, 1890-03-14
A JAPANESE Earthquake.
Terrific Bursting of Natures Gigantic Sui
terranean Boiler.

Columns of white steam floated dream
lily in the COO mountain air, as the in
valids repaired to their early bath, and
all around was beautiful on that bright
summer morning when, at 7:3O, there oc-
CURED an earthquake shock SO violent as
toleave no room for doubt that some mis-
chief was brewing. Fifteen minutes later
this was followed by a second and yet
more severe shock. another brief inter
val of about ten minutes and the earth
began to heave like a tossing sea, rising
and sinking so that houses collapsed, to-
tally wrecked, and people were violently
thrown down and became actually sick.
as If at sea. As standing was impossi-
BILE, they tried to crawl on all-fours to
whatever suggested shelter, but they
soon realized that all places were alike
unsafe.
The earthquake was Immediately fol
lowed by an appalling and unearthly
sound as of the roar of a thousand thun-
der claps, blending with the shrek Of
all the steam whistles and roaring steam
boilers of earth, and ere the terrified and
deafened human beings could recall their
bewildered senses they beheld the whole
mighty one of o-Bandaisan blown
bodily into the air, where it overspread
the whole heavens with a vast, dense
pail OF ashes and mud spray, blotting
out the light of day and turning all to
thick darkness. Ere these had time to
fall back to thee earth there poured forth
dark clouds of vapor and such sitting
gases as well nigh choked all living crea-
lures. Then leaping tongues of Internal
flame, crimson and purple, seemed to
flash right up to the heavens, and after
appalling earth throes were succeeded
by showers of red hot ashes, sulphur and
boiling water, accompanied by fearful
subterranean roaring and rumbling, and
by a rushing whirlwind of hurricane
force, u%prooting great trees and hurting
them afar.
Another IN and there poured
forth floods of boiling liquid mud, which
swept down the mountain side with such
velocity that within a period v~ariously
estimated at from ten to fifteen minutes
the scalding torrent was rushing past
the village of Nagasake, on the brink of
the Nagase river, having Travelled ten
miles from the crater more rapidly than
any express train. Probably much of
this fluid mud was hurled direct through
the air, as was certainly the case with the
many hundreds of millions of tons which
were blown up at the first explosion.
Evidently the earthquake must nave rent
some subterranean ~fissure, through which
a great volume of waters suddenly poured
into the internal fires, generating a stu
pendous volume of steam, which must
have continued to increase and SC become
more and more compressed as volcanic
fires and subterranean waters continued
their awful struggle, converting the
foundations of the mountain into a CYCLIC
pean boiler, which finally exploded, with
the result, a million times magnified, of
the most awful boiler explosion ever
known above ground.
The commissions of the mountain rent
great chasms from which uprose Jets of
flame, ashes and boiling water, and many
of the wretched fugitives were caught up
by these awful fountains and buried on
high with terrific force, to fall back to
earth all blackened and boiled. Someof
these poor corpses were found caught on
the boughs of trees, scalded and mangled
beyond recognition. Others were bat
tered and crushed by the red hot stones
and rocks which had been hurled from
the crater to the clouds, and fell pack to
earth with awful violence.
The eruption continued for about two
hours. By 10 a. IN. its violence was
spent, though for hours afterwards the
ground trembled and quivered, as well
it might after SO appalling a fit of pas
SION. Blu in those two hours the whole
face of thirty square miles of country lin
the form of a vast fan extending % a
radius five miles from the central crater)
was totally changed. OF the mountain
cone thus suddenly transformed into a
steam boiler, there remains now only the
back n ragged, ~overhanging precipice,
rising to a sheer height, v~ariously esti-
mated at 600 or 1000 feet above a bot
tomless crater of about a mile in diane
ter. Thence, with ceaseless roar, rise
dense clouds of sutfocating, sulphurous
steam, which sometimes clear off sufi-
GENTLY to allow adventurous climbers a
momentary glimpse of the seething mud
below. Those who have assembled that
remnant of the mountain from the slope
behind it, and SO rave cached the brink
OF that precipice, have beheld such n pic
ture of desolation as seems scarcely to
belong to thise earth.
All that was Little Bandai now lies
outspread in a thick layer of horrid mud,
varying in depth from 10 to $50 feet
deep enough to efTace every accustomed
feature in the whole area-and itself par
tally coated with layers of pale gray
ashes and black stones and rocks, which
seem to have been elected to such a
height as not to have fallen to earth I'M
til the awful mud wave had poured it
self out. 1t is now described as n wild
chaos of earth, rock and mud, in some
place resembling the concrete blocks of
some cyclopean breakwater, in others
rather suggesting a raging sea whose gil
gantic waves have suddenly yeen CON
gealed. OF all that made the scene SO
beautiful and pleasant not a vestige re-
mains-not a blade of grass where lately
the mountain was clothed with springy
turf, not a green leaf, not a sign of life
nothing but absolute desolation, with
a horrid smell rising from stagnant sui
phur pools.-Cornhill Magazine.