egypt, the preceding year, killed twenty thousand. Another in the Abruzzi, Italy, November 3, 1706, killed fifteen thousand persons; one at Palermo; Sicily, September 13, 1726, killed six thousand; one hundred thousand perished in the Pekin earthquake of November 30, 1731; two thousand were destroyed by an earthquake in the Kutch district, India, in 1819. Constantinople was overturned in the year 1800; six thousand people perished in an earthquake in Murcia, Spain, in 1829; fifteen hundred were killed by Italian earthquakes in 1835-36; Southern Syria suffered greatly in 1836; Hayti was shaken, and four thousand people perished, in 1842; one hundred thousand houses and thirty thousand people destroyed by an earthquake in Japan, 1854; Montenerro, Calabria, and ten thousand people in 1857; five thousand people in Ecuador, 1859; Northwestern Khorassan, Persia, with thirty thousand people, in 1871; Antioch again nearly destroyed in 1872; three thousand people killed in Cashmere, 1885.

Terrible as this list seems, the total but little exceeds the havoc wrought by the single Bengal famine of 1866. There would be little difficulty in proving that drought, with the consequent famine, has proved the most terrible agent of destruction known to man; and yet it is one that facilities for rapid transit should render least destructive.

Scientific men have within forty years made efforts to keep a sort of catalogue of shocks; but the frequency of earthquakes has rendered this a profitless task. Great ones are long remembered; but as for numbering the minor shocks, one might as well count rainfalls; several

occur every day; and it is only when unusually destructive, like extraordinary tempests, that they attract any attention; so that their being recorded depends even more upon location than upon actual force.

All the phenomena of volcanoes and earthquakes point us to one conclusion: that the earth may in time become as dead and deserted as the moon. The telescope shows the latter to be thickly dotted with volcanic craters, whose immensity, in comparison with those of our own globe, is astounding; yet all are extinct. It is not probable that the interior of our earth is molten; and we have seen that fractures and subsidence, caused by gradual cooling, seem to be the main cause of the local phenomena of volcanoes and earthquakes. As the ages roll on, these weak places may become still higher; and the belt of warm climate will grow narrower and narrower. Cooling at the present rate, 2,500,000,000 years will be necessary to render it as lifeless as the moon.

“As the cooling progresses, a sheet of snow and ice, from north and south, will descend from the mountains upon the table-lands and valleys, driving before it life and civilization, and covering forever the cities and nations that it meets on its passage. All life and human activity will press insensibly toward the inter-tropical zone. The great cities of the world will fall asleep in succession under their eternal shroud. During very many ages, equatorial humanity will undertake arctic expeditions to find again under the ice the place of Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, and Marseilles. The sea-coasts will have changed, and the geographical map of the earth will have been transformed. No one will live and breathe, except in the equatorial zone, up to the day when the last family, nearly dead with cold and hunger, will sit on the shore of the last sea, in the rays of the sun, which will thereafter shine here on a dead, cold earth, revolving, like a satellite moon, about a sun unseen by mortal eyes, and distributing to an extinguished planet a useless heat.” So will end the history of our planet and its great disasters.

“All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The sun himself must die, Before this mortal shall assume Its immortality! I saw a vision in my sleep, That gave my spirit strength to sweep Adown the gulf of time! I saw the last of human mold That shall creation’s death behold, As Adam saw her prime!

The sun’s eye had a sickly glare, The earth with age was wan; The skeletons of nations were Around that lonely man! Some had expired in fight--the brands Still rusted in their bony hands. In plague and famine some! Earth’s cities had no sound or tread, And ships were drifting with the dead, To shores where all was dumb!

Yet prophet-like that lone one stood With dauntless words and high, That shook the sere leaves from the wood As if a storm passed by! Saying, We are twins in death, proud Sun, Thy face is cold, thy race is run, ’Tis Mercy bids thee go: For thou ten thousand years Hast seen the tide of human tears That shall no longer flow.”