“THE SEA AND THE WAVES ROARING.”
By Wm. Penniman
D. T. TAYLOR, in a work entitled, “The Coming Earthquake,” on page 39, says:—“Excluding all other countries, there have been felt in Western Europe alone, since the beginning of the Christian era, two thousand one hundred and fifty-six (2156) earthquakes, of which seven hundred and seventy-three, or more than thirty-three per cent., belong to the first sixty years of the present century.” Facts prove that they have been wonderfully and fearfully on the increase for the past fifteen years. Scientific observations have demonstrated that as is the ratio in which earthquakes on land increase, so is the ratio of increase in the agitations of the sea. The following, from the New York Weekly Witness of Jan. 6, 1876, in regard to earthquakes (only the most destructive are mentioned), maritime disasters, etc., shows that earthquakes destructive of life are still on the increase, and that the world is not only “far from having attained safety in navigation on ocean, lake, or river,” but that it has little ground for hope that it will attain it. “The sea and the waves roaring” is one of the signs of which Christ speaks, and he says, “When ye see all these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.” Luke 21:31. “The loss of life and property through earthquake, storm, and flood, has been very large. In Iceland, volcanic eruptions have taken place on a grand scale, and they continued far into the year. The town of Arecibo, Porto Rico, was entirely destroyed by an earthquake; six cities of New Granada fell victims to a similar subterranean agitation, and the number of persons who lost their lives in that calamity is estimated at 16,000. Asia Minor had a similar visitation, in which two thousand people perished; and huge waves, evidently the result of volcanic action, swept over some populous islands in the South Pacific. A vast amount of property and many lives were lost in storm and floods which took place in the south of France. Inundations in the valleys of the Susquehanna and Delaware did much damage. The town of Kirm, in Rhenish Prussia, was visited with a water-spout, and Buda-Pesth, in Austria, was similarly afflicted. The September storm along the coast of Texas will long be remembered as an appalling event. At Indianola a hundred lives were lost. The British coasts were repeatedly swept by dreadful storms. Lately, in a hurricane in the Philippine Islands, many dwellings were demolished, and two hundred and fifty persons were killed. “Among other disasters are the burning of Osceola, Pa., the destruction of the Roman Catholic Church at Holyoke, Mass., and the loss of seventy-five persons on the occasion of celebrating the feast of Corpus Christi; the Virginia City fire; the burning of Iquique, Peru; the prairie fire on the North Laramie, which lasted about a month; the fall of a floor of a school-house in a Swiss village, which terminated in the death of about eighty persons; the fire at Oshkosh, Wis.; and the fall of the roof of St. Andrew’s Church in this city. “Maritime disasters were unusually numerous and severe. The diabolical intention of the man Thomassen to blow up the steamship Mosel with dynamite, and the effect of the explosion of the chest on the pier at Bremerhaven will be fresh in the recollection of all. Fifteen persons perished in the wreck of the Italian bark Giovanni, which was stranded at Cape Cod; one hundred, in the steamer Gottenburg, which plied between Van Dieman’s Land and Australia; three hundred and eleven, in the Schiller off the Scilly Isles; seventy-six, through the sinking of a ferry-boat on the river Mur, in Austria; fifty, in the wreck of the Vicksburg, of the Dominion line; sixty, in a lighter which was lost in the Tagus; one hundred and ninety-nine, in the steamship Pacific; all on board, passengers and crew, in the burned City of Waco, off Galveston; forty, in the schooner Sunshine, between San Francisco and Coos Bay; eleven, in the steamer Sunshine, which was sunk in the Hudson; and fifty, in the Deutschland, which was stranded on the Kentish Knock. Such are the most notable calamities that have happened to merchant vessels. The fatal collision of the Royal Yacht Alberta with the Mistletoe in the Solent has been a very painful occurrence. In the sinking of the British iron-clad Vanguard, the burning of the British training-ship Goliath, and of the French man-of-war Magenta, show that even great maritime nations require to devote additional thought to measures which will insure the safety of the navies on which they must depend so much.” Wm. PENNIMAN.