Osage Valley banner. (Tuscumbia, Miller County, Mo.) 1879-1881, 1881-06-23

break the haitsrs with which
they were attached 10 the hangers.
those which were proceeding on the
roads suddenly stopped and snorted in
very strange way. Ihe eats were
frightened. and tried 10 conceal them
selves, or their hair bristled up wildly.
Rabbits and moles were seen TO leave
their holes; birds rose. as If scared
from the places on which they had
alighted; aud fish left the bottom OF
the sea and approached the shores,
where at some psaeos great numbers
OF them were taken. Even ants and
reptiles abandoned, in clear daylight.
their subterranean holes in great disor-
der, many hours before the shocks we're
felt Large lights OF locusts were seen
creeping through the streets OF Naples
toward the sea the night before the
earthquake. Winged ants took refuge
during the darkness in the rooms OF
houses. Some dogs, a few minutes
before the first shock took place, awoke
their sleeping masters, by barking and
pulling them 81 il they wished to warn
them OF the impending danger, and
several persons were thus enabled TO
save themselves" What it is, before
ttAb Hbhhu VI EHoth vi taftnAuAht Is
felt. which warns both animals and hui
man beings OF the approach OF some
dreadful catastrophe threatening the
very basis OF their existence no one. of
course. can say, since the impression
made upon the nervous system is, at
least as regards our own species, evil
IDENTIFY one ot general disturbance, and
not one TO which experience attaches
any explicit significance. II may be, of
course, that some very great change
| in the magnetic conditions Of spot
threatened with earthquake leads
to that extreme excitement of
mind exhibited by all living cren.
lures previous 10 the onset OF the
earthquake, That, however is pure
conjecture. What is interesting is.
that certain blank CONSERVATION
seems nlways TO be the characteristic
herald OF an earthquake, as well rs the
characteristic result. That il should be
the characteristic result is. OF course.
no wonder. The very condition of hui
man life is the solidity of the not very
thick earth. crust on which we live, and
when that solidity is exchanged for pos
tive fluidity, as il Is in the worst earth
/ quakes, il Is natural enough that stupe-
faction should bc the result In one of
the Calabrian earthquakes ii Was dis
covered that large pieces of ground had
so changed places that a plantation of
mulberry-trees had been carried into
the middle of corn-tield and there
left, and a field sown with lupines had
been carried out into the middle of II
vineyard The Italian lawsuits which
4 ag,r,ylt.sl Of
/ property may be easily imagined. Still
stranger, in the earthquake in Riobamba
4 In 1877, Alexander Won Humboldt found
/ that the whole furniture OF OF one house
had been buried beneath the ruins OF
| the next house, "The upper layer of
/ the soil, formed OF matter not possessing
| great degree Of coherency, had moved
/ like water IN running streams and we
are compelled TO suppose that those
streams flowed first downward, and at
/ last rose upward. The motion in the
/ shocks which were experienced
in Jamaica (July z, l692) must have
been not less complicated. According
/ to the account of an eyewitness the
whole surface of the ground had as
| sumed the appearance Of running water.
| The sea aud land appeared 20 rush on
one another, and to mingle in the Wild
/ est confusion. Some persons who, at
\ the beginning Of the calamity, had cs-
+ capped into the streets and TO the squares
I of the town, 10 avoid the danger of be-
/ ing crushed under the ruins of the fall
/ ing houses, were so violently tossed
I from one side To the other that many of
/ them re eived severe Contusions, and
some we're manned. Others were lift.
| ed up. hurled through the air. and
/ thrown down at distance from the
place where they were standing A
few who were In town were carried
away To the seashore, which was rather
\ distant, and then thrown into the sea,
4 by which accident, however, their lives
were saved" Such liqueiaction of
all that is most solid in our world seems
IA grim enough realiza ion of the prayer
OF the prophet; 80 that Thou wouldst
rend the heavens. that Thou wouldst
come down, that the mountains might
flow down at Thy presence, for the
mountains do really How down in earth
quakes, but the eject of that flow ng is
a CONSERVATION such as no other phe-
nomenon Of physical life, not even the
worst darkness of volcanic eruptions,
ever produces.
II is curious to think what such races
as the Teutonic would become under
the influence OF frequent earthquakes.
Their "solidity" Of character, as il Is
called, largely consists in the confidence
they feel In the sameness OF all Nature S
ways: aud whether II would survive
that confidence, and ourlive the con.
stancy on which II was nourished, Ii
very doubtful An English squire, for
instance, whose timber and crops had
changed places with the timber and es-
tates Of his next nelghbor, would GER
tainly not be recognizably an English