A GLOOMY OUTLOOK.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1928, 10 August 1889, Page 3

A GLOOMY OUTLOOK.

4 correspondent of the Standard sends to that .journal the following cheerful information “ Perhaps some of your; readers may like to know that the present famine which is committing' such havoc in. many, parts of China belongs toj a cycle whiph was due last year, and which embraces the year a.d. 272, when the inhabitants of Britain ate the barks ot trees ; 446, at Constantinople and some other parts of the Turkish empire ; 747, in Wales; 1047, in Scotland, which lasted two years; 1336, in England ; and 1740, ditto, A volcanic cycle is due this year, and another one next year. The erupting cycle of this year is linked with the dreadful eruption of A,D. 79, which caused the destruction of Herculaneum, 685, 993,1306, 1536, 1712, <ko. An earthquake cycle is due in 1893, linked with the years A.D. 107, 528, 1081, 1249, 1456, the latter at Naples, when 40,000 persons perished ; 1755, in the island of Mitylene, in the Archipelago, when 2000 houses were overthrown, when considerable damage was done at Oporto, in Portugal, and at Seville, in Spain, but more particularly at Lisbon, where, in about eight minutes, most of the houses and 50,000 of the inhabitants were destroyed, and whole streets swallowed up. Its influence was felt for a distance of 5000 miles. A stormy cycle is also dae this year. The great storm of September 3rd, 1658 (the day that Oliver Cromwell died), so Violent and terrible that it extended all over Europe, is connected with this cycle. The periodicity of natural phenomena determines the influence which causes same.”