The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1869-05-07
VOL. XIII.---NO. 10.
The Eayfhguake Region.

VIII the earthquake in all its terrors
ever visit us2 Will our cities ever be
shorn of their prosperity, reduced to heaps
of crumblihg ruins, and made as desolate
as deserted Messinal Must our teeming
ports be swept by great tidal waves, while
their gay and busy throngs are hurried far
into the deep, and sea monsters sport in
their shattered mansions Is New York
ever to be hrmbled as was commercial
Lisbon In the last century, or Pittsburg
and Chicago tossed from their foundations
like the wealthy cities of the Calabrian
plain2 Must San Francisco become new
Callao, and sink into mound of sand be-
meath the raging waves Of the treacherous
Pacifics FIVE have ever for moment
entertained such fears, history at once reas-
sures u.s. History, mother of science, points
to the unchanging unity of nature. Man
and his creations vary, fade, and die
Great empires fall before moral revolutions;
wealthy cities sink into solitudes with the
revulsion of commerce and the alter
ations in the course of trade; nations that
were once strong in intellect and vigorous
with the element of progress have become
the prey of savages and barbarians; and
all that is human is liable to change
Not SO the Divine work. The laws Of ma
ture are immutable. From age to age the
monsoons have blown across the Indian
seas, and the Gulf stream pierced the At
lantic With its tepid wave; tire stars rise
and set as they did of old; the seasons
come with their wonted regularity, and
summer feeds us every year as it fed the
Assyrians and the Greeks; the ocean keeps
its appointed bounds; the tides ebb and
flow with calm morfotony and the great
sun, whether gas or fire, cloud or comet,
is ALWAYS the same to us. And hence
history assures US that even the terrible
earthquake is bound by the unchanging
laws of nature to a single path, from which
it is not permitted to diverge.
And history marks out upon the map
of the world where that path lies. 1t is
one so nicely defined and delicately drawn
as to produce the most striking distinc-
tions; yet it is as clear as the Gulf-stream and
regular as the monsoons. Rome and Ma
pies, for example, lie close to the path Of
the earthquake, and have been subject to
slight shocks for centuries, yet they are
probably as safe as London or Paris; Mes.
slna lies above the path, and has been torn
by frequent commissions. 1t winds sinu.
ously under the seas, visiting certain islands
with disaster and wholly sparing Others.
1t penetrates to the northern latitude Of
Nippon Kamchatka, and the Arctic noun
tains; it reaches to Lower California. Yet
San Francisco is as safe as Rome or Flor
ence, and the North Pacific shore as the
coast of England History, in fact, assures
us that ours is not of the lands of earth
quake that our exemption from its terrors
is as certain as that the seasons will not
vary or the summer fail to come; that ma
ternal nature has sheltered us from the des-
troyer that we may enjoy her gifts at leisure
and untold her vast resources by incessant
toll; and that He who holds the earthquake
in check has ordained that we may do his
work unimpeded by the perpetual horror
that broods over other lands r. ~
LAWRENCE, in Harper's Magazine.