The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1900-09-28
MIGHTY TIDAL WAVES.
The Inundatiop at Galveston Will
Rank Among Most Disastrous.


From the st. Louis Globe.Dcmocrat.
That the coasts of England have been
visited by many and disastrous tidal
waves there is abundant evidence. In
fact, the ocean bay which surrounds
nearly the whole of Elgland and Scot
land is evidence enough that the en-
| tire shore line as it exists today is it
self the result of great submerson, or
series of submersions. which ages ago
overfowed the old coast, rushed in
shore made new land lines. and, hol-
lowing out between the new line and
the old, a new ocean bed. leaving what
had been called the coast line to be
forever after called the bar" The bar
/ is to be found in nearly every port of
England, eloquent testimony to the IL
dal waves of the past. But there is
little of other testimony, such as has
been preserved in the records of sea-
port towns.
One of the greatest cataclysms ever
occurring on the British coast was that
on the coast of Lincolnshire in 1871.
This has been commemoratcd in verse
by Jean Ingelow in the poem entitled
| High Tide off the Coast of Lincoln
| shire" The Lincolnshire coast is al.
most uniformly low and marshy-so
low, in fact, in some places that the
! shore requires the defense of an en-
bankment to save it from the enCroach-
ments of the sea. A sea wall had been
built when the great tidal wave of 1871
came, but it appears to have been abso-
lutely useless as defense of the coun-
try and the people at that time. At
the present day the fens of Lincoln
shire are defended from the North sea
! by some of the finest engineering
works in the world, and yet it is much
to be doubted whether they would
prove effective against such invasions
as that which has just overwhelmed
Galveston.
There are ancient town records in
nearly all the seacoast towns of Lin
colnshire which tell of the inundation
of 17J1. There was then, as there is
now. a chime of bells in the tower of
st. Botolph, Boston, and when the tide
was seen to be sweeping away the bar
riers the mayor of Boston himself
mounted the belfry stairs and had
played the old love song called THE
Brides of Enderby' as an alarm To the
country side. But the tide came so
unheralded. there having been no
premonition of it in storm or tempest,
that the meaning of the chimes was
not understood. SaVants have never
had an explanation of the Lincolnshire
tide, coming, as it did, so unheralded
by anything threatening a CataclySm.
The food found the people unprepared,
and thousands fell victims To its fury.
Many of the most fatal tidal waves
of which we have any history have
been accompanied by earthquakes add
ing to their horrors, but making it i'm
possible to say whether the earth
quake or the inundation has been the
more fatal and destructive. The great
earthquake at Lisbon in 1855 was ac-
companied by tidal wave which, roll
ing up the Tagus river from the ocean,
submerged all the lower parts of the
city and destroyed thousands of lives
which might possibly have escaped the
earthquake shocks. When the earth
quake came TO Caracas in 1912 there
was tidal wave at La Guayra, the
entrepot of Caracas. which destroyed
many lives. Five years ago series of
tidal waves, accompanied by or alter
mating with earthquake shocks, visited
some of the most populous islands OF
Japan. The tidal waves reached from
fifteen to twenty miles inland, being
oI SuCH HelSnl, IOlCe ana NOlulle ten
miles from the ocean, particularly
when restricted to narrow valleys, as
to be capable of destroying much life.
The number of human lives lost at that
time has never been stated in any Eng
lish newspaper, but that it ran far into
the thousands there is no room to
doubt. Ten thousands is more apt to
be an under than an overestimate
such were the ravages of the combined
seismic and cataClysmic terrors visited
\ upon that part of the world during
nearly a week of days and nights of
horror which, fortunately, come but
, seldom in the experiences of the race
The afiiction of Texas, while much
; less than this, is still monumental, and
will always rank among the great cat
astrOphes of history. Perhaps there
have been events more destructive OF
life, In times or places where il was
, impossible that any record of then
should be left. But few such are
y known to history, Nor is it likely tha
the future will often bring TO any par
I of the world a severer afiiction thar
p that which has fallen upon our gull
| coast.
"No imperial designs lurk in the American
| mind Ihpy are alien 10 American sentiment