While we have noticed only the destruction wrought at
CYCLONE, FIRE AND EARTHQUAKE AT ST. THOMAS.
St. Thomas, this storm was general throughout the Antilles. In the Bahamas, it was less violent, they lying on the outskirts of the storm. Millions of dollars worth of property—merchandise, vegetation, houses, and vessels—were destroyed, and thousands of lives lost.
Thirty years later, St. Thomas again suffered from the combined forces of storm and earthquake; and the damage was greater, because the earthquake, with its sea-wave, came a few days after the storm, as the work of restoration was well under way, and so involved a second prostration of the resources of the people. Moreover, the town had grown considerably in thirty years, and there was much more valuable property to damage. Fifteen large steamers and many smaller vessels were driven on the shore by the storm: while the sea-wave, a few days later, found the port again filled with vessels of different nations. It overleaped the sentinel hills at the entrance of the bay, and swept with tremendous force upon the city, drowning with its terrible roar, the despairing cry of the sailors; then suddenly retired with the wreck of the city to its dark abyss. The batteries of heavy guns at the entrance of the harbor were swept away. A few injured vessels wallowed on the waves, but most had been swallowed up and left no trace behind.
While there is always deep sympathy for those who suffer such calamities, yet it must remain of the type bestowed upon sufferers in Arctic expeditions. The character of the climate is well known, and the whole matter resolves itself into a question of the risk one is willing to run. There is no blind chance in control of these movements. The cyclone frequents only certain regions, and its habit and power is understood. While we pity the sufferers, we can not assert that the scourge is mysterious or unaccountable, any more than we find mystery in the fact of eternal snow in the Polar world.