The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-07
THE EARTHQUAKE IN GREECE.

The cable announces that on Friday last q
terrible earthquake had been experienced
throughout the kingdom of Greece, by which
great damage was done in many places. The
only details of this catastrophe yet given us are
that the town of Sartoria was reduced to a heap
of rains, and that "a neighboring island disap-
peared at the time of the shock" The town
here spoken of is evidently the capital town of
the island of Santorin, no town of 'sartoria"
existing in Greece and ''the neighboring island
is probably either Therasia or Aspro-Nisi both
of which were formerly united with Santorin,
and both of which were separated from It, as
Pliny relates, by tremendous earthquake which
occurred in the year 236 before Christ.
Santorin and the islands in its vicinity have
long been known as the theatre of some of the
most curious and interesting geological pheno
mena of the globe. For now nearly two years
large portion of the island of Santorin ITSELF
on which the town of that name stands, or
rather stood, has been literally burning up with
subterranean fires. The flames burst out along
the sea-line of the island in 1868, and they have
never since ceased to rage extending their area
steadily, and presenting one of the most striking
and terrible spectacles in the world.
the mainland of Greece and from
Austria to observe this awful phenomenon, but
the dwellers in Santorin themselves, like the
residents of Tore del Greco, near Vesuvius,
had not suffered its fearful proximity to disturb
their devotion to the culture of their vineyards,
esteemed the best in the Grecian Archipelago,
even as those of the Vesuvius slope are reputed
the best of Southern Italy. Santorin, the south
ernmost of the famous group of islands known
as the Cyclades, lies about halfway between
the Morea and the island of Rhodes, and almost
due north of the town of Candia in Crete 1t
was known 10 the Phenicians, by whom it was
originally settled, the Beautiful, Calliste, and
the Round, Strongule, the latter name indicating
its form previous to the catastrophe by which,
as we have said the islets of Thrasia and OF
AsproNisi were detached from it more than
1000 years ago. Six centuries before Christ, it
had become powerful and populous enough to
found the Libyan city of Cyrene. In the third
century of cur era it was baptized by the Chris
tian name of Saint Irene, of which its modern
name of Santorin is corruption. Its area is
comparatively small, as it is only about forty
eight miles in circumference, but as its soil is
absolutely and entirely volcanic, it is
extremely fertile and has long been
famous for its wines: The vine occupies, in
deed, the attention of its inhabitants SO exclu-
sively that all the necessares of life have to be
brought to them from the neighboring islands,
upon which they are dependent even for their
supply Of drinking water. In its population of
some 13G00 souls are comprised some six or
seven hundred Catholics gathered around one
school of Lazarist missionaries and another of
sisters of charity, both of which schools are
notable for the liberality with which they afford
instruction to all the inhabitants without regard
to their forms of faith.
Santorin presents the form of crescent, but
with the islands of Therasia and Aspro-Nisi it
makes a circle so complete as to Indicate what
geologists believe, that it represents the vast
crater of a submerged volcano long since Hooded
by the sea. The parti-colored strata of Santorin
levels in the formations of Aspro-Nisi and of
Therasia. Since the convulsions of 236 B. c.,
the region of the Archipelago all around
Santorn has witnessed wonderful succession
of geological revolutions. Strabo tells us
that in the year 1877 before Christ the island
of Hiera suddenly rose to the surface, blazing
with sulphurous fires such as those which, in
1868, made their appearance in Santorin. Hiera
has long been known as Palai- -Kaimene or 'the
old burning island" In the year 46 of our era
another island came up, known since as Micra-
Kaimene, or ''the little burning island" A. ID.
726, and again A. d. 1857, Paai-Kaimene was
suddenly enlarged by fresh elevations of the
submarine volcanic cones. In the year 1870
the southern end of Palai-Kaimene suddenly
sank into the sea with shock which submerged
the ruins of an ancient city bearing the famous
name of Eeusis; and three years afterwards
in 1878, a short eruption elevated and
enlarged the mountainI cone of Micra-Kaimene.
In 1850 formidable eruption in and around
the island of Santorin lasted for nearly three
months, raised perceptibly the level of the sea,
shores of los and Pikino. In 1907 a new crater
came up and opened between Palai-Kaimene
and Mcra-Kaimene. For more than year ii
vomited forth lava, ashes, flames, and smoke,
pumice, the other of black trachyte, which four
years later, in I'LL, were united and formed a
cone rising to height of one hundred yards
above the level of the sea- This cone also burned
Mega le- Kdimene, the "new" and ''great'
burning island.' After this eruption OF 1907
II it was observed that the island of Santorin
had perceptibly sunk, and the island of Melos,
or Milo (where the Comte de Marcellus dis
covered the beautiful statue called the Venus OF
Milo, now in Louvre) began from this period to
he wasted by the mephitic exhalatlons, which
have gradually converted it from perfect
garden of fertility into desolate and sterile
rock. In more recent times a trachytic plateau
began to rise around Santorin at rate so rapid
that the water off one end of the island, which
in 1880, had depth of eight French metres, in
1884 retained a depth of no more than five
metres Off the southeastern point OF SantoriI
again, about forty-five years ago. curious
space of yellowish water began to mark the
blue surface of the sea.
This is the effect of a submarine spring Of
very acid ferruginous waters, so strong as in
very short time to clean the sheathing of YES
sells anchoring in the neighborhood. Whenever
this spring subsidies the people of Santorin have
learned to look for earthquakes.
The town destroyed in Santorin, as we have
said, is probably the capital of the island
and crowns the formidable cliffs which here risC
suddenly and steeply from depth OF water 81
profound that no anchorage exists in front o
the town. Over the whole surface of the island
among its green and glowing vineyards, liz
scattered the traces of numbers of other towns
which in ancient days rose and hourished here
When we remember that no longer ago thar
last January an earthquake shook to pieces anC
destroyed the island town of Santa Maura IL
the Ionian Sea, quite on the other side OF tn
Greek mainland and that violent shocks hav
since then, at three different times, startlet
Southern and Central Italy from its prosperity
one at least of the three having been ATTENDED
with considerable loss of life and of property
it is impossible to doubt that the eastern basil
of the Mediterranean is just now the theatre o
some as yet unmeasured but serious and mos
important subteuanean revolution,
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