The Month of Earthquakes.
The month of April, 1872, will long be remembered, and will occupy an important position in geological history as the month of earthquakes and volcanoes. The series of disturbances in question commenced on March 26 with an earthquake at Independence, Inyo County, California, and lasted for five hours, during which time “the earth was never for a moment perfectly quiet, and every few moments heavy shocks, of a few seconds’ duration, were occurring; in all, there were more than fifty heavy shocks.” During the disturbance, flashes of light were seen to issue from the Black Rock, a volcano of the Sierra Nevada range about fourteen miles distant. On April 3 the terrible earthquake of Antioch laid that ancient city in ruins. In this commotion the earth was disturbed over a considerable extent, the shocks being severely felt from Aleppo to Orfa, beyond the Euphrates, and occurring at intervals for more than a week. On April 14 and 15 violent shocks of earthquake were felt at Accra, on the Gold Coast of Africa, and these were attended by a hurricane which wrecked nearly every vessel in the harbor of Zanzibar. On April 24 Vesuvius again burst her bonds and became more active than at any time since the eruption that overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii. Europe, Asia, Africa, America,—four out of the five great divisions of the globe, showing serious disturbance of their surface at almost the same time. It is as if Mother Earth were shaking the finger of admonition at those who deny the old geological doctrines, and advance the hypothesis that the globe is not fluid in its interior, but is solid through and through.—Scribner for August.