storm and the flood, the famine and the pestilence for three thousand years, and recognize in each the operation of law, and against each may take precautions; but the earthquake, absolutely beyond control, is to them inexplicable by natural causes, and any attempt to explain it is resented. They know the quicksand in which the victim, erect, vigorous, in full possession of his faculties, stares his fate in the face; stands for hours with death grinning from the sand at his feet, as it slowly drags him down; but this fearful opening of the soil, that in an instant swallows young and old, rich and poor, the loved and hated, the city and the castle—it can only be the “wrath of God!” So to the Jew was the fall of Sodom.
Not a single agent of nature can equal it in sudden destruction. It comes and it goes in a few seconds; almost ere you are aware of its presence it has claimed its thousands. There is no escape; no ruin so absolute; no desolation so pitiful; no death so remorseless. You stand chatting with a friend, the earth shakes, gapes, and the friend at your side finds a grave in the foundations of the earth. “Two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left.”
“Think ye that those twelve on whom the tower of Siloam fell were sinners above all that are in Jerusalem? I tell you nay.”
So, as we have already seen, the phenomena of earthquakes are as clearly under the domination of law as any other forces of nature. We know the forces that produce them, and though we can not tell with certainty what combination of them existed at the location of any particular shock. We can not hope to control the causes, but we can to a large extent avert the seriousness of the results. With this in view, we can consider seriously the extent of the ravages of this strange destroyer, without considering them as direct visitations upon the sins of a people.
Such views as those of the Greeks, however, have been common among all Christian nations of non-Saxon origin, and still prevail to no small extent. But the peculiar sense of personal responsibility and power that belongs to the Teuton, Scandinavian and Saxon stock has given a different impress to British and American ideas. Perhaps, too, the fact that Britons and Americans have suffered less from earthquakes than many others, has gone far to modify the trend of their thought. Be that as it may, the dominant element of the race—reverence, awe, and with common sense and a dash of contempt for those of more superstitious disposition, may be found in the old hunter’s comment on the outburst of Cosequina: “What was the meaning of those shakes in New Granada a month agone? Natur’ don’t mostly toss about this big earth just for sport and idleness; there’s a meaning and a reason and a secret in every movement she makes. But eighty earthquakes in twenty-four hours aren’t sent just to scare a pile of Nicaraguan Greasers. Guess earthquakes don’t take no more regard of Greasers than of other big folks!”
So long as superstitious ideas prevail among a multitude of people, it is not surprising that they find portentous signs in earth and sky betokening the near approach of the dread visitation. This is naturally increased by the desire to have due warning. The ancient Greeks were especially anxious in this regard. So we find one of their grave geographers, Pausanias, declaring that earthquakes are preceded by unusual rain or drought, eclipses, sudden disappearing of springs, great hurricanes, fiery apparitions in the sky with long trains of light, and the appearance of new stars in the sky. The people of Mendoza, South America, when overtaken by a great earthquake, suddenly remembered that but a short time before, a flaming meteor of a brilliant blue color and awful appearance had hissed past their town. So before the Riobamba earthquake, a brilliant shower of meteors took place; so, also, at the Cumana earthquake. At other times the weather has been unusually rainy; again, long drought has prevailed. Sometimes springs have become suddenly muddy, and cleared as suddenly after the shock. Again, muddy streams have become clear till the shock passed. Again, we are told that all animals manifest great fear before the earthquake comes; that lizards, snakes, mice and rats rush from their holes in terror. Doubtless many smaller animals perceive tremors of the earth that pass unnoticed by men; but as to the efficacy of such signs in general, it is suggestive of Hotspur’s reply to Glendower. The fiery Welshman, endeavoring to prove that he, too, is some great one, asserts that at his nativity
“The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets: and at my birth,
The frame and huge foundations of the earth
Shaked like a coward.”
To which Hotspur answers:
“Why, so it would have done,
At the same season if your mother’s cat
Had kittened, and yourself had ne’er been born!”