Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-09-20

gan to play piece of sacred music, and
the whole Of tho faSiily joined in the
hymn. And all save one Of the family
perished.
AT the hotel Mr.. Bainbridge, who
was OH q journey round the world, call
cd the inmates OF the hotel together for
prayer, and ho told them they had only
q few more minutes to live, and as he
was passing out from the hotel the We
randa fell upon him and crushed him
to death.
We talk about the dumb elements,
but it is hard for me to believe that they
are dumb, and that the fire does not feel
the warmth flowing in its own veins,
and that the signing winds have no
sorrow, and that playing fountains
experience no exhilaration. and that the
light does net enjoy illumining the
world, and that the sensitive plant does
not feel your touch, and that the rose,
with all it's incense, does not worship.
1t seems that in these paroxysms Of the
mountains nature must suffer
That night nine miles of the noun
tain changed. ''The terraces, which
had been the pride of the colonies, sank
out of existence. No one but the infinite
and the almighty could afford the OBJ
| liberation of such resources of beauty
and glory. The casting down of such
affairs and the humiliation of such tenn
Piles would have been an iconoclasm
that would have affronted the universe
but for the fact that the Lord who made
Tarawera and Rotomahana has u right
to do what he will with his own, and
the terraces, already beginning to re-
form, may be richer colored and loftier
and more resplendent than their prede-
cessors.
The loss to New Zealand of these
white and pink terraces is what would
| be the loss of tho Giants causeway to
Ireland, or the loss of the pyramids to
Egypt, OF the loss of Niagara falls to
America. The exact physical causes of
, this upsetting and down tearing and
mountain splitting leave to biologists
to guess about. Translating their scien-
tific accounts into easier language, it
! seems that the mountains were stiff in
{ their joints from long standing and
/ went into play. For a great while they
| had enjoyed no fireworks, and that
night they illulnined New Zealand
with rockets and wheels of fire. The
hills went into games OF leapfrog and
ball playing and flying kites and boxing
and general romp. They were exhila-
rated with a mixture of gases-sulphur-
ic, phosphoric and carbonic-and forgot
all the proprieties that mountains usual
ly observe. But it was not comedy.
! 1t was tragedy of the mountains, and
! all the King Lears, and the Macbeths,
and the Hamlets, and the Meg Mer-
rifles of arrangement and horror were
that night ON the stage, of which the
belching fires were the footlights and
flames hundreds of feet high were the
gorgeous upholstery. Tornadoes OF
ashes. Furnaces seven times heated, in
whicn walked the Deity. Grand march
of God sounded by the avalanches. The
earth bombarding the heavens. Dante's
Inferno" lifted into the terrestrial.
Maniac elements tearing the clouds into
tatters and grinding rocks under their
heels. That night of June 8, that awful
night in New Zealand, when the native
settlements went down under the ashes
of bursting Tarawera as completely as
Pompeii and Herculaneum under the
burial of Veguvius, seemed to play ac-
compartment to the words of the old
book, as much revered in New Zealand
as in America, an accompaniment in
full diapason, an earthquake with its
foot ON the pedal "The perpetual hills
did bow 1.-THE mountains skipped
like rams. - "The hills melted like
wax. :" "The foundations Of the earth
were shaken" HE looketh on the
earth, and it trembleth."
That downfall Of the New Zealand
terraces was only conspicuous Cir
cumstance In the history of the world.
Mountains are mortal, and they write
their autobiographies ON leaves Of stone.
All the mountains of New Zealand were
nursed in cradle Of earthquake by a
parentage OF rock and glacier, and they
will have their descendants You can
not bury mountains unotserved. There
must be black pail Of smoke and dead
march sounded by orchestra of elements,
and thunders tolling ut the passing fu-
neral of hills, and spade Of fire TO dig
their grave, and the discharge Of all
heaven S artillery at their burial, and the
solemn aud overwhelming litany sound
ed, Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust
to dust"
You see it will be well for geologists
10 come to New Zealand. Ornithologista
ought also TO come. Last evening. al
though II is here midwinter--New lea-
lands July corresponding with Ameri-
cas- January, although far from being
as cold--I was standing near clumf
of trees which still kept all their foliage,
and there were bird voices absolutely
bewildering for numbers and sweetness.
II the notes Of the music there rendered
By tho winged choir had been written
ON each leaf. tho rendering could moi
have been more duloet and resonant u
would take more room and lime than
possess 10 describe the ornithologieal
, riches OF New Zealand. First Of all, ia
extinct inoa, whose skeleton stands n