The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1872-07-21

The EARTH Our OF o ORDER.-The Lon.
don Telegraph, alluding to the inunda-
lions, earthquakes, etc., which have
visited Europe lately, says:
.Sometblng surely must be the matter
with the internal and external health of
the little planet upon which we live.
Inc earth is apparently out of order,
and her malady takes the form Of
volcanic eruptions. earthquakes, cyclones
and hurricanes in the warmer latitudes,
and OF damp, wretohed, or ruinous
hoods IN the colder regions. We Britons
nave passed moist, ungonial spring
mere at home, and our farmers begin to
ask each other with anxiety whether the
orenched grain crops con be nursed by
any amount of future sunshine into
good harvest. Meantime, the sunshine
does not come, or will not stay when it
does come; and the grass, which has
been growing fast with all this wet,
wants bright skies to make it seed and
mellow properly. But the state of
things upon many parts of the continent
ls far more serious. During the last
fifteen or twenty days floods of extra
ordinary volumes have ravaged some
OF the finest and most fruitful parts of
mid Europe. Bohemia has especially
suffered.
"a tremendous rain-storm recently
broke over the district about Prague:
and such torrents have since rolled from
mountain and upland that the rivers of
that province are like raging seas, while
fully one-eighth of its pastures and ara.
BILE lands lie under water. Houses and
farm.steads have been swept away: whole
villages, indeed, have disappeared, with
live stock, stacks, Implements, and, what
is worse than all, scores, nay, it is said,
hundreds Of the agricultural Inhabitants.
The Moldau and Eyer, thus prematurely
swollen, have poured monstrous volume
into the Elbe, which has in turn flooded
its banks with great damage. Other
German rivers have similarly burst their
bounds, and even steady Father Rhine
has gone mad and submerged the ooun-
try near Strasbourg; while further off
the Moselle, near Nancy, presents the
aspect of a vast tempestuous lake.
Switzerland has experienced a CORES.
ponding visitation. At Berne the Aar
has overfowed into the town; Friburp
and the Valais are drenched, the pleasant
cantons near and far beneath the
Bernese and Pennine Alps have seen
their bridges swept away, their growing
rye and oats laid low, and their hay
crops destroyed.
"But, next to Bohemia, the case of
North Italy appears, perhaps, the worst.
The lakes and rivers of Lombardy have
been gorged with flood of waters
eequaling or exceeding that which came
down in 1869. The mountain roads of
the Simplon and st. Gothard have been
rent and blocked by furious torrents,
bursting their embankments and leap
ing through the mnssive bridges which
span them. The Sesia, Maggia, and
other Alpine channels which lend the
upper waters to the plains, have flung a
toaming deluge into the lakes of Mag
giore. Lugano and Como, and these, no
longer able to discharge it fast enough
by the Ticina, AIDA and Pc, have risen
above bank and wall. and laid the fax
and mulberry districts of Lombardy
under sea of inundation which stands
half way up the telegraph poles, and is
reported to have wrought ruin estimated
at many millions of livres. We might
iengthen the melancholy catalogue of
damages by speaking of the Loire, the
Rhone, and many other rivers of France
which have followed the example of the
Alta. Italian streams, but enough has
been said, no doubt, to prove that while
our farmers arc soaked, those of neigh
boring countries have been deluged, if,
indeed, the worst be over yet"