"And I beheld," says John in the Revelation, "when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo there was a great earthquake." Rev. vi, 12. The opening of the sixth seal was marked by the great earthquake of Lisbon, in 1755. New facts of history concerning that terrible event are continually coming to light, which will be of interest to the student of prophecy. We find the following in the Scientific American of Dec. 12, 1863: "On November 1, 1755, a terrific earthquake took place at Lisbon. In about eight minutes most of the houses, and upward of 50,000 inhabitants, were swallowed up, and whole streets buried. The cities of Coimbra, Oporto, and Braga, suffered dreadfully, and the town of St. Ubes was wholly overturned. Whilst some of the inhabitants ran affrightedly to pray in churches to the images of the Virgin or their patron saints, others, hard-hearted wretches, the denizens of jails, loosened from their captivity by the shock, perpetrated murders and unheard-of cruelties, and pillaged the wounded and frightened inhabitants. In Spain, a large part of Malaga was destroyed, and the area of destruction extended to Fez, in Morocco, one-half of which was thrown down, killing 10,000 Moors. Above half of the island of Madeira became waste; and even29the island of Myteline, in the Archipelago, suffered so much from the shock that 2,000 houses were thrown down. This awful earthquake extended 5,000 miles, even to Scotland. In England, various singular phenomena, unaccountable until the news of the earthquake arrived, were observed. The hot-well at Bristol became red as blood, and so thick and turbid that the water could not be drunk. Water in a common well turned as black as ink, and was unfit for use for a fortnight, and the tide of the river Avon turned back, contrary to its usual course. It was no wonder, therefore, that men's hearts failed them through fear, nor were the men of science able satisfactorily to account for the wonders which they beheld." As the earth waxes old, it would be natural to expect that these spasms of nature would increase in frequency and power; a supposition of which the following facts would seem to afford some proof: "In 1840, at Mount Ararat, 3137 houses were thrown down, and many hundreds of people perished; at Zante, in the same year, many were killed from the same cause; at Cape Haytien, St. Domingo, in 1842, two-thirds of the town were thrown down, and between 4,000 and 5,000 people killed. In 1857, in Calabria, Montemarro and other towns were destroyed, and it is said that 22,000 lives were lost in a few seconds; it is calculated that out of a population of six millions, the unfortunate kingdom of Naples lost in seventy-five years 111,000 inhabitants. Nearly the last great earthquake recorded is no later than March 20, 1861, when the city of Mendoza in South America was overthrown, two-thirds of it destroyed, and 7,000 lives were lost! There was also a terrible one in Manilla during last year."