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.