The Express.
London, England, 1867-12-18 00:00:00

PIINCMCS.

Mr. Immo, A LITEZiiTiTiTION.—Atter which THE
COLLEE HAWN. Mews. Bonadialt, D. Hurray. E. Atkins, U.
Neville, J. G. Shore, H. Mellon, de Mrs. Bouclesalt, & Mimes
Harnett And ElsworlEy.—And NO. ONE HOUND THE IXIIINES.

r/IrtS ILyOfINe, NOTHING TO liiitaL Mr. Thorne and Mks
Ne• ton.—K IND TO A ?AULT. Imam. Fanelli, Belford, and
James Mesdames Johnstone Gwynn*. and Hughea.—And
WILLIAM TILL WITH A VINO/LAMM

EIATAWXIA.

TITS EVIVITS4I, WHO DID IT? Mears. Reynold', Cranford,
and Howe Mesdames Cocrtensy, liendenna, and Coveney
The New Britannia FeAtlval, 31r. E. Deane & lila' Natham—TlLE
DEVIL TO I'AY. lira Lana—THE DRUNILARLES CHILDREN.

HIGH WAS= AT LONDON 11NT7306.
TI DAY —Monsing. 711.........Afterm00n, 7h. 370.
NO-110AA0H—ItonsIng. 81. Dia..,_..Atteraoon Bh. 4

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18.

THE governorship of an island, which was the
great object of SaacHo PairiA's ambition, appears
to inflame as strongly the desires of the United
States. The real St. Thomas threatens, however,
to be a more embarrassing charge than the mythi-
cal Barataria. The Cabinet of Washington has
bought, and the Cabinet of Copenhagen by sold,
for hard cash, what, in the language of Mr. J. S.
MILL', philosophy, may be described as "a perms-
" nent possibility" of hurricanes and earthquakes.
Already the mail packet station which constitutes
the chief value of the island has been
removed to Jamaica. Its return to its old
quarters is very improbable. The geographi-
cal situation of St. Thomas and its capacious
bay, affording safe anchorage for two hundred
ship., give it special advantages as the centre of
the various linos of packet communication between
Europe, the larger West India Islands, Central
America, and British Guiana. But it lies in the
track of the hurricane, and at the heart of a vol-
canic region. The recent West India mails have
come burthened with tidings as mournful as those
which the messengers bore to Jos, one after the
other, in the days of his calamity. The news of
the hurricane of the 29th of October is followed
by the news of a series of earthquakes,
extending from the 18th to the 30th
of November. There is no reason to think that
the latest of these events which has been reported
is the last which has occurred. The mail
brings us news up to the 30th of November, but
the shocks, though abated in violence, still con-
tinued.

One of the most remarkable features of
the recent disturbances of nature is their
simultaneous, or nearly simultaneous, occur-
rence in distant parts of the globe. Within
three days after the Virgin Islands had been
devastated by the cyclone of the 29th of
October, a still more violent hurricane burst forth
at Calcutta, in which more than a thousand per-
sons perished, and which was as destructive of
cattle and crops, ships and houses, as of human
life. The storms on land and at sea
which have visited the British Islands belonged
to nearly the same period. The earth-
quake, or the series of earthquakes,
at St. Thomas were prostrating buildings,
and submerging streets, and driving away the
terror-stricken people, at the time when the harm-

less splendours of Vesnvius, whose days oinlis7hit:f
seem past, were drawing crowds of gazers from
Naples. The November meteors would have been
thought, in an earlier age, to show the sym-
pathy of the heavens with the perturbation of the
earth. Modern sciegge, as fearless as the just
and upright man of 111 Latin poet, endeavour
amid the confusion of the elements to find the laws
which rule their apparent disorder and determine
their periods.
An unusual circumstance in the earthquake at
St. Thomas was the absence of any symp-
tom of its approach. It came unannounced.
Ordinarily the quick perceptions of animals apprise
them of the coming perturbation ; and they exhibit
their terror and confusion in unwonted motions
and cries. The birds fly and the animals run
wildly about. The slower senses of men are im-
pressed with scarcely leas force. A vague dizzi-
ness and sickness beset them. Atmospheric
appearances, easily recognised by the practised eye,
present themselves. An unnatural stillness in the
air, and the fiery redness of the sun, are among
the heralds which the earthquake ordinarily sends
forth to announce its approach. The people of
St. Thomas were unwarned. At about three
o'clock on the afternoon of Monday, the I Bth of
November, " without anything in the atmosphere
" indicating • change, a whizzing and buzzing
" sound was heard, the earth shook and trembled
" and went like waves of the sea ; the offices,
" stores, and buildings adjoining the wharves
" waved to and fro as though they had been made
"of indiarubber." Commonly, while the atmo-
sphere immediately before the shock of an earth-
quake is still as death, the surface of any neigh-
bouring sea or lake is mysteriously disturbed. In
the harbour of St. Thomas, the telegraphic account
tells us, the ocean was unusually smooth until
after the shock of the earthquake, when a vast
body of water, of great height, was seen rolling
is, " like a wall of white glittering in the
" sun." Happily, its force was broken upon the
outer bays of the island, and when it reached the
harbour was so far spent as to flood only the