Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-09-14
AC0MINGCATACLYSM.
Professor Buchanan's Predictions and
What They Are Worth.
THE PERIOD OF DIRE CALAMITY
To be Followed by a Political, Religious
and Social Millennium.
FACTS USED IN THE DEDUCTIONS
rwn1rrrN ron THE p1srArcH.,

| America ana Europe, puDllsneu III bne
August number of the Arena, predicts the
income of Democratic administration in
1892. Not proving satisfactory, however,
the Labor party will next take the reins oi
government in hand.
The deaths of the two prominent men now
at the head of administrative affairs will, he
says, take place inside of three years-Presi'
dent Harrison being the last to go. The
Czar is to have violent end within two
years, and Queen Victoria will depart this
world some time in 1891. The Prince Of
Wales will haye but short reign, followed
by abdication and death within ten years.
The opening of the twentieth century will
be pregnant with war and discord," both
here and in Europe-a war which will
eventually end in the destruction of mon
archy there, and in social and political
revolution of great import in the United
| States, the latter to occur about 10 years
hence, and continuing till the year 1916.
The six years prior to that date, says our
author, "will be by far the most calamitous
that America has ever known"
A LABOR AND CAPITAL WAR.
The war here will, he affirms, be a labor
and capital war, complicated by religious
discord and the race question. The Chris
tian Church will be shattered in the coming
conflict, as an ecclesiastical power, but the
twenty-frst century twill witness the ex-
istence of religion in which all that is
good in the past will survive" The mar
riage relation is also to be more satisfactorily
adjusted. The cycle of woman is approach
ing with full compensation for all the
horrors we are to suffer.
Nature too, he says, is busy preparing
many calamities for use. The continued
destruction of our forests will bring about
an increase in foods and barrenness. The
Yang-tse- Kiang in China, in its last over
flow, overwhelmed 300, ,OO0 square miles of
territory, and destroyed nearly 1,000, 900 Of
people. The Mississippi will in time be-
come a like scourge to us. Cyclones, strange
seasons, failure of crops and consequent suf-
fering and mortality are some of the evils
which are also to be on the increase. But
the grand climax is to be geological. The
natural convulsion is to begin on the Pacific
coast, probably extending toward the Sand
wich Islands, and from British America
down to the coasts of Mexico. Lower Cali
fornia will suffer severely, especially San
Diego and Coronado"
THE EAST TO SUFFER.
But the most awful effects of the shock,
which is also to be accompanied by i'm
mense tidal waves of destructive power, will
be felt along the Atlantic seaboard. The
latter, afirms the writer, will be almost
totally wrecked by submergence and
tidal waves, from the borders of New En-
gland to the southern shores of the Gulf of
Mexico. Every seaboard city south OF New
England that is not more than 80 feet above
the sea level of the Atlantic coast, is
destined to destructive convulsion.
Galveston. New Orleans, Mobile, San
doomed, and Richmond. Baltimore, WASH
ington, Philadelphia, Newark, Jersey City
and New York will suffer in various degrees
in proportion as they approach the sea
level. Brooklyn will suffer less, but the
destruction OF Jersey City and New York
will be the grandest horror of the ages.
Southwark, the countries and States bor-
ing the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of
Mexico will suffer with more or less
severity. Southern Florida will probably
be entirely wiped out. The flood caused by
the tidal wave will roll up the Mississippi
as far as Baton Rogue. Caracas will be
entirely destroyed.
THE EARTH TO CHANGE POLES.
SIN Europe the grand climax of geological
couvulsion will end in q terrific shock
affecting the whole Mediterranean region
and Egypt. The Suez Canal will be washed
out, and Cairo and Alexandria severely in
jured. The final crash, says Buchanan, will
come near the hour of noon. and will last
about an hour But all this, horrible as it
appears, is nothing to the stupendous event
that, the writer affirms, may also take place
in this, our time of calamity, from 1910 to
1916. Some 100. 600 years ago, the earth,
IN acfr0 70
whirled from its position, changed its poles
and overwhelmed its tropical regions in ice.
The laws of periodicity make probable the
re-occurrence of the same event again some
day. And if any such disturbance occurs
now, remarks our author, it will in all
probability take place some time during the
six years of cataclysm mentioned"
But out of all this horror of ruin and
wreck, of war and destruction, there will
finally rise pure and ennobling democracy,
a new religion and social Jaw, that will re-
generate the world anew, and the twenty
first century will see peace and universal
rest for another cycle of centuries, and the
dawn of better days will merge into a mill
ennium of redeemed and perfected hu-
manity.
BASIS OF THE PREDICT IONS.
Naturally enough, the article in question
has attracted much and widespread atten-
ton. That the criticism bestowed is often
of captious and skeptical nature is even
more matter of course. The material spirit
of the nineteenth century SCOTS at the posi-
bility of what may be called the prophetic
instinct in man, and is at the same time too
ignorant of the scientific basis, upon which
prediction, to be accurate, is necessarily
founded. As man and author, however
Prof. Buchanan is too we'll known to be
hastily judged and condemned In the pres
ent instance as unworthy respect and cred
ence. That he himself is thoroughly sim
cere and in earnest no one can doubt. His
convictions are based on positive, scien-
tific law of periodicity, tested for over 30
years. SO tremendous an announcement,
he says, should not lie made from anv linn
tied data. 1t should be tested in every pos
sible way before giving it to the public, and
1t has been. The parallax is established
and the telescope is positive in its revela-
tions.
THE PROFESSORS METHODS.
1t is dificnlt-almost impossible-how-
ever, for the uninformed. and I may say
the uninitiated-to even approximate an
understanding of the process by which such
parallax is arrived at: And the difficulty
IS Increased by the TACT that there is more
than one such process. Among those pro-
cesses which may De called purely scientific,
Is that which is based on the laws of proba-
billty, the mathematical theory of which
aims at reducing to calculation where possi-
BILE, the amount Of credence due to PROPOSE
tions or statements as to the occurrence of
events future or past, more especially as con-
tingent or dependent upon other propositions
or events the probability of which is known.