PHENOMENA AND PROBABLE CAUSES.
These violent convulsions that from time to time shake and rend the earth, are among the most terrible calamities that come upon men, causing immense destruction of property and of life. Their occurrence is often most unexpected.
Villages, cities, and whole districts of densely populated countries sink beneath a sudden stroke, overwhelmed in a common ruin. If any warning is given, the alarming premonitions rather confuse and paralyze effort, because, with the appalling certainty of disaster, there is nothing to show in what form it will come, or to indicate a place of refuge.
While the recent horrors at Ischia and in Java excite much painful interest in the public mind, they naturally recall similar scenes of other years. Earthquakes of less destructive violence are very frequent, and suggest greater power than is exerted. Even the slight trembling, or vibratory motions, that produce no material injury, remind us of the prodigious forces that may at any moment burst their barriers with great violence.
In every perceptible shock we feel the mighty pulsations of the agitated molten mass whose waves dash against the walls that restrain them; or the struggling of compressed elastic gases, that must have vent, though their escape rend the earth. The crust between us and the seas of fire, whose extent no man knoweth, may be in places weakening, cut away, as the inner walls of a furnace by the molten metal; so the danger may be nearer and greater than is known or feared. A devout man finds refuge and a comfortable assurance in the truth, “The Lord reigneth; in his hands are the deep places of the earth. The strength of the hills is his also.”
There are records of earthquakes more ancient than any books written by men. They antedate the earliest chapters of human history, and probably belonged to the pre-adamite earth. If no human ear heard their tread, the footprints are still visible. In all mountainous regions the evidence of their upheaval by some mighty force is too plain to be doubted. The marine fossils found far up on their heights, the position of strata, often far from horizontal, with immense fissures, and chasms of unknown depth, all tell of disturbances that may have taken place before the historic period. If in those primitive times mountains were literally carried into the midst of the sea, and vast tracts of the ocean’s bed shoved up thousands of feet, it was only a more terrible display of the gigantic powers still in action, and of whose workings the centuries have borne witness.
No country seems to have escaped these terrible visitations, though some suffer more than others. Volcanoes being of the same origin, they are more frequent in volcanic regions, and perhaps by their shocks the seething caldrons have been uncovered.
The same localities, as Southern Italy, and the neighboring island of Sicily, have, from a remote period, at times been terribly shaken. From 1783 to 1786 a thousand shocks were made note of, five hundred of which are described as having much force. Lyell considers them of special importance, not because differing from like disturbances in other places, but because observed and minutely described by men competent to collect and state such physical facts in a way to show their bearing on the science of the earth. The following, collected from Lyell, Gibbon, Humboldt, and the encyclopædias, are facts respecting some of the principal earthquakes on record. Their statements, much condensed, are not given in chronological order, but as we find them:
In 115, of the Christian era, Antioch in Syria, “Queen of the East,” beautiful in itself, and beautiful for situation, a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, was utterly ruined by earthquake. Afterward rebuilt, in more than all its ancient splendor, by Trajan, the tide of life and wealth again flowed into it, and for centuries we read of no serious disasters of the kind. All apprehension of danger removed, the people became famous for luxurious refinements, and, strangely enough, seem to have united high intellectual qualities with a passionate fondness for amusements. In 458 the city was again terribly shaken, and twice in the sixth century. Each time the destruction was nearly complete; but each time, in less than a century, the city was restored again, but only to stand until 1822, and from that overthrow it has never recovered, being now a miserable town of only six thousand inhabitants. The destruction of five populous cities, on one site, involved a fearful loss of life. Probably more than half a million thus perished. The most destructive earthquake in that, or any other locality, of which we find any mention, was in 562. An immense number of strangers being in attendance at the festival of the Ascension, added to the multitudes belonging to the city. Gibbon estimates that two hundred and fifty thousand persons were buried in the ruins.
Among the earliest accounts of earthquakes having particular interest, is the familiar one of that which destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii in the year 63—about sixteen years before those cities were buried in scoria and ashes from Vesuvius.
Of modern earthquakes three or four are here mentioned as presenting some interesting phenomena. That of Chili, in 1822, caused the permanent elevation of the country between the Andes and the coast. The area thus raised is estimated at one hundred thousand square miles, and the elevation from two to seven feet. Shore lines, at higher levels, indicate several previous upheavals of the same region, along about the same lines. The opposite of this, a depression of land, was occasioned in the island of Jamaica in 1692, when Port Royal, the capital, was overwhelmed. A thousand acres or more thus sank in less than one minute, the sea rolling in and driving the vessels that were in the harbor over the tops of the houses.
The earthquake of New Madrid, below St. Louis, on the Mississippi, was in 1811, and interesting as an instance of successive shocks, and almost incessant quaking of the ground for months, and at a distance from any volcano. The agitation of the earth in Missouri continued till near the time of the destruction of the city of Caracas, in South America, and then ceased. One evening, about this time, is described by the inhabitants of New Madrid as cloudless, and peculiarly brilliant. The western sky was a continual glare from vivid flashes of lightning, and peals of thunder were incessantly heard, apparently proceeding, as did the flashes, from below the horizon. Comparatively little harm was done in Missouri, but the beautiful city of Caracas, with its splendid churches and palatial homes, was made a heap of ruins, beneath which twelve thousand of its inhabitants were buried. Just how these events were related we know not. Whether the same pent-up forces that were struggling in vain to escape in the valley of the Mississippi, found vent in that distant locality, God only knows. The supposition allowed may account for the relief that came to the greatly troubled New Madrid. The evils they dreaded came but in part—enough only to suggest the greater perils they escaped. Over an extent of country three hundred miles in length fissures were opened in the ground through which mud and water were thrown, high as the tops of the trees. From the mouth of the Ohio to the St. Francis the ground rose and fell in great undulations. Lakes were formed and drained again, and the general surface so lowered that the country along the White River and its tributaries, for a distance of seventy miles, is known as “the sunk country.” Flint, the geographer, seven years after the event, noticed hundreds of chasms then closed and partially filled. They may yet, in places, be traced, having the appearance of artificial trenches.
Fissures are occasionally met in different parts of the country, which extend through solid rock to a great depth. “The Rocks” at Panama, N. Y., have been elsewhere described, and furnish a profitable study.
A more remarkable chasm of this kind extends from the western base of the Shawangunk Mountain, near Ellenville, Ulster County, N. Y., for about a mile to the summit. At first one can easily step across the fissure, but further up it becomes wider, till the hard vertical walls of sandstone are separated by a gorge several feet wide, and of great depth. At the top an area of a hundred acres or more is rent in every direction, the continuity of the surface being interrupted by steps of rocks, presenting abrupt walls. The gorge traced up the mountain becomes a frightful abyss, more than a hundred feet wide. Among the loose stones at the bottom large trees are growing, whose tops scarce reach half way to the edge of the precipice. Most such disruptions of rocks and mountains were doubtless caused by earthquakes at some unknown period.
The great earthquake at Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, was in 1755. “The ominous rumbling sound below the surface was almost immediately followed by the shock which threw down the principal part of the city; in the short space of six minutes, it is believed, 60,000 perished. The sea rolled back, leaving the bar dry, and then returned, in a great tidal wave, fifty feet, or more, in height. The mountains around were shaken with great violence, their rocks rent, and thrown in fragments into the valley below. Multitudes of people rushed from their falling buildings to the marble quay, which suddenly sank with them, like a ship foundering at sea; and when the waters closed over the place no fragments of the wreck—none of the vessels near by, that were drawn into the whirlpool, and not one of the thousands of the bodies that were carried down ever appeared again. Over the spot occupied by the quay, the water stood six hundred feet deep; and beneath it, locked in fissured rocks, and in chasms of unknown depth, lie what was the life and wealth of the place, in the middle of the eighteenth century.”
Earthquakes, of especial interest, from their recent occurrence and destructive effects, are those of 1857-58, in the kingdom of Naples, and in Mexico; but we have not room to more than mention them. The past summer will be remembered as the period of at least two terrible disasters from earthquakes, in localities distant from each other. The first, July 28, was at Ischia, a beautiful island at the north entrance of the bay of Naples. The principal town, Cassamicciola, was mostly destroyed, and much injury done at other places. The town was a noted health resort, and it is feared many distinguished strangers perished in it. The shocks began in the night, when a majority of the citizens, who frequent such places, were in the theater, and the scene there was terrible. Lamps were overturned; clouds of dust arose, and then the walls of the building opened, and fell, giving no opportunity for escape. The ground opened in many places, and houses and their inhabitants were swallowed up. The hotel Picola Sentinella sank into the earth, with all its inmates. The number destroyed, first estimated at three thousand, was much larger, but how much is not yet certainly known. Years must elapse before the town is restored, when it will be with a new class of inhabitants.
The sad tidings of disaster in Italy were soon followed by still more startling intelligence from Java, where, as in regions bordering on the Mediterranean, earthquakes are not a new experience with the inhabitants. A recital of the calamities occurring in Java during the last century would make a gloomy chapter in history, suggesting the insecurity and transitory nature of all earthly possessions. The island is one of the largest and, commercially, most important, in the Indian archipelago, six hundred and sixty miles in length, and the width varying from forty to one hundred and thirty miles. It is densely populated, and governed by a Dutch viceroy. In the mountain range extending through the center, with a mean elevation of seven thousand feet, are many volcanoes; and earthquakes are of frequent occurrence, as in other volcanic regions. In 1878 record was made of some sixteen, in different parts of the island. One of the most famous, accompanied by a vast eruption of Papandayang, the largest of the volcanoes, took place a hundred years ago, overwhelming an area of a hundred square miles, and destroying three thousand people—the island at that time having fewer inhabitants. There were two similar eruptions from volcanoes at the same time, respectively one hundred and thirty-four and three hundred and fifty-two miles from Papandayang, suggesting the fact that the power of producing them, and the earthquakes, may operate through a field of vast extent, and breaks through where the barriers give way. It is safe to say both have the same origin.
Ischia and Java, though almost antipodes, are companions in disaster, and possibly felt the dashing of the same billows, striking with violence here or there, according as some mighty impulse drove them on. The great calamities of the past summer, besides their appeal to our humanity, will be of interest to scientific men, and may throw light on the relations of earthquakes and volcanoes, and their cause, after which they have been searching a good deal in the dark, and with results not yet satisfactory.
The accounts of the last fearful disaster are yet incomplete, and may not all be verified. The latest, and apparently most reliable reports, place it among the most terrible calamities known in the history of the race, since the deluge. The earth trembled and shook—rocks were rent—buildings tumbled in ruins. A large part of the city, full of wealth and life, sank out of sight. Tidal waves carried destruction along the coast. Volcanoes belched forth smoke, ashes and lava, overspreading fertile valleys; and when the sulphurous clouds that hung over them, black as night, were lifted, turbulent waters rolled over fifty square miles of pasture lands that the day before were covered with flocks, and the homes of men. It is estimated that seventy-five thousand people perished. It may be a few thousand less, or more, as there are yet no data from which to form more than a proximate estimate. The whole number will not be known till the graves and the sea give up their dead.
[LOW SPIRITS.]
By J. MORTIMER GRANVILLE.
There is enough in the daily experience of life to depress the feelings and rob the mind of its buoyancy, without having to encounter lowness of spirits as a besetting mental state or malady. Nevertheless, it so frequently assumes the character of an affection essentially morbid, attacks individuals who are not naturally disposed to despondency, and gives so many unmistakable proofs of its close relations with the health of the physical organism, that it must needs be included in the category of disease. The constitutional melancholy which distinguishes certain types of character and development, is a setting in the minor key rather than depression. Within the compass of a lower range, individuals of this class exhibit as many changes of mood as those whose temperament is, so to say, pitched higher, and who therefore seem to be capable of greater elation.
It is important to ascertain at the outset whether a particular person upon whom interest may be centered is not naturally characterized by this restrained or reserved tone of feeling! Unhealthy conditions of mind are generally to be recognized by the circumstance that they offer a contrast to some previous state. The movable, excitable temperament may become fixed and seemingly unimpressionable, the self-possessed begin to be irritable, the calm, passionate. It is the change that attracts attention, and when low spirits come to afflict a mind wont to exhibit resilience and joyousness, there must be a cause for the altered tone, and prudence will enjoin watchfulness. Mischief may be done unwittingly by trying to stimulate the uncontrollable emotions.
There are few more common errors than that which assumes lowness of spirits to be a state in which an appeal should be made to the sufferer. We constantly find intelligent and experienced persons, who show considerable skill in dealing with other mental disorders and disturbances, fail in the attempt to relieve the pains of melancholy. They strive by entreaty, expostulation, firmness, and even brusqueness, to coerce the victim, and prevail upon him to shake off his despondency. They urge him to take an interest in what is passing around, to bestir himself, and put an end to his broodings. This would be all very well if the burden that presses so heavily on the spirit simply lay on the surface, but the lowness of which I am speaking is something far deeper than can be reached by “rallying.” It is a freezing of all the energies; a blight which destroys the vitality, a poison which enervates and paralyzes the whole system.
It is no use probing the consciousness for the cause while the depression lasts—as well look for the weapon by which a man has been struck senseless to the earth, when the victim lies faint and bleeding in need of instant succor. If the cause were found at such a moment, nothing could be done to prevent its further mischief. Supposing it to be discovered that the malady is the fruit of some evil-doing or wrong management of self, the moment when a crushed spirit is undergoing the penalty of its error is not that which should be selected for remonstrance. It is vain to argue with a man whose every faculty of self-control is at its lowest ebb. The judgment and the will are dormant. The show of feeling made by the conscience in the hour of dejection is in great part emotional, and the purposes then formed are sterile. The tears of regret, the efforts of resolve, elicited in the state of depression, are worse than useless; they are like the struggles of a man sinking in the quicksand—they bury the mind deeper instead of freeing it.
The state of mental collapse must be allowed to pass; but here comes the difficulty; the moment reaction takes place, as shown by a slight raising of the cloud, it will be too late to interfere. The mind will then have entered on another phase not less morbid than the depression which it has replaced. There is no certain indication of the right moment to make the effort for the relief of a sufferer from this progressive malady. The way to help is to watch the changes of temperament narrowly, and, guided by time rather than symptoms, to present some new object of interest—a trip, an enterprise, a congenial task—at the moment which immediately precedes the recovery. The soul lies brooding—it is about to wake; the precise time can be foreknown only by watching the course of previous attacks; whatever engrosses the rousing faculties most powerfully on waking, will probably hold them for awhile. It is a struggle between good and healthy influences on the one hand, and evil and morbid on the other. If it be earnestly desired to rescue the sufferer, the right method must be pursued, and wrong and mischief-working procedures—among which preaching, persuading, moralizing, and rallying are the worst and most hurtful—ought to be carefully avoided. When the thoughts are revived and the faculties rebound, they must be kept engaged with cheering and healthful subjects.
There is no greater error than to suppose good has been accomplished when a melancholic patient has been simply aroused. The apparently bright interval of a malady of this class is even more perilous than the period of exhaustion and lowness. The moment the mind resumes the active state, it generally resumes the work of self-destruction. The worst mischief is wrought in the so-called lucid interval. The consciousness must be absorbed and busied with healthful exercise, or it will re-engage in the morbid process which culminates in depression. The problem is to keep off the next collapse, and this can be accomplished only by obviating the unhealthy excitement by which it is commonly preceded and produced. Healthy activity promotes nutrition, and replenishes the strength of mind and body alike; all action that does not improve the quality of the organ acting, deteriorates it and tends to prevent normal function.
[VEGETABLE VILLAINS.]
By R. TURNER.