THE EARTHQUAKE TERM

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 27, 1868

THE EARTHQUAKE TERM.

Our mother earth is passing through one of those periods of convulsion the phenomena of which are among the most terrible of all the manifestations of physical forces. The throbbings of the earth crust, which have extended over so vast an area during the last twelve months, the meteoric shower, and the meteorological phenomena during the same period, are together an interesting subject of study. What mysterious connection exists between these occurrences, if any does exist, or rather the real nature of it, has never been satisfactorily shown; and there is yet, perhaps, room for skepticism upon the hypothesis that the chemical matter from which the enormous number of meteors periodically rain upon the earth's surface has any direct agency in these disturbances. That the weather and other atmospheric phenomena are influenced by some cause acting in concert with the causes of earthquakes, if not by the same causes, must be admitted. It would be interesting to review in this connection the histories of some of the most remarkable earthquakes on record; we will, however, allude only to one, which destroyed the city of Caracas, in Venezuela, in 1812. The shocks of this earthquake continued at intervals for months previous to the above catastrophe, and were felt with more or less violence from the mouth of the Ohio river to that of the St. Francis, in the United States. Fissures were opened, lakes disappeared, trees were felled, and such changes produced in the general appearance of the surface that a tract 70 to 80 miles in length and 30 miles wide along the Whitewater river and its branches has ever since been called the “sunk country.” The traces of the fissures and chasms produced at that time were visible for years, and were noticed by Flint, the geographer, seven years after their occurrence, and Lyell, the geologist, as late as 1846. Such were the effects of this convulsion in our own land. Throughout Mexico and Central America they were still more remarkable, increasing in intensity as they extended further south, finally terminating with the destruction of Caracas, which involved the almost instantaneous death of 12,000 people. The atmospheric phenomena during the period preceding the final great convulsion were exceedingly peculiar. Electrical discharges from an apparently cloudless sky were frequent. Vivid auroral displays were more than ordinarily common. At New Madrid, below St. Louis, the inhabitants were at one time surprised and alarmed by the appearance of the sky, which, although cloudless, presented along the western horizon a most brilliant electrical display. A continued glare of most vivid lightning, accompanied by what was at the time supposed to be incessant thunder, appeared to proceed from below the horizon, and coupled with the preceding alarming events, produced great terror in the minds of the people.

The present season has presented great climatic peculiarities. From all parts of the world come accounts of hurricanes, floods, unusual vagaries of temperature, and prevalence of winds from unusual quarters. The Scientific Review, speaking of the extraordinary heat and drouth experienced in England, says: “The southerly winds have prevailed for an unusually long interval, and the weather has consequently been very hot and very dry. On the 22d of July it was possible to cook a beef steak on the south side of Westminster Bridge by the heat of the sun's rays alone. The apparatus employed was of a very simple kind; it consisted of an empty cigar box, the inside of which had been blackened, and the top closed with three panes of glass about one inch apart. In the course of twenty minutes the steak was done on both sides, while a few potatoes were baked around it.”

With the south winds and the extreme heat in England have appeared the mosquito, which threatens to become a pest in a country hitherto exempt from that annoying insect. The peculiarities of our climate during the last twelve months have attracted much attention. Both extreme cold and heat have been experienced, and these extremes have continued for extraordinary periods, while we have had unusual storms of wind and rain. All this indicates unusual atmospheric disturbances. Overhead and underfoot the elements are warring with terrific energy. The recent eruption of Vesuvius, the earthquakes in the West Indies and the Sandwich Islands, the meteoric fall of 1866 and 1867, the alleged shifting of the Gulf Stream nearer to the eastern continent, and above all the accounts just received of the disastrous earthquake in southern Peru and Ecuador, exceeded in destructive effect by only two similar events on record, constitute a series of remarkable occurrences which may not perhaps be rashly regarded as the commencement of an epoch of permanent physical and climatic change to which the earth is destined. Some will see in these events the fulfillment of prophecy, and the indications of moral and political changes not less momentous.

The causes which produce the grand and terrible phenomena of earthquakes are doubtless various. The generation of gases by chemical reaction, and the development of enormous volumes of superheated steam, by the contact of water with the intensely heated interior of the earth, are without doubt the most common and potent. The distance below the surface at which these forces act, although undoubtedly great, is unknown. The sensations produced upon people by earthquake shocks have peculiarities which must be felt to be realized, as it is impossible to give any adequate description of them. The most graphic description we have ever heard, was given to us by a gentleman who has experienced several of these occurrences both at sea and on land. The sensation at sea he says is often described as resembling the shock produced by a ship's striking upon a reef, but there is a feeling of something different, a sort of instinct of something further away and more powerful, which accompanies the first feeling of surprise and alarm, a sort of mysterious pulsation through the water, which once experienced is not easily forgotten. On land he describes it as being like what would be the feeling of a person standing upon a flexible, buoyant substance, like an immense tarpaulin spread over the surface of a liquid mass in a state of violent agitation. The undulations succeed each other so rapidly and irregularly that it is impossible to time one's steps to meet them; persons are suddenly and violently prostrated, while the mysterious subterranean noises, the peculiar appearance of the sky and atmosphere, the universal alarm of all living things, conspire to produce the most appalling spectacle that the imagination can conceive.

The accounts received from Ecuador and Peru indicate a disaster of almost unparalleled extent, and the misery which must inevitably result will appeal to the sympathy and the charity of the entire civilized world. Whether it will prove the grand finale of the present earthquake term, or whether other disasters are to follow, no mortal can say. Time only can determine this, but we trust that the giant forces which have produced such wide-spread devastation and death have expended their energies, and the earth may again “rest for a season.”—Scientific American.