Daily press. [volume] (Newport News, Va.) 1896-current, 1907-01-26
TIE DOOM OF VENICE
IT MAY BE TO LIE IN TIE BOSOM OF
THE ADRIATIC.


of Old Port Roynl-The sunken
Cities of the World.
1t is believed by many that Venice
is sinking into the Adrlatlc and that
she gradually will disappear beneath
the waters of the great lagoon from
which her palace crowned Islands
arise. Other cities have gone that
way before her. and ships now sail
over spots which were once teeming
with Il populous life.
At the entrance to the harbor Of King
ston, Jamaica. the original city Of Port
Royal lies fnthoms deep beneath the
blue and sunlit waters of the Cnrlb-
bean sea. a narrow strip of land, on
which are Il small settlement and n
fort, Is all that Is left OF what was
once the richest and wickedest town in
the West Indies. 1t was the resort of
pirates. who rested there from their
depredations and made the city hid
-eous with their revelry. But these pl-
rates brought great stores of their loot to
the city, and It's commerce grew and
fiourshcd. Palaces and churches were
built II pirate often striving by rich
endowment OF n church to square his
accounts with heaven
Throughout the greater part Of the
seventeenth century no town In the
western world was so magnificent as
TO its buildings or so luxurious as to Its
habits rs Port Royal. Then one day in
1902 the anger of the Lord shook the
Island of Jamaica, and the greater part
OF Port Royal sank beneath the sea,
carrying with it hundreds of Its in
hnbitants. Towers, churches, palaces
and forts went down, many of them
not tumbling in ruins by the shock,
but sinking bodily beneath the waves.
On bright day, sailing over the
spot where Port Royal once stood, one
can look far down through the clear
water and see the remains of the city
still standing there on the ocean bot
tom, with fishes swimming about
among its towers and great tropical
seawesds waving from its sunken
walls.
The negroes Of Jamaica-and some
white people. too-will tell you that be-
fore storm the sunken bell of the
great cathedral which went down with
the city OH that awful day in 1862 can
be heard distinctly tolllng below the
waves, rung as warning by the
ghostly hands of the spirits of depart
rlne city. People who do not believe in
ghosts, but think they have heard tho
tolling of the bell, say the explanation
Is that when the city sunk the great
bell of the cathedral was not thrown
from Its place, but still hangs as it
originally did. The coming storm be-
fore it reaches Jamaica stirs up the
watoss OF the Caribbean and sends in
upon'the shore deep waves. which roll
through the sunken city and set the
bell a-tolling.
Another sunken city of renown is
Baiae, that splendid resort OH the Ital-
ian coast where Nero and Callgula
"revcled and drank deep" A strag-
CLING village and heaps of marble ruins
still stand upon the shore and bear the
name Of Bniae. but the greater part of
the city lies beneath the waters of the
Mediterranean, and tourists from Ma
pies so out there to gnze down into the
waters and try to catch a glimpse of
the submerged city
The resort of all the wealthy mobiles
of Rome when Rome was mistress of
the world, Baiae was II marvel of lux
urious splendor. Palace after palace
was built OIL the shore, and architects
designed magnificent structures ex-
tending out into the sea.
When Rome decayed and the Goths
ravagcd Italy, Bniae7 was sacked by
the invaders. Soon after the city be-
gan to sink. First the buildings which
had their foundation in the water sub
sided beneath the waves, and then
the sea made nm attack on the land.
Gradually the shore line receded, and
the Mediterranean flowed through tho
streets where Hadrlan had driven his
Imperial chariot and Horace had walk
ed thinking Of his next poem
These promontories, crowned with
grand towers and gorgeous palaces,
were undermined and toppled into the
deep until at last the major part Of
the splendid city was submerged. Its
disappearance was not sudden, like
that OF Port Royal, and due to some
convulsion of nature, but Baiae went
down to its death gradually, as Venice
Is said to be going.
In Holland the subsistence of the
land has brought 1t about that many
towns once populous are now covered
by the sea. The old Roman camp Mt
Brlttenburg, after sinking beneath the
waves, emerged again in 1920, only to
disappear, and its remains now lie in
deep water opposite the town OF Kat
wiki. The original Katwijk itself now
Is beneath the waters. as also are the