EARTHQUAKES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1122, 2 November 1883, Page 3

EARTHQUAKES.

[By Mnason'.] The recent c nvulsions from eai thquakes, and from eruptions ■ of volcapoH-, havmiunallv riven rise to imudi ill mission ui a geological niture anil in io e iiu.ni’ s of a religious character, eg eo al y amongst persona wlm aie continually looking about tor “ signs " in the earth anil heavens in harmony with their favourne tiled, y of a " second coming," that it may lie well to extract accounts of a few of these disturb ances in our glo-e, pissing by the cite s of Hereulameiim and I’ompei, to winch nur person d experiences of the pist f w months bear no comparison ; whilst they suggest that great, ‘ dissolutions have always molted the world’s history." I extract from Ur Hitchcock’s “ Religion of Urology,’’ elit., 1865 •* In the year 17. after hj ist, no less than thiit eiici ies of Asia Minor were overwhelm.al in a single night. .... Pre eminent n the list of tremendous citastrophes is tin city of Antioch, Imagine the mh ibi'a .ti oliliat great city, crowded with ktrangois on a festival occasion, sudden y arrested on a calm day by 'he earth heaving and rocking boiicatli their leet; and in a t-w moments two hundred and tifty thousand of them are buried by failing houses, or the earth opening and swallowing them up Such was the Scene presented m 526, and several times betore and since that period lias the like calamity fallen upon it, and twenty, forty, and sixty thousand of its irhabi ams have be n destroyed at each time. Think of the same destruction that came upon Lisbon in 1755. The sun had just dissipated ihe fog on a warm, calm morning, when suddenly the subb rranean thuudeiiug and heaving began, and in six minutes the ciiy was a heap of ruins, and (10,000 of the inhabitants were numbered among the dead. Hundreds ha 1 crowded upon a new quay surrounded by ves-els. In a minuie the earth opened beneath them, and the wharf, the vessels, and the crowd went down into its bosom, the gulf closed, the sea rolled over the spot, and no vestige of wharf, vessels, or mm ever floated to the surface! . . . Rischer, who was near, gives a thrilling account of the destruction of Euphemia m Calabria, a city of about 501.0 inhabitants, in the year 1038 After some time,” he gays, “ the viu.it nt paroxysms of the earth quake ceasing. I stood up, and turning my eyes to look for Euphcra a sasv only a frightful black cloud. We waited till it had passe l away, when nothing hut a dismal and putrid lake was to he seen where the city once s'ood ! . . . In like manner in 1692 did Pivt Bizal, in the \V. st Indies, sink beneath the waters, with nearly all its inhabitants. Still more awful, although usually less destructive, is often the scene presenrd by a volcanic eruption. Let the r- a er ima guie himself, for instance, upon one of the wide elevated plains of Mexico, far from the fear of volcanoes. The earth begins to quake under your feet, and the most alarming subterranean noises a imonish you of a mighty power within the earth that must soon have vent. Yon flee to the surrounding mountains in time to look hack and see 10 square miles of the plain swell up, like a bladder, tn the height of 300 ft, while numerous smaller ones rise from the surface still higher, and emit sin ke ; anil in their mibsc six mountains are thrown up tn the height, some of them at least, of 1000 ft, and pour melted lava, turning rivers out of their course, and spreading terrific di solution over a late fertile plain, an I for ever excluding its former inhaliitan s. Such was the eruption by which Mount. Jorullo, in Mex co, was suddenly thrown up in 1756. . . . Bill more terrific have

been some of the eruptions in Iceland. In 17S !, earthquakes of trememlous power shook the whole island, an 1 flames hurst f nth from the ocean. In June these cease I and Shapter Jokal ops 0 i i's volcanic mouth ; nor did it close till it had poured forth two streams of lava, one Crt miles inn l .', and 12 mi’es broad, and the other 40 tildes long, and seven broad, and both with an average thickness of 10:) t. During that summer the inhabitants guv the sun no more, an ! all Europe was

cov.-i—d with a haze In 1772 around the Payandayang, one of the loftiest mountains in J iva, no ie-s than 40 vil'ages were reposing in ptao;; and in August of that year a reaiai liable Inm nous cloud envc'opi g the top aroused the inhabitants from their seomity, but it was so late, for at once the mountain began to sink into the earth, and soon it had disappeared with the 40 villages and n.ost of the inhabitant, over a space of 15 miles long, and six broad S ill more exr.raordinaiy, the most remarkable on record, wasan eruption in Sumbawa, one of the Molucca islands. It began on the 3rd of April, and did notcea-e till Ju 3. The explosions were heard in one direction, 970 miles, and in another, 720 miles. 80 heavy was the fall of ashes at the distance of 40 miles that hunts s were crushed and destroyed. The floating cinders in the ocean, hundreds of miles distant, were 2ft, think, and vessels were forced through them with dilliculty. The darkness in Java, 300 miles distant, was deeper than the blackest nighf ; and, finally, out of the 12.000 inhabitants of the ’shm 1, cdy 20 survived the c itastrophe.” The e two lat'er ca-cs. it will be seen, refer to the very districts in which the frightful- catastrophe of last month occurred, the full ext ut of which desolation we have oot ye.t heard. Cur alarmists mav well ponder t,be magnitude of the events of the past —Launceston Telfijrnjth.