Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1872-07-26
The Earth Ont Of Order.

The London Telegraph, abiding to the inunda-
tlons, earthquakes, &c, which have been visit
ing Europe lately, says:
Something surely must be the matter with the
internal and external health OF the little planet
upon which we live. The earth is apparently
out OF order, and her malady takes the form OF
volcanic eruptiOns, earthquakes, cyclones and
hurricanes in the warmer ATTITUDES, and OF damp,
wretched weather or ruinOus foods in the colder
regions. We Britons have passed a moist, un-
genial spring here at home, and our farmers
begin to ask each other with anxiety whether
the drenched grain crops can be nursed by any
amount of future sunshine into a 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, wa ats
bright skies to make it seed and mellow properly
But the state Of things upon many parts of the
continent is far more serious. During the last
fifteen or twenty days floods of extraordinary
volume have rayaged some OF the finest and
most fruitful parts of mid-EarOpe. 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
arabic land lies under water. Houses and farm
steads have been swept away; whole villages,
indeed, have disappeared. with live stock,
stacks, implements, and (what is worst Of ALI
scores, nay, it is said hundreds, Of the agricui-
tural inhabitants. The MOldau and Eyer, thus
preternaturally swollen, have poured tremen-
dous 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 Country near Strasburg, while
further of the Moselle, near Nancy, presents
the aspect of vast and tempestuOus lake.
Switzerland has experienced a corresponding
visitation. At Berne the Aar has overfowed
in the town; Friberg and Valais are drenched;
the pleasant cantOns near and tar beneath the
Bernese and Pennine Alps have seen their
bridges swept away, their growing rye and oats
laid Ssw, and their hay crops sOdden.
But, next to Bohemia, the case of North Italy
appears, perhaps, the worst. The lakes and
rivers of Lombardy have been gorged with a
food OF waters equalling or exceeding hat which
came down in 1869. The mountain roads of the
SimplOn and St. Gothard have been rent and
blOckaded by furious torrents, bursting their
embanknents and leaping through the massive
bridges which span them. The Sesia, Maggia
and other Alpine channels which lead the up
per waters to the plains, have flung q foaming
deluge into the lakes of Maggiore, Lugane and
Como, and these, no longer able to discharge lt
fast enough by the TicinO, 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 tel
egraph poles, and is reported to have wrought
ruin estimated at many millions of livres. We
might ieDgthen 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 are soaked, those
of neighboring countries have been deluged, if,
indeed, the worst be over vet.