The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1883-09-19
THE EARTHQUAKES POWER.

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THE EARTHQUAKES POWER.
The awful calamity that has befallen
the island of Ischia, near Naples, Italy,
Is grim commentary upon the prog
ress of the age, of which mortals of the
present day are much given to boast
ing. Man has during late years made
wonderful advancement in knowledge,
and been enabled by scientific inquiry
and experiment to control and turn to
his own advantage many of the forces
of nature. He has acquainted himself
with the secrets that have been hidden
from the view of the wisest of his kind
for thousands of years, till the intelli-
gent person Of to- day can read as from
an open book many of the laws that
govern physical action in the universe.
And yet in the face of a mighty display
of Natures power like this dreadful
earthquake, how weak and helpless he
seems, how puerile his efforts to master
the elements, how trivial and useless all
his scientific lorei 1t is as though Ma
ture, having tolerated for time human
encroachment on her domain, aroused
for a moment in her majestic strength,
and with one touch of her hand swept
away his petty pretension at sover-
eighty.
The world has been terrified often
before this with the frightful destruc-
ton wrought by earthquakes, but some
how such an occurrence as that at
Ischia, dreadful enough in itself, though
slight as compared with other earth
quake calamities on record, seems to
take on fresh terror, coming as it does
in these latter days. People as a rule
regard an earthquake attended with
great destruction of life and property as
something inappropriate and abnormal
in this bustling age, with all its '.mod-
ern improvements" Such disasters be-
long to the olden time, and one expects
to find them recorded on the page of
history, not in the telegraphic columns
of his daily paper. But there are the
details, as minute and matter-of-fact as
the latest railroad casualty, of which
every one reads with a transient
shudder, though without wonder. The
one seems to us like relic of antiquity,
the other is common though deplora-
bic accompaniment of our everyday life.
1schia and its vicinity in ancient DAYS
would doubtless have been regarded as
the objects of the special wrath of the
gods, so often and so terribly have they
suffered from earthquakes. They lie,
in fact, in the very heart of ''the earth
quake belt" and have seldom escaped
visitation in periods of disturbance of
this sort. The latest manifestations
were in 1881, when the town of Casam-
icciola, now almost entirely destroyed,
was nearly ruined, while the loss of life
was ia. Three earthquakes visited the
island that year, which was also made
memorable by the destruction wrought
by the same means in Scio, in the
Egean Sea, where 1000 persons lost
their lives The Island of ISchia is a
favorite resort for Neapolitans, Italians
generally and other foreigners, owing
10 the excellence of its baths, the
salubrity of its climate and its beautiful
scenery. The chief town is Casamic-
ciola, which contained about 4,20O in
habitants and commands a magnificent
view, of the famous Bay of Naples.
Legend, history and poetry have COM
bined to make the region celebrated and
attractive, and it is one of the objective
points of most tourists travelling in
Europe. Just at this time it contains a
large transient population. comprising
wealthy and distinguished Italians seek
ing health and recreation, and hundreds
of travellers from abroad. Some of these
have fallen victims to the earthquakes,
and thus the effect of the calamity will
be felt far and wide.
Earthquakes have been so numerous
in the past that il would overtax our
space to give anything approaching a
correct and complete record of them.
Some of the more famous ones may be
enumerated by way of interesting re-
minders of what malefic power lies in
Natures hands. Among the earliest
mentioned is one in 40 B. c., which
made Euboea, in the Egean Sea, an
island. The history of Southern Italy,
Sicily, Greece, the Turkish islands in
the Mediterranean. Spain and Portugal
abounds in accounts of earthquakes,
both before and since the Christian era,
though of course most of the reliable
stories of these disasters are dated with
in that period. In A, ID. 16, during the |
reign of Tiberius, 120, people lost |
their lives in one day in consequence of |
an earthquake, and according to Glib
bon 0,000 human beings were de- |
in 526. In 63 Herculaneum |
and Pompeii were destroyed by an
earthquake, this being sixteen years be-
fore the burial of those cities by the |
ChdpbAOA Vi NCcuNluS- ne CITY OI Ou- |
dea was destroyed in 81 B. c., when |
1000 people lost their lives. An
was felt by "nearly |
50 the whole world 1. E., the eastern !
hemisphere-in 543. There was
an awful one in ZAP in Syria, Pales-
tine and Asia, when the loss of life |
81 exceeded all calculation" Greece,
Turkey, Syria, the Sicilies and other |
areas within "the earthquake zone''
we're visited again and again after the |
date, and thousands of per-
sons perished. In Cilicia $4,000 per-
sous were killed in 1868. In 1874 there |
was great shock in England, and |
was destroyed; the island |
was again shaken by the greatest earth
quake ever known there in 1918. In
1866 10000 persons perished in Naples.
In 1909 Constantinople suffered the loss
,f many thousand lives. At Lisbon,
Portugal, in 1881, 1850 houses were
brown down and $4,000 persons buried
n the ruins In 1926 Naples lost
10000 persons. In 1872, $4,000 per-
shed st Schamaki. In 1893, 100000
-esidents of Sfcilv were destrovad In