These instruments have taught us that the minor tremors increase in number and intensity as any unusual disturbance of Vesuvius approaches; just as the Signal Service can detect the gathering of a storm ere it actually bursts. Remembering also Bravard’s warning of Mendoza, in the last chapter, it is clear that in certain regions such observations can be made of practical value to the people at large.
One of the most ingenious apparatus for observing the vibrations of the soil is that constructed by M. d’Abbadie, at his observatory near the Pyrenees. A conical cavity forty-six feet deep is excavated in the solid rock. At the bottom is a basin of mercury. A long-focus lens over this reflects upon the surface of the ground the image of the metal below. The slightest tremor is carefully examined by a microscope. In short, this ingenious Frenchman has applied the reflecting telescope to the observation of the interior of the earth.
After all, the chief precautions must be of a different type. As already noticed, long observation has taught the Japanese and others that their safety depends mainly upon the construction of houses of the lightest type; when the sea wave is more to be dreaded than the shock. This is the general principle of building now adopted in countries where earthquakes are frequent; and doubtless the earthquake is partially responsible for the fact that many intelligent savage races have made no progress in architecture.
It should be noted, however, that the ancients believed that deep wells were a safeguard against earthquakes; such is the expression of several ancient writers. And in this connection we may mention the remarkable case of Quito, in Ecuador. Here we have a city of magnificent cathedrals, public edifices, and other lofty buildings, which have not in three centuries been overthrown by an earthquake. Yet it lies on the plateau on which stood Riobamba, where such terrible destruction was wrought in 1794, and at the base of the great volcano of Pichincha. It has been shaken time and again more severely than towns in the vicinity that have been totally destroyed. Yet it remains intact, and the people have an indifference to earthquakes that is astonishing. They attribute their safety to the fact of having deep cellars under every house. When we remember that tropical races are not, as a rule, a cellar building people, it may be that the idea is worthy of serious consideration. But many idle races of the tropics might, in lower grounds, merely exchange the results of an occasional earthquake for malaria-breeding pools.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE REIGN OF LAW.
“Man is born on a battle-field. Round him to rend
Or resist, the dread Powers he displaces, attend
By the cradle which Nature, amid the stern shocks
That have shattered creation, and shapened it, rocks.
He leaps with a wail into being; and lo!
His own mother, fierce Nature herself, is his foe;
Her whirlwinds are roused into wrath o’er his head;
’Neath his feet roll her earthquakes; her solitudes spread
To daunt him; her forces dispute his command;
Her snows fall to freeze him; her suns burn to brand;
Her seas yawn to engulf him; her rocks rise to crush;
And the lion and leopard, allied, lurk to rush
On their startled invader. * * * * * * * *
Not a truth has to art or to science been given,
But brows have ached for it, and souls toiled and striven;
And many have striven, and many have failed,
And many died, slain by the truth they assailed.”
HE original condition of the human race was not one of knowledge. When the first man and the first monkey were created and finished, the monkey knew as much as the man. Both found themselves in a world of forces, of the nature of which, beyond what was revealed to their native instincts, they knew nothing at all. The man’s superiority lay not in knowledge, but in capacity to know.
Man learned the forces and facts of Nature by experience. He learned them at the cost to himself of fear and pain and toil and death. He plucked one fruit and found it wholesome; another, and found it bitter; another, and found it deadly. The surviving son learned to avoid the mistakes of his father.
Man was not long in gaining a knowledge of his environment, enough at least, if he would not be too venturesome, to conserve in some degree his happiness and life. He learned that fire will burn, that water will drown, that storms will blow, that floods will overwhelm, that winter will come, and that his life is dependent on continual quest and avoidance. But Nature held innumerable secrets which he did not know; many, which, even to-day, he has not learned. In proportion as he should become acquainted with these, he would be master of a situation, which, at the first, so nearly mastered him. He might acquire a magnificent fortune, if he would only work for it; accordingly, we are told that his Maker admonished him to “subdue and have dominion.”