p. 7 | Note and Comment

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 16, 1902

Note and Comment

THE unwonted disturbance in the realm of nature, in the shape of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tidal waves, the reports of which fill the press columns at this time, is leading people to ask what is the matter, and to speculate on the probable outcome of this elemental disquietude. The editor of the Chicago Tribune is moved to express himself as follows, under the topic, “Nature’s Convulsions:” —

The recent report from the expedition which went to the Japanese island of Tori Shima to investigate the damage done by a volcanic eruption, showing that not a person was left alive on the island, and the fresh eruption from Mont Pelée, which has caused considerable loss of life, indicate that the terrible forces of nature are not yet quieted, and that there is no telling what a day may bring forth in the way of destruction of animate and inanimate things.

A list of these disturbances of nature during the last four months, compiled by the New York Times, is of more than ordinary interest, because it is possible that never before in the same length of time has this earth suffered so continuously and severely from the outward manifestations of its internal forces. The earthquake area has been widespread. Heavy shocks have done great damage in Mexico, the Danish West Indies, Portugal, Guatemala, Sicily, the Tyrol, Calabria, European Turkey, Persia, Venezuela, and California, involving the destruction of over five thousand lives, and injuring and leaving homeless thousands more, while lighter shocks have been recorded in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Nebraska, Iowa, Dakota, and Florida. Volcanic activity has been extraordinary, and has by no means been confined to Martinique. During the last four months volcanoes, supposed to be extinct, have resumed alarming activity in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, Mexico, Ecuador, Hawaii, and Costa Rica, while mud volcanoes in Italy and Caucasia, tidal waves, and landslides caused by the earth’s tremors, have added to the general destruction. . . . .

The scientists have been daring in their investigation of the outbreaks of Mont Pelée and Mont Soufrière, which were the crowning disasters of this period; and when Mont Pelée once more quiets down, it is likely that they will make fresh investigations, and will be able to look more closely into the internal causes of volcanic action. But, after all, these are only two volcanoes upon two small islands. Will science be able to assign causes for well-nigh universal terrestrial phenomena, and will it be able clearly to trace the great changes not alone upon the earth’s surface, but in the interior of the earth, and in the waters under the earth? Will it tell us the real cause of all this elemental wrath?