The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-09-19 00:00:00

16,

c'toarlyibg 0115crinr.

SAT URDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 18C8.

THE EARTHQUAKE IN SOUTH

AMERICA.

We elsewhere give RS full en acconnt as can be
obtained of as torrible a calamity as has ever
happened in modern times. It will be seen with
painful interest that a enceession of e,rthqoakes
from the 13th to the 111th of August has resulted
in the destruction of several towns, some of
them large, prosperous, end thickly populated :
and in the loss of property to the amount of .
some sixty millions sterling; but the loss of
human life has been more awful still. One ac-
count says, that from thirty to sixty thousand
persons have perished. Earth, fire, and water
combined, as it were, to wreak fury on the un-
happy inhabitants of this frequently disturbed
region. Ships were wrecked, cities shaken into
rains, an immense conflagration ratted at Callao,
and devastation and havoc spread over at least

1,2 i 10 !Ili leg.
The narrative which we give will be read with

solemn and saddened feelitTgs by all who have a
heart to feel for the calamities of our common
nature, but it is not for pen to describe the awful
details of a catastrophe including the loss of so
many thousands of our fellow creatures, thus
hurried into eternity with but little warning;
and it is beyond the powers of the human mind
to grasp the full extent of the accumulated
misery thus falling on the devoted land.
Alike in their suddenness and in their extent
of havoc, eartliqn aces have always been the
most calamitous of the physical scourges that
have afflicted mankind. 'Whether from the
commencement of the world, fire, or floods, or
earthquakes have made most victims in total,
we leave to the learned to decide, if it be in their
power ; but great earthquakes are more promi-
nent in history than either great floods or great
fires, taken in connection with the loss of life
and prop •rty on each occasion. Volumes might
be written with the merest outliaeof those con-
. _

~.. .
vulsions of the bowels of the earth, which we I
call by the significant name of earthquake ; and '
the list of es en the most famous eottlivakes is
a very long one. We will take a retrospective
glance at a few only among the latter, which
may offer materials for reflection in connection
with the sad news of the day.
In the year 742, there was an earthquake in
Aria which destroyed five hundred towns, and
the loss of life was beyond all calculation. In
1137, Catania in Sicily was overturned, and fif-
teen thousand persons were buried in the ruins.
, \t Naples, in 1456, forty thousand people pa.-
ished. In 1531, several towns in Portugal were
engulphed with their inhabitants, and thirty
thousand people perished in Lisbon alone. In
1569. several cities in Japan were made ruins
and many thousands of people perished. The
most destructive earthquake that ever happened
we believe, so far as human life was concerned,
. was that which occurred in China, in 1662, when
I it is said that three hundred thousand people
I were buried in Pekin alone. In 1693, an earth-
quake occurred in Sicily which destroyed more
than ona hundred thousand lives, fifty-four towns
and three hundred villages beinj wholly or par-
tially destroyed. In 1726, Palermo was nearly
destroyed, and six thousand persons perished.
Five years after another awful earthquake hap-
pened in China, arid once again Pesin suffered
a frightful loss to her population, this time one
hundred thousand persons falling a prey to the
convulsions of Nature. Lima and Callao (where
a terrible conflagration has now happened during
the earthquakes) were demolished in 1746, and
eighteen thousand persons were killed. What
is familiarly known as the great earthquake at
Lisbon happened in 1755, the town being almost
wholly destroyed, and fifty thousand persons
losing their lives ; but it is recorded that this
earthquake extended over five thousand miles,
and that in Spain, Morocco, Madeira, &c., there
was great loss of life and property. No less
than forty thousand persons were killed in an
earthquake which occurred in 1783, and which
laid waste several towns in Italy and Sicily. In
1794, ten thousand persons lost their lives in
Turkey. In 1797, the whole country between
Santa Fe and Panama was destroyed, and forty
thousand people killed. At Naples again hi
1805, twenty thousand people lost their lives.
Several villages, with six thousand people were
destroyed in Spain in 1829. In 1851, several
towns in Italy, Spain, and Greece, were des-
troyed and many thousands of lives were sac-
rificed.
From the long catalogue of earthquakes we
have culled but a few of the most remarkable,
but they will serve to show what an awful scourge
has thus afflicted humanity, and that the calam-
ity which is now the topic of the day is by no
means exceptional. It becomes us to lout: at !
such awful facts with reverence and with awe.
From a moral point of view, they may be par-
tially inexplicable, bat we may well ask ourselves
" Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right 2"
Not from a physical point of view has science
yet determined the cause of earthquakes.
'Whether water, fire, vapour, or electricity be the
cause, or whether any combination of these pro.
duces these convulsions of the earth, are still
disputed points; and although the laws of nature
which may produce earthquakes may be well un-
derstood, the primary and secondary causes