Weekly Trinity journal., 1870-07-23
A Good Country for Earthquakes.

| The cable announces that on Friday, July lst
terrible earthquake was experienced through
out the kingdom of Greece, by which great dam
age 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 ruins,
and that a "neighboring island disappeared a,
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 prob
ably either Therasia or Aspro Nisi, both of which
were formerly united with Santoriu, and both OF
which were separated from it, as Plny relates
by a 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 phe-
nomena of the globe. For now nearly two years
a 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 lines 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 Scientific
expeditions have been sent from the mainland of
Greece and from Austria to observe this awful
phenomenon, but the dwelers in Santorin them
selves, like the residents of Tore del Greco,
near Vesuvus, had not suffered its fearful prox
unity to disturb their devotion to the culture OF
their vineyards, esteemed the best in the Gre
clan archipelago, even as those of the Vesuvius
slope are reputed the best in Southern Italy.
Santorin, the southernmost of the famous group
of islands known as the Cyclades, lies about
half way between the Morea and the island OF
Rhodes, and almost due north of the town OF
Gambia, in Crete. 1t was known to the Phmni-
clans, by whom it was originally settled as the
6 Beautiful" Catiiste and the Bound" Stron.
gute, the latter name indicating its form previous
to the catastrophe by which, as we have said
the slets of Therasia and Aspro Nisi were de-
tached from 1t, more than two thousand wears
ago. Six centuries before Christ it had become
powerful and populous enough to found the Ly.
bian city of Cyrene. In the third century of oui
era it was baptized by the Christian name o
Saint Irene, of which its modern name of San.
TORN, is corruption. Its area is comparatively
small, as it is only about forty y-eght miles in cir
cumference, but as its soil is absolutely and en-
tlrely volcanic it is extremely fertile, and has
! long been famous Cor its wines. The vine occu-
pies indeed, the attention of its inhabitants so
exclusively that all the necessares of life have
to be brought to them from the ne!ghboring
islands, upon which they are dependent even for
their supply of drinking water. In its popula,
tion of some thirteen thousands are comprised
some six seven hundred Catholics, gathered
around one school of Lazarist missionaries, and
Sisters of Charity, both of which schools are no.
table for the liberaity with which they afford
instruction to all the inhabitants without regard
to their forms of faith.
The town destroyed in Santora as we have
said, is probably the capital of the island, Thera.
This town lies in the center of the semi-circle
described by the island, and crowns the formida-
BILE cliffs which here rise suddenly and steeply
from depth of water so profound that no an
chorage exists in front of the town. Over the
whole surface of the island, among its green
and glowing vineyards, lies scattered the traces
of numbers of other towns which in ancient
days, rose and hourished here. sWhen we re.
member that no longer ago than last January an
earthquake shook to pieces and destroyed the
island town of Santa Maura in the lonian sea
quite on the other side of the Greek mainland
and that violent shocks have since then, al
three different times startled southern and cen
tra 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 basin of the Medterra-
mean is just now the theatre of some as yet un-
measured but serious and most important sub
terranean revolution.-New York World.