The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-07 00:00:00

THE' EARTHQUAKES.

Another earthquake occurred at San Francisco
on the 22d, following the 13 shocks of the preced-
ing day. Though the damage is small, the people,
as can readily be believed, are in an excited state,
and at night throng the streets. The tidal waves
which rolled from end to end of the Pacific, just as
a placid pool is disturbed by a stone, the circling
wavelets running over its surface, so the waves
caused by the terrible convulsion which shook down
the cities of Peru have reached the uttermost ends
of that vast ocean. From California the news of
this tidal phenom noo rciachel England long bz-
fore its cause was explained, then came the account
from the Sandwich Islands and from China, and
lastly from New Zealand. What the effects were
of these monster billows on their resistless pro-
gress we will never learn. Tradition may tell future
generations, of islands scarcely now known being
submerged and races annihil tted. Vast numbers
of the Pacific groups are of coral formation and
little elevated above the sea; and a painful picture
is presented to our mind when we think of
the fato of those who dwelt on such. The
Chatham Islands, of which we can learn SDIIIO-
- from their close proximity to New Zea-
land, suffered fearfully, but what would be the
suffering of a community accustomed to a stormy
region with back country where many could escape,
compared with the annihilation of the inhabitants
of many sunny groups, over which the waves must
have rolled from end to end. Their magnitude too
seems to have dwindled ere reaching New Zealand,
as for instance the rise and fall at Wellington,
which stands in a land-locked harbour, did not ex-
ceed the ordinary rise and ebb of the tide. The
town runs along a beach, at the foot of a hill, and
would have been submerged had the rise been con-
siderable. had the town been open to the inward
roll of the Pacific the case would have been similar
to that of the Chatham Islands. A sharp rattle of ,
an earthquake, added to the fright the phenomenon
caused in New Zealand. If Paddy has not mis
taken the grunt of his pig for an earthquake and
furnished details out of his fertile imagination,
a shock has been felt in Ireland, and now the con-
vulsion has approached so near those who live in
the houses one-brick thick of London, estimate what
must be the force of a shock to bring down, like a
pack of cards, a large portion of the metropolis.
By the last West India steamer news was received
from Mexico that "Ixtaccihuate, one of the Puebla
volcanoes which had been so long silent, woke up
on the 21st of July last. A crater burst open, from
which there issued with great force a column of air
mingled with water, mud, and enormous masses of
rock. It may be supposed that, a passage being
now opened up, we shall soon have an eruption on
a grand scale. Ixtaccihuate (the white woman)
has from time immemorial preserved the silence in
character with the shrouded figure which its snowy
outline represents, and the above fact is another
illustration of the unwonted volcanic activity which
in other parts of the American continent has re-
cently produced. such lamentable results." Tele-
grams were received at New York on Thureday,
which say that the town of Saublas, on the east
coast of Mexico, has been greatly damaged by a
heavy gale and a tidal wave which washed over the
town. Four deaths are reported.