The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1883-05-31
GREAT DISASTERS.


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Record OF Frightful Convulsions OF Ma
ture That Have Occurred. - Sixty
Minutes.
While considering the various dis
asters that have visited portions of the
civilized world during the present year,
says the Cleyel,sl Leader, and while
ll : oesG u Similar Visitatif5FRaSS
which are predicted, it will be interest
ing, if not exactly reassuring to re-
view the frighttul cOnvulsiOns and
eruptions that have now and then oc-
CURED, engulling in ruin all who came
in their way. Without speaking of
the cyclones which swept with destruc-
tive violence over sections of this
country last year, or the other disasters
of recent date, on land and sea, earth
ouakes and various convulSions of ma
ture that have taken place in the past,
md may be repeated when least ex.
pected.
In 1883 Iceland was visited by con-
vuIsions which destroyed nearly one
fifth of the population. Twenty vii,
lagos were consumed by fire or inun-
lated by water, and one eruption on
the mainland threw up SO mass Of
lava greater than the bulk Of Mount
Blanc" A new island was thrown up
in the sea, but thin a year it sunk,
leaving reef 81 rocks thirty fathoms
under water. In 1922 an earthquake
occurred on th6- island of Java. The
earth shook, and immense columns of
hot water and boiling mud, mixed
with burning birthstone, ashes and
lapilla, of the SIZE of nuts, were pro-
jected from the mountain like water
spout with such prodigious violence
that large quapt titles fell beyond the
river Tandio, which is forty miles dis
tant." The eruption lasted four hours,
destroying ia villages, killing over
1000 human b3ings, converting "a
mountain ridge into an enormous gulf"
and changing the face of the country
for miles around. On September l,
1870, the earth split in Lancerota, one
of the Canary islands. In few days
ga considerable Rill of elected matter
was thrown up, vent opened sending
forth stream of lava that overran
several villagesnd flowed into the
sea-" These Terrible commotions
lasted five yearhhlling the air with
putrid vapors in the midst of which
hundreds of human beings and animals
dropped dead. In 1919 the fort and
village of Sindree, on the eastern arm
of the Indus, sunk and tract of coun-
try 1000 square miles in extent was
submerged. In 1915 an eruption took
place in the province of Tomboro, and
only twenty-six persons survived out
of population of 10000. An account
of the fearful visitation says that "vio-
lent whirlwinds carried up men, horses,
and cattle into the air, tore up the
largest trees by the, roots, and covered
the whole sea floating timber: =
Another accotdt Says "the floating
cinders to the Eastward of Sumatra
formed, on the 4 Eth of April, a mass
two feet thick ant several miles in ex,
tent, through w hich the ships with
difficulty forced their way" The
town of Tomboro, on the west side OF
Sumbawa, was oyerhowed by the sea
so that the water remained permanent,
ly eighteen feet in places where it was
dry land before. The area covered by
this convulsion was 1000 miles in cir
cumference. On the 1st of November,
1775, at Lisbon, a sound of thunder
was heard, and in six minutes 10000
persons perisheda "a great concourse
of people collected for safety upon a
new quay, built entirely of marble,
but it sunk with all upon it, and not
one body ever appeared upon the sur
face. A number of small boats went
down, and no fragments of their
wrecks ever were discovered. Hum.
boldt says that "a portion of the earth's
surface four times as great as the size
of Europe was shaken by this earth.
quake"
We refer to but few of these terri
fic manifestations of the uncomfortable
forces of nature, without going back
to the eruptions by which whole cities
were buried for centuries from human
view, and without discussing the
theory advanced by some thinkers that
a vast continent, peopled by highly
civilized and populous race, was once
swallowed up in the region where now
rolls the Atlantic ocean. Innumerable
incidents might be quoted from history
to prove how uncertain is the thread
by which all ths affairs of this world
hang. There are no reasons to fear
any such cataclysms as have at various
times visited mankind or TO doubt