Wyoming democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Wyoming Co., Pa.) 1867-1940, 1868-12-09
Earthquakes in History.

/ Daring the first half of this century 3, 24O
of these visitations were noticed, or about
one every week. In Europe, during the
last ten years, there have been 800 earth
quakes, or one every nine days. At the
commencement of ths fifteenth century,
only 750 of these shocks had found place
in history. During the next 300 years, g.
S04 earthquakes are recorded, or almost
four times as many as during all the prece-
ding ages. From these facts it has been in
! ferred that, whatever may be the origin of
these upheavings of the crust of the earth,
the phenomena are greatly increasing in
number and their causes in violence.
Among the earliest earthquakes reported
are those by which the famous Herculane-
UNI and Pompeii were destroyed in the
year 50. Fifty-two years after this, Antioch
in Syria was almost entirely destroyed,
the calamity occurring just at the time the
| Emperor Trojan, was on a visit to the
place. 458 it was again visited by an earth
quake, and again in 526, the number of
persons perishing in the ruins on this lat
ter occasion being estimated at a quarter of
a million
1902, Port Royal the capital of Jamaca,
was entirely submurged by the force of an
earthquake, that swallowed up over a thous-
and acres. and drove ships so far inland that
they foated above the buried city.
In 1922, an entire volcano sunk into the
earth i'll the island of Jave, carrying with it
| forty villages, the mountain itself which
was fifteen miles long and six broad, the
accompanying hamlets and their 2S57 in
| habitantS
On the first of November, ITS, occurred
the memorable earthquake of Lisbon by
which $1,000 persons perished in the twink
lin of an eye. Here, also, wast the great til
dnl wave seen at an altitude of fifty feet
quake was the sinking of the city quay
| This had just been constructed of marble
at an immense expense, and to it, as to
last refuge, fled thousands of the hapless
ID WdIuInR,
the earth suddenly opened to receive it, and
after sucking in the mass closed over it, as
not a single body of all the thousands that
went down, nor the least spar or ark from
any of the ships near by that were sucked
into the chasm, ever came to the top The
weter there is near six hundred fathoms
deep, at an unknown distance beneath the
bottom repose the hapless Lisbonese This
Lisbon earthquake, Humboldt estimates,
affected a portion of the earth four times as
large as Europe, and was felt in the Alps,
on the coast of Sweden, in the West Indies,
on lake Ontario, and along the coast of
| Massachusetts.
1911, the earthquakes of the Mississippi,
severest at New Madrid, Missouri, shook
the ground TO many days, and alternately
raised and depressed it here and there, the
latter sections forming section called the
sunken country to this day.
! On the Goth March, 1912, a violent thun-
der storm, with incessant flashes, was OBJ
served by the people of New Madrid, and
at the same time the city of Caracas, in
South America, was laid in ruins, twelve
thousand of its people perishing
The great eruption of Vesuvius, in 1857,
with accompanying earthquakes, will also
be remembered as taking human life, vari-
ously estimated at from $4,000 to 40, 900
| lives
In 1853, June 10Th, the Valley of Mexico
was also devastated by one of these vista
tions demohshing houses through its
length and destroying the costly acqueduct
supplying the city with water.
March y, 1859, Quito, in Ecuador, was
nearly destroyed by an earthquake, and
! thousands of lives were lost.