The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-11-19

Alarming Earthquakes I'm Mexico.
We have the Intelligence, by way Of San
Francisco, that destructive storms of wind and
rain had swept over Northwestern Mexico.
doing immense damage and causing great suf
fering and loss of life; that the city or
Alamos, in the State Of Sonora, with popu-
lation of seven Thousand, had been destroyed
by floods and whirlwnds; that Loreto and
some smaller towns in the peninsula Of Lower
California were entirely demolished; that
whole herds of cattle had been swept away
and groves Of oranges and other crops totally
ruined, and that the Yaqui and Mayo rivers in
Sonora were swollen to height of forty feet
rivers which, during their long dry summer,
in their course to the California Gulf, are alb
sorbed in the intervening desert sands. In
other parts Of Mexico, meantime, the inhabi-
tants Of towns and villages had been frightened
from their houses by earthquakes, thus show
ing the elements under the earth as well AS
the elements above it to be in dreadful
commotion.
In both hemispheres, but especially upon
this Continent and among the adjacent
islands, these visitations of tornadoes,
floods and earthquakes, with their tidal
waves and assures emitting gas, fire,
smoke, steam and boiling water, are
becoming alarmingly frequent. Last autumn
they had them all in high revelry at st.
Thomas and the neighboring islands, and such
terrific hurricanes Of rattling hail along the
southern frontier Of Texas as were never
known there before back to the first occupa-
ton of the country by the Spaniards. This
year the line of operations Of these celestial
and subterranean phenomena appears to be
with the recurrence Of the meteors) along the
Pacific side Of the Continent, and may be traced
to the late disastrous commissions of the dry
land and the sea along the western coast OF
South America. Violent storms follow in the
track Of earthquakes, and such storms doubt
less result from the arrangement Of the atmos-
pheric equilibrium by the disturbing gases
and electrical forces arising from these sub
terranean outbreaks.
1t is so remarkable, at all events that this
year, as last year, we have an eruption OF
Vesuvius simultaneously with these shakinga
near the time of the earth's collision with that
strange nebulous formation in the heavens
which gives US those wonderful metcorio
showers-it is so remarkable, we say, that oil
these things should come together that wa
cannot resist the conclusion that these meteors,
earthquakes and volcanoes have much to do
with the unparalleled hurricanes and inunda-
tons all over the world Of these latter days.
A GREAT OvERsIGHT.-It is said that Gene
raj Grant did not consent to go to the New
York lawyers dinner until assured that neither
McCulloch, Welles nor Randall, of the Cabinet,
would be there. 1t is supposed that as they
had testified against him in the matter Of the
ant-Johnson-Stanton imbroglio Grant did
not want to see them. But that should not
have shut out Mr.. Seward. He testified no
thing to the prejudice Of Grant in that Stanton
matter, for, like the fox in the fable, he had
bad cold, and could not remember what Grant
had said or what johnson had said, or any
body else. Why, then, was the Secretary Of
State left out at this dinner? We don't know.