- The Terrible Tragedy that Befell the People of Our Golden City
- The Metropolis of the Golden Gate, and the Death and Ruin Dealt Many Adjacent Cities and Surrounding Country.
- Destroying Earthquake Comes Without Warning, in the Early Hours of the Morning.
- Immense Structures Topple and Crumble.
- Great Leland Stanford University Succumbs.
- Water Mains Demolished and Fire Completes Devastation.
- Fighting Fire With Dynamite.
- Thousands Killed, Maimed, or Unaccounted For.
- Tens of Thousands Without Food or Shelter; Martial Law Declared.
- Property Loss Hundreds of Millions.
- Appalling Stories by Eye Witnesses and Survivors.
- The Disaster as Viewed by Scientists, etc.
COMPLETE STORY OF THE
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SCENES OF DEATH AND TERROR
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Thousands Killed, Maimed, or Unaccounted For; Tens of Thousands Without Food
or Shelter; Martial Law Declared; Millions Donated for Relief; Congress Makes an Appropriation; Sympathetic Citizens Throughout the Land Untie Their Purse-Strings to Aid the Suffering and Destitute; Property Loss Hundreds of Millions; Appalling Stories by Eye Witnesses and Survivors; The Disaster as Viewed by Scientists, etc. |
Comprising Also a Vivid Portrayal of the Recent Death-Dealing
ERUPTION OF MT. VESUVIUS
BY RICHARD LINTHICUM
of the Editorial Staff of the Chicago Chronicle. |
Together with twelve descriptive chapters giving a graphic and detailed account of the most interesting
and historic disasters of the past from ancient times to the present day.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE
Historian, Traveler and Geographer.
Profusely Illustrated with Photographic Scenes of the Great Disasters and Views
of the Devastated Cities and Their People. |
THE AWFUL HORROR OF AN EARTHQUAKE.
Lives, homes and property lost in a few seconds.
CHAPTER XVII.
MISCELLANEOUS FACTS AND INCIDENTS.
Many Babies Born in Refuge Camps—Expressions of Sympathy from Foreign Nations—San Francisco’s Famous Restaurants—Plight of Newspaper and Telegraph Offices.
IN the refugee camps a number of babies were born under the most distressing and pathetic circumstances, the mothers in many cases being unattended by either husbands or relatives. In Golden Gate Park alone fifteen babies were born in one night, it was reported. The excitement and agony of the situation brought the little ones prematurely into the world. And equally remarkable was the fact that when all danger was over all of the mothers and the children of the catastrophe were reported to have withstood the untoward conditions and continued to improve and grow strong as if the conditions which surrounded them had been normal. This, undoubtedly, was in great part due to the care and kindness of the physicians and surgeons in the camps whose efforts were untiring and self-sacrificing for all who had been so suddenly surrendered to their care.
In an express wagon bumping over the brick piles and broken streets was a mother who gave birth to triplets in the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park a week later. All the triplets were living and apparently doing well. In this narrow park strip where the triplets were born fifteen other babies came into the world on the same fateful night, and, strange as it seems, every one of the mothers and every one of the infants had been reported as doing well.
[Pg 215]The following night thirteen more babies were born in the park Panhandle, and these, so far as the reports show, fared as well as those born the first night. In fact, the doctors and nurses reported that there had been no fatality among the earthquake babies or their unfortunate mothers. One trained nurse who accompanied a prominent doctor on his rounds the first night after the shock attended eight cases in which both mothers and children thrived. One baby was born in a wheelbarrow as the mother was being trundled to the park by her husband.
Expressions of sympathy and condolence on account of the great disaster were sent to the President of the United States from all over the world. Among the messages received within about 24 hours after the catastrophe were the following:
From the President of Guatemala—I am deeply grieved by the catastrophe at San Francisco. The president of Guatemala sends to the people of the United States through your eminence his expression of the most sincere grief, with the confidence that in such a lamentable misfortune the indomitable spirit of your people will newly manifest itself—that spirit which, if great in prosperity, is equally great in time of trial.
President of Mexico—Will your excellency be so kind as to accept the expression of my profound and deep sympathy with the American people on account of the disaster at San Francisco, which has so affected the American people.
President of Brazil—I do myself the honor of sending to you the expression of the profound grief with which the government and people of the United States of Brazil have read the news of the great misfortune which has occurred at San Francisco.
Emperor of Japan—With assurances of the deepest and heartiest sympathy for the sufferers by the terrible earthquake.
King Leopold of Belgium—I must express to you the deep sympathy which I feel in the mourning which the terrible disaster at San Francisco is causing the whole American people.
[Pg 216]President of Cuba—In the name of the government and people of Cuba, I assure you of the deep grief and sympathy with which they have heard of the great misfortune which has overtaken San Francisco.
Kirkpatrick, acting premier of New Zealand—South Australia deplores the appalling disaster which has befallen the state of California and extends heartfelt sympathy to sufferers.
Viceroy of India—My deepest sympathy with you and people of United States in terrible catastrophe at San Francisco.
Governor Talbot of Victoria, Australia—On behalf of the people of Victoria, I beg to offer our heartfelt sympathy with the United States on the terrible calamity at San Francisco.
President of Switzerland—The federal council is profoundly affected by the terrible catastrophe which has visited San Francisco and other California cities, and I beg you to receive the sincere expressions of its regret and the sympathy of the Swiss people as a whole, who join in the mourning of a sister republic.
Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria—I beg to assure you, Mr. President, of my most sincere sympathy with your land in its sorrow because of the terrible earthquake at San Francisco, and I beg to offer you personally, Mr. President, my heartfelt condolences.
Prince Henry of Prussia—Remembering American hospitality, which is still so fresh in my memory, I hereby wish to express my deepest sympathy on behalf of the terrible catastrophe which has befallen the thriving city of San Francisco and which has destroyed so many valuable lives therein. Still hope that news is greatly exaggerated.
Premier Bent of South Wales—New South Wales and Victoria sympathize with California suffering disaster.
Count Witte—The Russian members of the Portsmouth conference, profoundly moved by the sad tidings of the calamity that has befallen the American people, whose hospitality they recently enjoyed, beg your excellency to accept and to transmit to citizens [Pg 217]of United States the expression of their profound and heartfelt sympathy.
The cathedral of San Francisco with the residences attached, together with the residence of the archbishop, were saved. Sacred Heart College and Mercy Hospital, together with the various schools attached, were destroyed.
The churches damaged by the earthquake are:
St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo park.
St. James’ church.
St. Bridget’s church.
St. Dominick’s church.
Church of the Holy Cross.
St. Patrick’s church at San Jose.
Those destroyed by fire were:
Churches of SS. Ignatius, Boniface, Joseph, Patrick, Brendan, Rose, Francis, Mission Dolores, French church, Slavonian church and the old Cathedral of St. Mary’s.
The Custom House with its records was saved. It was in one of the little islands which the fire passed by. All the city records which were in the vaults of the city hall were saved. The city hall fell, but the ruins did not burn. By this bit of luck the city escapes great confusion in property claims and adjustments.
Millet’s famous picture, “The Man with the Hoe,” was saved with other paintings and tapestries in the collection of William H. Crocker.
Mr. Crocker, who was in New York, said about the rescue of the paintings (Head is Mr. Crocker’s butler):
“I am much gratified at the devotion Head displayed in saving my pictures and tapestries at such a time. Besides the ‘Man with the Hoe,’ I have pictures by Tenniel, Troyon, Paul Potter, Corot, Monet, Renoir, Puvis de Chavannes, Pissaro, and Constable. The tapestries consisted of six Flemish pieces dating from the sixteenth century, of which the finest is a ‘Resurrection.’ [Pg 218]It is a splendid example of tissue d’or work, and was once the property of the duc d’Albe.”
On April 20 Bishop Coadjutor Greer of the Protestant Episcopal church of New York announced that this prayer had been authorized to be used in the churches of that diocese for victims of the earthquake:
“O Father of Mercy and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need, look down from heaven, we humbly beseech thee, behold, visit and relieve thy servants to whom such great and grievous loss and suffering have come through the earthquake and the fire.
“In thy wisdom thou hast seen fit to visit them with trouble and to bring distress upon them. Remember, O Lord, in mercy and imbue their souls with patience under this affliction.
“Though they be perplexed and troubled on every side, save them from despair and suffer not their faith and trust in thee to fail.
“In this our hour of darkness, when thou hast made the earth to tremble and the mountains thereof to shake, be thou, O God, their refuge and their strength and their present help in trouble.
“And for as much as thou alone canst bring light out of darkness and good out of evil, let the light of thy loving countenance shine upon them through the cloud; let the angel of thy presence be with them in their sorrow, to comfort and support them, giving strength to the weak, courage to the faint and consolation to the dying.
“We ask it in the name of him who in all our afflictions is afflicted with us, thy son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen!”
Mrs. A. G. Pritchard, wife of a San Francisco manufacturer, who, with her husband, was on her way home from Europe to San Francisco, became suddenly insane at the Union Station in Pittsburgh Pa., when she alighted to get some fresh air.
The Pritchards were hurrying to San Francisco with the [Pg 219]expectation of finding their three children dead in the ruins of their home.
Landing in New York April 24, the Pritchards learned that their home had been destroyed before any of the occupants had had an opportunity to get out.
Mr. Pritchard said that his information was that the governess was dying in a hospital, and from what he has heard, he had no hope of seeing his children alive.
At Philadelphia a physician told Mr. Pritchard that his wife was bordering on insanity. At the station Mrs. Pritchard shrieked and moaned until she was put into the car, where a physician passenger volunteered to care for the case.
On the afternoon of the fire the police broke open every saloon and corner grocery in the saved district and poured all malt and spirituous liquors into the gutters.
San Francisco was famous for the excellence of its restaurants. Many of these were known wherever the traveler discussed good living. Among them were the “Pup” and Marschand’s in Stockton street; the “Poodle Dog,” one of the most ornate distinctive restaurant buildings in the United States; Zinkand’s and the Fiesta, in Market street; the famous Palace grill in the Palace hotel; and scores of bohemian resorts in the old part of San Francisco. They are no more.
Down near the railroad tracks at what used to be Townsend street, food was mined from the ruins as a result of a fortuitous discovery made by Ben Campbell, a negro. While in search of possible treasure he located the ruins of a grocery warehouse, which turned out to be a veritable oven of plenty. People gathered to this place and picked up oysters, canned asparagus, beans, and fruit all done to a turn and ready for serving.
For a time there was marked indignation in San Francisco caused by the report that the San Franciscans, in their deep-grounded prejudice, had discriminated against the Chinamen in the relief work. This report was groundless. The six Chinese [Pg 220]companies, or Tongs, representing enormous wealth, had done such good work that but little had been necessary from the general relief committee, and, besides, the Chinese needed less. No Chinaman was treated as other than a citizen entitled to all rights, which cannot be said under normal conditions on the Pacific coast. Gee Sing, a Chinese member of the Salvation Army, had been particularly efficient in caring for his countrymen.
The San Francisco daily newspapers, all of which were burned out, were prompt in getting in shape to serve their subscribers. On Thursday morning, the day after the fire, the best showing the morning journals could make was a small combination sheet bearing the unique heading, “Call-Chronicle-Examiner.” It was set up and printed in the office of the Oakland Tribune, gave a brief account of the great disaster, and took an optimistic view of the future of the stricken city. The day after the papers, though still printed in Oakland, appeared under their own headings and with a few illustrations, showing scenes in the streets of San Francisco.
S. M. Pencovic, a San Francisco druggist, on arriving in Chicago from Paris, said he had a premonition of disaster, which impelled him to hasten home, several days before the earthquake. He left for San Francisco to search for his father and mother, who are among the missing.
“For several days I felt as if something awful was about to happen,” said he. “So completely did the feeling take possession of me that I could not sleep at night. At last I could stand it no longer, and I left Paris April 14, four days before the upheaval.
“I embarked on La Savoie at Havre. I tried to send a wireless message, but could receive no answer.
“The day after the catastrophe the captain of the ship called me to his cabin and told me he had just received a wireless message that San Francisco had been destroyed by an earthquake. I was not surprised.”
[Pg 221]At the Presidio, where probably 50,000 people were camped, affairs were conducted with military precision. Here those who are fortunate enough to be numbered among the campers were able now and then to obtain a little water with which to moisten their parched lips, while rations, owing to the limited supply, were being dealt out in the smallest quantities that all may share a bit. The refugees stood patiently in line and the marvelous thing about it all was that not a murmur was heard. This characteristic is observable all over the city. The people were brave and patient and the wonderful order preserved by them had been of great assistance. Though homeless and starving they were facing the awful calamity with resigned fortitude.
In Oakland the day after the quake messages were stacked yards high in all the telegraph offices waiting to be sent throughout the world. Conditions warranted utter despair and panic, but through it all the people were trying to be brave and falter not.
Oakland temporarily took the place of San Francisco as the metropolis of the Pacific coast, and there the finance kings, the bankers and merchants of the San Francisco of yesterday were gathering and conferring and getting into shape the first plans for the rebuilding of the burned city and preventing a widespread financial panic that in the first part of the awful catastrophe seemed certain.
Resting on a brick pile in Howard street was a young Swedish woman, whose entire family had perished and who had succeeded in saving from the ruins of her home only the picture of her mother. This she clutched tightly as she struggled on to the ferry landing—the gateway to new hope for the refugees. A little farther along sat a man with his wife and child. He had had a good home and business. Wrapped in a newspaper he held six hand-painted dinner plates. They were all he could dig out of the debris of his home, and by accident they had escaped breakage.
[Pg 222]“This is what I start life over again with,” he said, and his wife tried to smile as she took her child’s hand to continue the journey. Thousands of these instances are to be found.
Owing to the energetic efforts of General Funston and the officials of the Spring Valley Water Company the sufferers in all parts of the city were spared at least the horrors of a water famine. As soon as it was learned that some few mercenaries who were fortunate enough to have fresh water stored in tanks in manufacturing districts were selling it at 50 cents per glass, the authorities took prompt action and hastened their efforts to repair the mains that had been damaged by the earthquake shocks.
John Singleton, a Los Angeles millionaire, his wife and her sister, were staying at the Palace Hotel when the earthquake shock occurred.
Mr. Singleton gave the following account of his experience: “The shock wrecked the rooms in which we were sleeping. We managed to get our clothes on and get out immediately. We had been at the hotel only two days and left probably $3,000 worth of personal effects in the room.
“After leaving the Palace we secured an express wagon for $25 to take us to the Casino near Golden Gate Park, where we stayed Wednesday night. On Thursday morning we managed to get a conveyance at enormous cost and spent the entire day in getting to the Palace. We paid $1 apiece for eggs and $2 for a loaf of bread. On these and a little ham we had to be satisfied.”
Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
RANDOLPH STORAGE.
Walls shaken down by the earthquake.
Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
DESTROYED SWITCHBOARD.
The electric lighting company.
Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
ST. DOMINICI CHURCH.
A part of the steeple shaken out by the earthquake.
Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
ST. DOMINICI CHURCH.
A view of the wreck which tells its own story.
John A. Floyd, a Pullman conductor on the Northwestern railroad, living in Chicago, gave a lengthy and vivid description of the quake and its effects.
“If I live a thousand lifetimes I will never forget that night,” he said. “Words are too feeble, entirely too inadequate, to portray the fear that clutched the human breast. The most graphic pen could not faithfully portray the sickening horror of that night.
“Plaster falling from the walls in my room in the fourth floor [Pg 225]of the Terminal Hotel in Market street aroused me from a sound sleep about 5 o’clock in the morning. I sat up in bed, and got out onto the floor. The building was shaking like a reed in a storm, literally rocking like a hammock. It was impossible for me to stand. Another shock threw me heavily to the floor. I remained there for what seemed hours to me. Then I crawled on hands and knees to the door, and succeeded in unlocking it with much difficulty. I was in my night clothes, and without waiting to even pull on a pair of shoes I made my way down those swaying stairs as rapidly as I could.
“When I reached the street it was filled with half mad unclothed men, women, and children, running this way and that, hugging and fighting each other in their frenzy.
“The loud detonations under the earth enhanced the horror. The ground kept swaying from side to side, then roaring like the waves of the ocean, then jolting in every conceivable direction.
“Buildings were parting on all sides like egg shells, the stone and brick and iron raining down on the undressed hundreds in the streets, killing many of them outright and pinning others down to die slowly of torture or be roasted alive by the flames that sprang up everywhere around us.
“When things had quieted somewhat, I went back to the hotel to dress, and discovered that the entire wall of my room had fallen out.
“I succeeded in finding most of my clothes, and after donning them hastily went back to the work of rescue. When I got back to the street from the hotel the entire district seemed to be in flames. Fire seemed to break out of the very earth on all sides of Market street, eating up buildings as if they were so many buildings of paper. A big wholesale drug house on Seventh street exploded, throwing sparking and burning embers high into the air. These fiery pieces descended on the half-clad people in the streets, causing them to run madly for places of safety, almost crazy with the pain.
[Pg 226]“Soon the improvised hearses began to arrive. Out of every building bodies were taken like carcasses out of a slaughter pen. Automobiles, carriages, express wagons, private equipages, and vehicles of all kinds were pressed into service and piled high with the bodies. Everywhere these wagon loads of dead bodies were being dragged through the streets, offering a spectacle to turn the most stout-hearted sick.
“With three or four sailors I went up to Seventh street to assist a number of men, women and children who had become entombed under the debris of a flat building.
“They were so tightly wedged in that we were unable to offer them any help and had to stand by and hear their cries as they were slowly roasted to death by the ever increasing flames. I can hear the cries of one of those women ringing in my ears yet—I guess I always will.
“I guess pretty nearly every bone in her body was broken. As we stood by helplessly she cried over and over again:
“‘Don’t let me die like this. Don’t let me roast. I’m cooking, cooking alive. Kill me! Shoot me—anything! For God’s sake have mercy!’
“Others joined her in the cry and begged piteously to be quickly killed before the flames reached them.
“By this time the street level had become so irregular that it was almost impossible to drag the dead wagons over them.
“Dynamite was then brought into use and the buildings were blown up like firecrackers. Flying debris was everywhere in the air, and another mad rush for safety was made, the almost naked people falling over each other in their frantic efforts to get out of the danger.
“While this excitement was at its height a man dressed only in his underclothing made his appearance among the people in a light gasoline runabout. At top speed he ran into a crowd of women, knocking them down and injuring at least a dozen. [Pg 227]Then he turned back and charged them again. He had gone mad as a result of the scenes of death and destruction.
“Some one called for a gun, hoping that they might stop the fellow by shooting him. None was to be had, and after a desperate fight with sailors who succeeded in getting into the machine he was overpowered and turned loose.
“Everybody in the crowd, I believe, was temporarily crazy. Men and women ran helter-skelter in nothing but their night gowns, and many of them did not have on that much.”
Mrs. J. B. Conaty, of Los Angeles, was in Oakland at the time of the shock and felt the vibrations. “The suddenness with which it came upon the people,” she said, “was the most appalling thing. When I looked across the bay at ’Frisco from the Oakland shore the city seemed peacefully at sleep, like a tired baby beside its mother. With my next glance at the city I was turned almost sick.
“The ground was shaking beneath me and I thought that the end of the world was at hand. Buildings were falling to the right and left. The earth was groaning and rocking, and flames were shooting high into the sky. Soon the sound of the dynamiting reached us and buildings began to fly in the air like fireworks.
“The sea lashed itself into a fury and beat upon the shores as if it too sought to escape nature’s wrath. Over across the bay all was disorder. In the glare of the blood red flames reflected against sky and sea, white robed, half naked men and women could be seen wildly running about.
“Some of them ran to the water’s edge and threw themselves in and others less frantic had to battle with them to haul them out.
“It seemed as if every man, woman and child in ’Frisco was running toward the ferry docks. When the boat arrived on our side of the shore it was packed with men and women, none of whom seemed to be in their right senses. Many of them jumped from the boat as soon as it was made fast and ran at top speed [Pg 228]through the streets of Oakland until forced to fall through sheer exhaustion.
“One woman in the crowd had nothing on but a night gown. In her arms she carried a 3-year-old girl who was hanging tightly to a rag doll and seemed to be the only one in the vast crowd that was unafraid. Where all these people went to I have no idea.
“I stood on the Oakland side watching ’Frisco devoured. In a space of time so short that it all seems to me like a dream now the whole city, slumbering peacefully but a moment before, presented a perdition beside which Dante’s inferno seems to pale into insignificance.”
The looters early began operations in the stricken city. The vandal thinking that law and order had gone in the general crash filled his pockets as he fled.
It was the relic hunter who opened the door to the looter. The spirit which sends the tourist tapping about the ruins of the Parthenon, awoke in San Francisco. Idle and curious men swarmed into the city, poking about in the ruins in the hope of finding something worth carrying away as a souvenir of the greatest calamity of modern times.
Scores of men and women were seen digging in the ruins of one store. They were disinterring bits of crockery, china and glassware. Strangely enough, a great deal of this sort of ware had been protected by a wall which stood through quake and fire. One woman came toiling out over a pile of brick, covered with ashes and dust, her hair dishevelled and hands grimy, but she was perfectly happy.
“See,” said she, “I found half a dozen cups and saucers as good as new. They are fine china and they will be worth more than ever now.”
I asked her if she needed them.
“Oh, dear no!” said she, laughing. “I live over in Oakland. I just wanted them to keep as souvenirs!”
Some hard-hearted jokers were abroad also. Humor dies [Pg 229]hard, and perhaps it is just as well that it does, for the six men who started the bogus bread lines would have needed much of it if the soldiers had caught them.
The people of San Francisco had become accustomed to eating out of the hand. They put in long hours every day standing in line waiting for something to be given out. Many of them did not know what was being distributed, but they knew it would be good, so they fell into line and waited.
There were thousands of people in San Francisco who fell into a line every time they saw one. They had the bread line habit.
This impressed itself on these six men, for they went about the town and every time they found a promising spot they lined up and looked expectant. Men came and fell in behind. Women with baskets joined the brigade and in ten minutes these sidewalk comedians had a string a block long behind them and more coming every minute. Then the six jokers slipped away and left the confiding ones to wait. It was a mean trick.
The stranger and the wayfarer was made to feel at home anywhere in Oakland and the luxury of sleeping within four walls was not denied to any one. Only a few hardy men who were willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the weaklings went without covering. The people stripped the portieres and hangings from their walls, tore up their carpets and brought in every spare piece of cloth which would do for a night’s covering. The women and children who preferred to stay indoors and on hard floors were taken care of in the public halls, the school buildings, and the basements of the churches. Beds were improvised of sheets and hay and the weaker refugees, who were beginning to go down under the strain, slept comfortably. Oakland did nobly. People shared their beds with absolute strangers, and while the newcomers in the park camps were dead to the world, those who came the day before cheered up considerably. One camp of young men got out a banjo and sang for the entertainment of the crowd.
CHAPTER XVIII.
DISASTER AS VIEWED BY SCIENTISTS.
Scientists are Divided Upon the Theories Concerning the Shock That Wrought Havoc in the Golden Gate City—May Have Originated Miles Under the Ocean—Growth of the Sierra Madre Mountains May Have Been the Cause.
THE subterranean movement that caused the earthquake at San Francisco was felt in greater or less degree at many distant places on the earth’s surface. The scientists in the government bureaus at Washington believe that the subterranean land slide may have taken place in the earthquake belt in the South American region or under the bed of the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco got the result of the wave as it struck the continent, and almost simultaneously the instruments in Washington reported a decided tremor of the earth, and the oscillations of the needle continued until about noon.
At the weather bureau the needle was taken from the pivot and had to be replaced before the record could be continued. Other government stations throughout the country also noted the earthquake shock, and they agree in a general way that the disturbance began according to the record of the seismograph at nineteen minutes and twenty seconds after 8 o’clock. This would be the same number of minutes and seconds after 5 o’clock at San Francisco, which accords entirely with the time of the disaster on the Pacific Coast.
There seems to be no reason to believe the earthquake shock in San Francisco had any direct connection with the eruption of Vesuvius. That eruption had been recorded from day to day [Pg 231]on the delicate instruments established by the weather bureau at the lofty station on Mount Weather, high up in the Virginia hills. This eruption of Vesuvius did not disturb the seismograph even at the period of great activity, but apparently Vesuvius and Mount Weather were like the lofty poles of two wireless telegraph stations, and between them there passed electrical magnetic waves encircling the earth. The records made at Mount Weather were of the most distinct character, but they showed disturbances in the air of a magnetic type and did not indicate any earthquake.
In explaining the San Francisco trembling, C. W. Hays, the director of geology in the geological survey, explained that earthquakes are, according to modern scientific theory, caused by subterranean land slides, the result of a readjustment as between the solid and the molten parts of the earth’s interior.
“The earth,” he said, “is in a condition of unstable equilibrium so far as its insides are concerned. The outer crust is solid, but after you get down sixty or seventy miles the rocks are nearly in a fluid condition owing to great pressure upon them. They flow to adjust themselves to changed conditions, but as the crust cools it condenses, hardens, and cracks, and occasionally the tremendous energy inside is manifested on the surface.
“When the semi-fluid rocks in the interior change their position there is a readjustment of the surface like the breaking up of ice in a river, and the grinding causes the earthquake shocks which are familiar in various parts of the world. The earthquake at San Francisco was probably local, although the center of the disturbance may have been thousands of miles away from that city.”
Prof. Willis L. Moore, the chief of the weather bureau, in talking of the records of the earthquake in his department, said:
“We have a perfect record of this earthquake, although we are thousands of miles away from the actual tremor itself. There were premonitory tremblings, which began at 8:19 and continued [Pg 232]until 8:23 or thereabout. Then there was severe shock which threw the pen off the cylinder.
“According to our observations here there was a to and fro motion of the earth in the vicinity of Washington amounting to about four-tenths of an inch at the time of its greatest oscillation. These movements kept up in a constantly decreasing ratio until nearly half an hour after noon.
“San Francisco may have been a long way away from the real earthquake and merely have been within the radius of severe action so as to produce disastrous results. It is quite likely, in fact, that the greatest disturbance may have taken place beneath the bed of the Pacific Ocean.
“If it resulted in an oscillation of the earth of only a few inches there would be no likelihood of a great tidal wave. If, however, there was produced a radical depression in the bed of the ocean, the sinking of an island, or some other extraordinary disturbance, a tidal wave along the Pacific Coast would almost certainly be one of the events of this great disaster.
“There are apparently three distinct weak spots in the United States, which are peculiarly subject to earthquake shocks, and we are likely sooner or later to hear from all of them in connection with the shock at San Francisco. There is one weak area along the southern Atlantic coast in the vicinity of Charleston, another is in Missouri, and the third includes the Pacific Coast from a point north of San Francisco down to and beyond San Diego.”
In describing the instruments at the weather bureau which make the record of earthquakes, even when the movement is so small that the ordinary person does not recognize it, Prof. Moore said:
“The apparatus we have is a pen drawing a continuous line on a cylinder which revolves once every hour and is worked continuously by clockwork in an exact record of time. It moves in a straight line when there is no disturbance, and it jumps from right to left and back again when there are serious oscillations [Pg 233]of the earth. The extent of these movements of the pen measures the grade of the oscillation. You may think it is a fantastic statement, but this seismographic pen is adjusted so delicately that it will register your step in its vicinity.
“The instrument is mounted on a solid stone foundation and what it registers is the effect of your weight pressing upon the earth. It is easy to see, therefore, that the record we have obtained of this earthquake shows a few preliminary tremblings, which seem to be premonitions, for about four minutes, then a great crash which threw the pen off the cylinder and finally a period of nearly four hours, during which there were slight tremblings of the earth, this latter period marking the readjustment after the actual shock.”
Most of the scientists were inclined to believe that the boiling process in the interior of the earth, although it goes on continuously, is subject to periods of greater or less activity. This activity may be, however, purely local, according to the scientific theory, for otherwise there would be eruptions in all the active volcanoes of the earth at the same time, and there would be earthquakes in every one of the areas where there is liability to seismic disturbances.
One government scientist in discussing the San Francisco earthquake said: “If we could have been right here in the vicinity of Washington a few hundreds of thousands of millions of years ago, we should have seen earthquakes that were earthquakes. The Alleghanies were broken up by great convulsions of the earth, and it is probable that this North American continent of ours was rocked a foot or two at a time, causing a tremendous crash of matter and the reorganization of the world itself.
“The crust, while not necessarily thinner, is not so solid. In cooling it has cracked and left fissures or caverns or jumbled strata of softer material between harder rocks, so that it is peculiarly subject to earthquakes.”
Maj. Clarence E. Dutton, U. S. A., retired, the most famous [Pg 234]American expert on seismic disturbances, said it was probably the greatest earthquake that has occurred in this country since 1868. He declared that it undoubtedly would be followed by disturbances of less intensity in the same quarter. He stated most emphatically that the eruption of Vesuvius had no bearing whatsoever on the disturbance on the Pacific Coast.
J. Paul Goode, a professor in geology in the University of Chicago, attributes the cause of the Frisco earthquake to the Sierra Madre mountains, but not in a volcanic way, for he also claims that lava had nothing to do with the California shock. The shocks, he showed, can be attributed to mountains without volcanoes in their midst. The Sierra Madres are growing, he said, and for this reason they have shaken the city of San Francisco. He says that the gradual growing of mountains causes the underlying blocks of the earth’s crust to slip up and down and shape the top of the earth in their vicinity when they fall any great distance.
His ideas upon the subject are: “I figure that the earthquake which caused so much damage in San Francisco came from what we call the focus of disturbance. This focus at San Francisco is seven miles below the surface of the earth. As the Sierra Madre mountains grow, a phenomenon which is constantly going on, the blocks of earth below change positions; as a large block falls a series of shocks travels, up and down much the same way as the rings in the water travel out from the point at which a pebble strikes. When the vibration reaches the surface crust a severe shaking of the country adjacent is the result.
“From the actions of the earth in April of 1892, when such a severe shock was felt in San Francisco, I have no doubt but that a second earthquake will follow closely upon the one of yesterday, as the second followed the first in 1892. In that year the first came upon the 19th of April and the second upon the 21st.”
Of 948 earthquake shocks that have been recorded in California previous to 1887, 417 were most active in San Francisco. [Pg 235]The seismographs which record the merest tremors and determine the place of the shock show that 344 have occurred since 1888. Half of the sum total have occurred in the vicinity of the gate city and for this reason it is believed that the severe shock of April 18 was the final fall of a crust of the earth which has been gradually slipping for centuries, causing from time to time the slight shocks.
The seismic physics of San Francisco and its immediate neighborhood have engaged the careful study of physical geographers. The commonly accepted opinion is one which was formulated by Prof. John Le Conte, professor of geology in the University of California, and one of the world’s geological authorities. His explanation is based upon the mountain contours of the coast of California from the Santa Barbara channel northward to the Golden Gate. In this region are represented two peninsulas, one visible, the other to be discovered through examination of the altitudes upon the map corresponding to existing geological features. This second and greater peninsula comprises the Monte Diablo and Coast ranges, separated from the Sierra elevation by the alluvial soil of the low-lying valley of the San Joaquin. This valley is contoured by the level of 100 feet and lower for a considerable portion of its length, and practically all of it lies below the level of 500 feet. The partition thereby accomplished between the Sierra mountain mass and the coastal mountains is sufficiently pronounced to indicate what was at no remote period an extensive peninsula.
This valley of the San Joaquin lies above the line of a geological fault, at a depth which can only be estimated as somewhere about a mile. The artesian well borings which have been abundantly prosecuted in the counties of Merced, Fresno, Kings and Kern afford evidence looking toward such a determination of bedrock depth. On the ocean side the continental shelf is extremely narrow. The great peninsula presents a most precipitous [Pg 236]aspect toward the ocean basin. It is interrupted at intervals by deep submarine gorges extending close to the shore.
The oceanic basin of the Pacific is throughout a region of volcanic upheaval and seismic disturbance.
Conditioned on the one side by the known fault of the San Joaquin Valley and on the other by the volcanic activity of the Pacific basin, the greater peninsula of San Francisco in particular has always been subject, so far as the memory of white settlers can go, to frequent shocks of earthquake. In the last score or more of years seismographic observatories have been maintained at several points about San Francisco bay, and the records have been sufficiently studied to afford data for comprehension of the varied earth waves which have made themselves felt either to the perception of the citizens of the Golden Gate or to the sensitive instruments. Such observations have been conducted by Prof. George Davidson, for many years in charge of the Coast and Geodetic Survey upon the Pacific Coast; by Prof. Charles Burckhalter, of the Chabot Observatory, in Oakland, and by the staff of the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton.
Careful inspection of these records shows that two systems of earthquake disturbances act upon San Francisco. Those of the lighter series show a wave movement beginning in one of the easterly quadrants and more commonly in the southeastern. This series of light shocks is attributed to the slip along the line of the San Joaquin fault. While they may occur at any season of the year, they are more frequently observed when the San Joaquin river is running bank high under the influence of the melting snows in the foothills of the Sierra. That such a condition has recently existed is made clear by the report within less than a month of floods in the interior valleys of the State. Assuming, as the geologists do, that the fault in the valley lies near the roots of the Monte Diablo range, on the western edge of the alluvial plain, it will be seen that the physical factors involving the slip are very simple. There is a wide, flat plain bounded on the [Pg 237]west by a line of weakness in the rock supports. When this plain is carrying an abnormal weight of water the tendency is to break downward at the line of the fault. This tendency will produce a jar in the mountain mass which will be rapidly communicated to its farthest extremity.
The earthquakes which have their origin in the disturbances to which the oceanic basin is subject always approach San Francisco from the direction of the southwest quadrant. These have been uniformly more violent than those whose origin is attributed to the San Joaquin fault. While the records of San Francisco earthquakes up to the present have exhibited a mild type, the damage to property having hitherto been slight, it would appear from the extent and violence of the present temblor that both causes had for once united.
The possibility of such simultaneous action of the two known seismic factors of the greater peninsula had been foreseen by Prof. Le Conte. He stated that if at any time an earthquake wave of only moderate violence should come in from the oceanic basin in sufficient strength to jar the coastal mountain masses at a period when the San Joaquin Valley was bearing its maximum weight of water the conditions would be ripe for simultaneous shocks from the southwest and from the southeast. In such a condition, while neither of the shocks by itself would be capable of doing any great amount of damage to buildings in San Francisco, the combination of two distinct sets of waves might prove too much for any work of man to withstand.
In spite of the declarations of some scientists that there can be no possible connection between the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the earthquake of San Francisco, others are inclined to view certain facts in regard to recent seismic and volcanic activity as, to say the least, suggestive.
There is one very remarkable circumstance in regard to all this activity. All the places mentioned—Formosa, Southern Italy, Caucasia and the Canary Islands—lie within a belt bounded by [Pg 238]lines a little north of the fortieth parallel and a little south of the thirtieth parallel. San Francisco is just south of the fortieth parallel, while Naples is just north of it. The latitude of Calabria, where the terrible earthquakes occurred last year, is the same as that of the territory affected by yesterday’s earthquake in the United States.
There is another coincidence, which may be only a coincidence, but which is also suggestive. The last previous great eruption of Vesuvius was in 1872, and the same year saw the last previous earthquake in California which caused loss of life.
Camille Flammarion expressed the opinion that the earthquake at San Francisco and the eruption at Vesuvius are directly connected. He also sees a connection between the renewed activity of Popocatepetl, Mexico’s well-known volcano, and the disturbance on the Western coast. He says that, though the surface of the earth is apparently calm, “there is no real equilibrium in the strata of the earth,” and that the extreme lateral pressure which is still forming mountains and volcanoes along the Western coast brought about an explosion of gases and the movement of superheated steam several miles below San Francisco, resulting in an earthquake.
Another theory is that the earth in revolving is flattening at the poles and swelling at the equator, and the strata beneath the surface are shifting and sliding in an effort to accommodate themselves to the new position. Other scientists scout this idea, saying that earthquakes are not caused by the adjustment of the surface of the earth, but by jar and strain as the earth makes an effort to regain its true axis.
As regards the possible connection between volcanoes and earthquakes, it is known that a violent earthquake, whose shocks lasted several days, accompanied the eruption of Vesuvius in the year 79, when Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed. In 1755 thousands upon thousands of people lost their lives in the memorable earthquake at Lisbon, in Portugal. At the same time [Pg 239]the warm springs of Teplitz, Bohemia, disappeared, later spouting forth again. In the same year an Iceland volcano broke forth, followed by an uprising and subsidence of the water of Loch Lomond in Scotland. The eruption of Vesuvius in 1872 was followed soon after by a serious earthquake in California.
Coming to the present year, it is noticed that the earthquake in the island of Formosa, in which 1,000 people lost their lives, was followed by the eruption of Vesuvius on April 8. Soon after came the second great shock in Formosa, in which there was an even greater loss of life.
Later there were two earthquake shocks in Caucasia. At the same time the news of this appeared there was a report of renewed activity on the part of a volcano in the Canary Isles, which had long been dormant. In the United States two volcanoes which have been regarded as extinct for more than a century—Mount Tacoma and Mount Rainier—began to emit smoke. In regard to Tacoma, Dr. W. J. Holland, head of the Carnegie Institute at Pittsburg, says: “There is no doubt that there has been a breakdown and shifting of strata, perhaps at a very great depth, in the region of San Francisco. There certainly is great connection between this earthquake and recent private reports which have come to me of intense volcanic activity on the part of Mount Tacoma.”
On the other hand, leading scientists contend that these instances are mere coincidences. “If there is any connection between Vesuvius and the Caucasus and Canary Isles earthquakes other places would have suffered too; New York, for instance, is on the same parallel,” says Prof. J. F. Kemp, of Columbia University.
Although each of these scientists has the most absolute faith in his theory, he really knows no more about the facts than any boy on the street. No one has ever descended into the interior of the earth and investigated the heart of a volcano but Jules Verne, and he only in his mind. What is needed now is exact [Pg 240]information. The San Francisco catastrophe will teach many lessons, and among them the necessity for the close study of both volcanoes and earthquakes. There is no reason why earthquakes and other internal disturbances cannot be observed just as closely as the weather. In fact, it is entirely probable that the time will come when a seismological bureau will exist for the study of earthquakes, just as there is a Weather Bureau for observation of the weather, and it will be the business of its officials to prophesy and warn of approaching internal disturbances of the earth, just as the weather men announce the approach of bad weather. Government observation stations will be established, exact records will be kept, and in the course of time we shall learn exactly what earthquakes are and what are their causes.
Among other lessons that the disaster has taught is that the much-maligned skyscraper is about the safest building there is. Its steel-cage structure, with steel rods binding the stone to its wall, has stood the test and has not been found wanting. Of all the mighty buildings in San Francisco those of the most modern structure alone survived. Their safety in the midst of collapsing buildings of mortar and brick argues well for like structures in other cities.
Copyright by R. L. Forrest 1906.
CHINESE REFUGEES IN WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK.
It was estimated that as many as 10,000 Chinese were in this park at the time this photograph was taken.
FLAT BUILDING SUNK INTO EARTH.
A view of the great fissures in earth caused by earthquake. One story of the flat building on corner sunk into the ground. The water main was broken, which cut off the water supply. No water to fight the fire or quench the thirst.
Mr. Otis Ashmore declared that the regions lying along the Pacific coast contain several of the moving strata which cause earthquakes. He said:
“While much concerning the origin of earthquakes is still a matter of doubt in the minds of scientific men, it is now generally conceded that the real cause is the sudden slipping and readjustment of the strata of rocks with the crest of the earth. As the earth is slowly cooling a very slow contraction of the earth’s crust is constantly going on, and as this crust consists very largely of stratified layers of rock, the enormous forces arising from this contraction are resisted by the solid rock.
“Notwithstanding the apparent irresistible nature of these layers of rock, they slowly yield to the enormous lateral pressure [Pg 243]of contraction and gradually huge folds are pushed up in long mountain ranges. Usually this process goes on so slowly and gradually that the yielding of the rock masses takes place without noticeable jar, but occasionally a sudden slip occurs under the gigantic forces, and an earthquake is the result. This slip is usually only a few inches, but when two continents fall together for only a few inches enormous energy is developed.
“Such slips usually occur along the line of an old fissure previously formed, and the depth below the surface of the earth varies from one to twelve miles. Thus places situated near these old internal fissures are more likely to experience earthquakes than those farther away. It is a well known geological fact that the Pacific coast in California contains several of these fissures and earthquakes are more common there. The entire western part of the United States has been slowly rising for many centuries, and the shifting of soil due to erosion and transportation doubtless contributes to produce these seismic disturbances.
“Earthquakes are more common than most persons think. Modern instruments for detecting slight tremors within the earth’s crust show that there is scarcely an hour in the day free from these shocks. In mountain regions, and especially in the highest and youngest mountains, erosion is most rapid, and on the sea bottom, along the margin of the continents sedimentation is greatest. In these regions, therefore subterranean temperature and pressure changes are most rapid and earthquakes most frequent.
“A study of earthquakes develop these general facts. The origin is seldom more than twelve miles below the surface; the size of the shaken region bears a certain relation to the depth of the origin or focus, the smaller shaken region indicating a relatively shallow origin; the energy of the shock is approximately indicated by the area of the shaken region; the origin is seldom a point, but generally a line many miles in length; the subterranean stress is not relieved by a single movement, but rather by a quick succession of movements causing a series of jars.
[Pg 244]“The transmission of an earthquake shock through the earth takes place with wonderful rapidity. The elastic wave varies in velocity from 800 to 1,000 feet per second in sand or clay to three miles per second in solid granite.
“Sometimes these vibrations are of such a character as to be imparted to the air, and their transmission through the air outstrips the transmission through the earth and the ear detects the low rumbling sounds before the shock is felt.
“If the origin of the shock is under the sea near the coast any upheaval of the bottom of the ocean that frequently accompanies an earthquake, gives rise to a great tidal wave that frequently inundates the neighboring coast with much damage.
“While the phenomena of earthquakes and volcanoes are usually associated in the same region, one cannot fairly be said to be the cause of the other. Both are rather effects of a common cause, or rather of common causes, the chief of which is the shrinking and readjustment of the rocky strata within the earth. The suggestion that there is some physical connection between the recent eruptions of Vesuvius and the earthquake at San Francisco does not accord with the generally accepted views of geologists concerning these phenomena.
“It is probably true that a critical condition of stress between two gigantic and contending forces may be touched off, as it were, by any feeble force originating at a distance. Thus a distant volcanic eruption or earthquake shock may determine the climax of stress in a given portion of the earth, which will produce an earthquake. Observations show that more earthquakes occur near the full and the new moon than at other times. This is probably due to the fact that at these times the gravitation of the sun and moon are combined, and their effect upon the earth is greater. We can see this effect in the higher tides at new and full moon. But these forces, it will be seen, are the occasions, and not the causes of earthquakes.
“The probable recurrence of the San Francisco earthquake is [Pg 245]a matter of great uncertainty. In general, whenever the internal stress of the forces that give rise to earthquakes is relieved there is usually a long period of quiescence in the strata of the earth, but in the course of time, especially in regions of recent and rapid geological changes, such as is the case on the Pacific coast, there is almost certain to be recurrences of earthquake shocks from time to time.
“The geological forces may, however, gradually adjust themselves, and it may be many centuries before such a dynamic crisis will arise as that which has just convulsed a continent.”
California has had a number of great earthquakes. The records go back to the earthquake at Santa Ana in 1769. Not very much is known of this earthquake, though a church was built there and dedicated as Jesus de los Temblores.
Another one occurred at Santa Barbara in 1806, and still another in 1812. The Old Mission, about the only building there at that time, on both occasions practically had to be rebuilt.
Hittell’s History of California says that “slight shocks of earthquakes are not infrequent, but none of really violent or dangerous character has been known to occur. An old or badly constructed building has occasionally been thrown down, and a few people have been killed by falling roofs or walls. But there has been nothing in the experience of the oldest inhabitants to occasion or justify fear or dread. The first one of which there is any full record occurred on October 11, 1800, and consisted of six consecutive shocks, and it tumbled down the habitations of San Juan Bautista.
“The most disastrous shock occurred in December, 1812, when the church of San Juan Capistrano was thrown down and forty Indians killed by its fall. The same shock extended northwestward and damaged the churches of San Gabriel, San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Inez and Purisima. In 1818 the church of Santa Clara was damaged, and in 1830 the church of San Luis Obispo.”
CHAPTER XIX.
CHINATOWN, A PLAGUE SPOT BLOTTED OUT.
An Oriental Hell within an American City—Foreign in its Stores, Gambling Dens and Inhabitants—The Mecca of all San Francisco Sight Seers—Secret Passages, Opium Joints and Slave Trade its Chief Features.
TO a visitor unacquainted with oriental customs and manners the most picturesque and mysterious spot in the region of the Golden Gate was Chinatown, now blotted out, which laid in the heart of San Francisco, halfway up the hillside from the bay and was two blocks wide by two blocks long. In this circumscribed area an Oriental city within an American city, more than 24,000 Chinese lived, one-half of whom ate and slept below the level of the streets. The buildings they occupied were among the finest that were built in the early days of the gold fever. What was at one time the leading hotel of the city was as full of Chinese as a hive is full of bees, for they crowd in together in much the same way. As the gold fever attracted the Chinese to the Pacific coast, San Francisco was made a headquarters and the Orientals soon established themselves in a building on the side hill. As they continued to swarm over, gradually the American tenants were crowded out until a certain section was set apart for the Chinese residents and Chinatown became as distinct a section of the city as the Bowery in New York used to be, “where they do such things and say such things.” The time to see Chinatown was after dark, from ten at night to four in the morning, and a day and a night spent in the district would give you a very fair idea of Chinatown as it was.
[Pg 247]The streets were narrow and steep, paved with rough cobblestone. The fronts of the buildings had been changed to conform with the Chinese idea of architecture. Wide balconies and gratings and fretwork of iron painted in gaudy colors gave an Oriental touch. The fronts were a riot of color. The fronts of the joss houses and the restaurants were brightened with many colored lanterns, quaint carved gilded woodwork, potted plants and dwarf trees. Up and down these narrow streets every hour in the twenty-four you could hear the gentle tattoo, for he seemed never to sleep, never to be in a hurry and always moving. Stop on any corner five minutes and the sight was like a moving picture show. It was hard to make yourself believe that you were not in China, for as near as is possible Chinatown had been converted into a typical Chinese community. You heard no other language spoken on the streets or in the stores except by tourists, “seeing the sights.” Chinese characters adorned the windows and store fronts, the merchants in the stores were reading Chinese newspapers, the children playing on the streets jabbered in an unknown tongue, and every man you met had a pigtail hanging down his back. The streets were full of people, but there were no crowds and neither in the day nor night could you see a drunken Chinaman.
The first floor of nearly every building in Chinatown was occupied by a store or market. Most of the goods sold were imported from China. In every store there was but one clerk who could talk fair English but the bookkeeping was done in Chinese and money was counted in Chinese fashion. In the botanic stores dried snakes and toads were sold for use in compounding potions to drive away evil spirits and baskets of ginseng roots were displayed in the windows. The clothing stores handled Chinese goods exclusively and in the shoe stores beautifully embroidered sandals with felt soles an inch thick were sold for a dollar a pair. Occasionally in one of the jewelry stores a workman welded a solid gold bracelet to the arm of a Chinaman, [Pg 248]who, afraid of being robbed of his gold, had it made into a bracelet and welded to his wrist. In the markets you found an endless display of fish, poultry and vegetables. The chickens were sold alive. The dried fish came from China. All the vegetables sold in Chinatown were raised in gardens on the outskirts of the city from seed sent over from China and some of the specimens were odd looking enough. The Chinese vegetables thrive better in the soil of California than in China and Chinese vegetables raised in the San Francisco district were sent to all the mining camps in the Rockies and as far away as Denver. Some of the Chinese squashes are four feet long. Everything that can be imported from China at a profit was shipped over and the rule among the Chinese was to trade as little as possible with foreigners.
The Chinaman is thrifty and if it were not for gambling and one or two other vices they would all be rich, for they are industrious.
The Chinaman does not go much on strong drink and in many ways is a good citizen, but he does love to smoke opium and to gamble. It was easy to gain access to an opium den if you had a guide with you. The guides, many of whom are Chinese, speak English, and the English guides speak Chinese. The guides got a dollar apiece from the party of visitors they piloted about and a percentage from all moneys spent by the party in the stores, saloons, restaurants, theaters and the dives. In return they paid for the opium that was smoked in the dens for the edification of the visitors and dropped a tip here and there as they went from place to place. Most of the opium dens were underground.
The majority of the people of Chinatown lived in what were little better than rat holes, dark, poorly ventilated little cells on the side of narrow passages in basements. The rich merchants and importers lived well, but the middle and poorer classes lived in the basements where rent was cheap. Of the 24,000 Chinese population only about 900 were women so Chinatown was a bachelor’s town by a large majority, though some of the residents had [Pg 249]wives in China to whom they expected to return some day. The rule in the basements was for ten men to sleep in a room six by ten feet and do their cooking over a little charcoal fire in one corner of the room. The beds they slept in were simply bunks. The population of Chinatown had somewhat decreased since the Exclusion act was passed. Few Chinamen came over and many, having saved up a little fortune, had gone back to China to stay. Of the entire population of Chinatown there were about 1,000 who voted; they constituted the native born element. The men and women dress much alike.
One of the sights which the inquisitive traveller to the Pacific coast rarely missed was the Chinese theater. Entrance was gained through the rear from an alley by the payment of 50 cents for a ticket. After walking down a narrow passageway, climbing up two flights of stairs and down three ladders one reached the green room in the rear of the stage where one saw the actors in all the glory of Oriental costume. No foreigners, as Americans were regarded, were allowed in any part of the theater except on the stage where half a dozen chairs were reserved on one side for visitors who came in the back way. There was no drop curtain in front of the stage and the orchestra was located in the rear of the stage. The orchestra would attract attention anywhere. The music was a cross between the noise made by a boiler shop during working hours and a horse fiddle at a country serenade.
As one walked along the streets of Chinatown he noticed on many doorways a sign which read something like this: “Merchants’ Social Club. None But Members Admitted.” There would be a little iron wicket on one side of the door through which the password goes and some Chinese characters on the walls. There were dozens of these clubs in Chinatown, all incorporated and protected by law. But they were simply gambling joints into which men of other nationalities were not admitted, and where members could gamble without fear of [Pg 250]interruption by the police. Chinamen are born gamblers and will wager their last dollar on the turn of a card. Perhaps if 25,000 Americans or Englishmen or Russians were located in the heart of a Chinese city without any of the restraining influences of home life, they would seek to while away their idle hours at draw poker or as many other forms of gambling as John Chinaman indulges in. The Chinamen have little faith in one another so far as honesty goes. In many of the clubs the funds of the club are kept in a big safe which in addition to having a time lock, has four padlocks, one for each of the principal officers, and the safe can only be opened when all four are present. Often when the police raided a den that was not incorporated they found that the chips and cards had disappeared as if by magic and the players were sitting about as unconcerned as though a poker game had never been thought of. An advance tip had been sent in by a confederate on the private Chinese grapevine telegraph.
The troubles that arise between members of a Chinese secret society are settled within the society, but when trouble arises between the members of rival secret societies then it means death to somebody. For instance, a Chinaman caught cheating at cards is killed. The society to which the dead man belongs makes a demand on the society to which the man who killed him belongs for a heavy indemnity in cash. If it is not paid on a certain date, a certain number of members of the society, usually the Highbinder or hoodlum element, is detailed to kill a member of the other society. A price is fixed for the killing and is paid as soon as the job is done. The favorite weapon of the Highbinder is a long knife made of a file, with a brass knob and heavy handle. The other weapon in common use is a 45-calibre Colt’s revolver. The first one of the detail that meets the victim selected slips up behind him and shoots or stabs him in the back. It may be in a dark alley at midnight, in an opium den, at the entrance to a theater, or in the victim’s bed. If the assassin is arrested the society furnishes witness to prove an alibi and money [Pg 251]to retain a lawyer. Another favorite pastime of the Highbinder who is usually a loafer, is to levy blackmail on a wealthy Chinaman. If the sum demanded is not paid the victim’s life is not worth 30 cents. One of the famous victims of the Highbinders in recent years in San Francisco was “Little Pete,” a Chinaman who was worth $150,000 and owned a gambling palace. He refused to be held by blackmailers and lost his life in consequence.
The police of San Francisco took no stock in a Chinaman’s oath as administered in American courts. A Chinaman don’t believe in the Bible and therefore does not regard an oath as binding. In one instance it is asserted the chief had been approached by a member of one of the strongest secret societies and asked what attorney was to prosecute a certain Highbinder under arrest. Asked why he wished to know, he stated frankly that another man was about to be assassinated and he desired to retain a certain lawyer in advance to defend him if he was not already employed by the commonwealth. It is no easy matter for the police to secure the conviction of a Chinaman charged with any crime, let alone that of murder. There is only one place where a policeman will believe a Chinaman. That is in a cemetery, while a chicken’s head is being cut off. If asked any questions at that time, after certain Chinese words have been repeated, a Chinaman will tell the truth, so the police believe. Although all Chinaman are smooth faced and have their heads shaved they do not “look alike” to the policemen, who have no trouble in telling them apart. This, of course, applied only to the policemen detailed to look after Chinatown. If it were not that the Chinamen kill only men of their own race and let alone all other men, the citizens of San Francisco would have sacked and burned Chinatown. Once the Highbinders were rooted out of the city, and before the catastrophe they were going to do so again.
Some time ago a Chinese shrimp fisherman incurred the displeasure of the members of another society and he was kidnapped in the night and taken to a lonely, uninhabited island some miles [Pg 252]from San Francisco, tied hand and foot and fastened tight to stakes driven in the ground and left to die. Two days later he was found by friends, purely by accident and released, famished and worn out, but he refused to tell who his captors were, and again become a victim of the terrible Highbinders, the curse of the Pacific coast.
Incidents of the above characters nearly always ending in murder, were so common that the wealthy and powerful Chinese Six Companies, the big merchants of the race, held years ago meetings with the purpose of bringing the societies to peace and while they often succeeded the truce between them was only temporary.
Of all the dark, secretive and lawless Chinese villages that dot the wayward Pacific slope, the one that looks down on the arm of San Francisco Bay, just this side of San Pedro Point, is the most mysterious and lawless. The village hasn’t even a name to identify it, but “No Sabe” would be the most characteristic title for the settlement, because that is the only expression chance visitors and the officers of the law can get out of its sullen, stubborn, suspicious inhabitants.
They don’t deride the laws of this land. They simply ignore them.
They are a law unto themselves, have their own tribunals, officers, fines and punishments and woe betide the member who doesn’t submit. He might cry out for the white man’s law to protect him, but long before his cry could reach the white man’s ear it would be lost in that lonely, secretive village and the first officer that reached the place would be greeted by the usual stoical, “No sabe.”
Police and other investigations showed that for years past the slavery of girls and women in Chinatown was at all times deplorable and something horrible. At an investigation, a few years ago, instituted at the instance of the Methodist Mission, [Pg 253]some terrible facts were elicited, the following indicating the nature of nearly all:
The first girl examined testified that her parents sold her into slavery while she was only fifteen years of age. The price paid was $1,980, of which she personally saw $300 paid down as a deposit. Before the final payment was made she escaped to the mission.
The second, an older girl, lived in a house of ill fame for several years before she made her escape. She testified that she was sold for $2,200 by her stepmother. The transaction occurred in this city. She talked at length of the conditions surrounding the girls, including the infamous rule that they must earn a certain sum each day, and the punishments that follow failure. This girl said she knew from other girls of her acquaintance that many white men were in the habit of visiting the Chinese houses.
The third girl who testified said she was sold at a time when slaves were scarcer and higher in price than they are now, and brought $2,800 at the age of fifteen. She, too, was positive that white men visited the Chinese houses of ill fame.
One of the women of the mission showed the committee three little girls, mere babies, who had been rescued by the mission. Two of them were sold by their parents while they were still in arms. The first brought $105 when three months old and another was sold at about the same age for $150. All three were taken from the keepers of houses of ill fame and were living regularly in the houses when rescued.
But there was also a better side to Chinatown. The joss house was an interesting place. It was but a large room without seats. A profusion of very costly grill work and lanterns adorned the ceilings and walls; instruments of war were distributed around the room, and many fierce looking josses peered out from under silken canopies on the shrines. In one corner was a miniature wooden warrior, frantically riding a fiery steed toward a joss who stood in his doorway awaiting the rider’s coming. A teapot of [Pg 254]unique design, filled with fresh tea every day, and a very small cup and saucer were always ready for the warrior. This represented a man killed in battle, whose noble steed, missing his master, refused to eat and so pined away and died. A welcome was assured to them in the better land if the work of man can accomplish it. The horse and rider were to them (the Chinese) what the images of saints are to Christians. In another corner was a tiny bowl of water; the gods occasionally come down and wash. At certain times of the year, direct questions were written on slips of paper and put into the hands of one of the greatest josses. These disappear and then the joss either nodded or shook his head in answer. On the altar, or altars, were several brass and copper vessels in which the worshiper left a sandalwood punk burning in such a position that the ashes would fall on the fine sand in the vessel. When one of these became full it was emptied into an immense bronze vase on the balcony, and this, in turn, was emptied into the ocean. The Chinese take good care of their living and never forget their dead. Once a year, the fourteenth day of the seventh month, they have a solemn ceremony by which they send gold and silver and cloth to the great army of the departed.
A furnace is a necessity in a joss house. It is lighted on ceremonial days and paper representing cloth, gold and silver is burned, the ashes of the materials being, in their minds, useful in spirit land. Private families send to their relatives and friends whatever they want by throwing the gold, the silver and the cloth paper, also fruits, into a fire built in the street in front of their houses. The days of worship come on the first and fifteenth of each month.
Of the deaths in Chinatown by the earthquake and fire no reliable list has been possible but in estimating the victims the construction of the district should be regarded as an inconsiderable factor.
CHAPTER XX.
THE NEW SAN FRANCISCO.
A Modern City of Steel on the Ruins of the City that Was—A Beautiful Vista of Boulevards, Parks and Open Spaces Flanked by the Massive Structures of Commerce and the Palaces of Wealth and Fashion.
WITH superb courage and optimism that characterize the American people, San Francisco lifted her head from the ashes, and, as Kipling says, “turned her face home to the instant need of things.”
Scorched and warped by days and nights of fire, the indomitable spirit of the Golden Gate metropolis rose on pinions of hope, unsubdued and unafraid.
Old San Francisco was an ash heap. From out the wreck and ruin there should arise a new San Francisco that would at once be the pride of the Pacific coast and the American nation and a proud monument to the city that was.
Temporarily the commerce of the city was transferred to Oakland, with its magnificent harbor across the bay, and at once a spirit of friendly rivalry sprung up in the latter city. Oakland had been the first haven of refuge for the fleeing thousands, but in the face of the overwhelming disaster the sister city saw a grand opportunity to enhance its own commercial importance.
But the spirit of San Francisco would brook no successful rivalry and its leading men were united in a determination to rebuild a city beautiful on the ashen site and to regain and re-establish its commercial supremacy on the Pacific coast.
With the fire quenched, the hungry fed, some sort of shelter provided, the next step was to prepare for the resumption of business and the reconstruction of the city. Within ten days [Pg 256]from the first outbreak of flames the soldiers had begun to impress the passer-by into the service of throwing bricks and other debris out of the street in order to remove the stuff from the path of travel.
Some important personages were unceremoniously put to work by the unbiased guards, among them being Secretary of State Charles Curry of Sacramento.
The people of San Francisco turned their eyes to a new and greater city. Visitors were overwhelmed with terror of the shaking of the earth, they quailed at the thought of the fire. But the men who crossed the arid plains, who went thirsty and hungry and braved the Indian and faced hardships unflinchingly in their quest for gold over two-thirds of a century ago had left behind them descendants who were not cowards. Smoke was still rising from the debris of one building while the owner was planning the erection of another and still better one.
The disaster had made common cause, and the laboring man who before was seeking to gouge from his employer and the employer who was scheming to turn the tables on his employes felt the need of co-operation and cast aside their differences, and worked for the common cause, a new and a greater San Francisco.
Fire could not stop them, nor the earthquake daunt. They talked of beautiful boulevards, of lofty and solid steel and concrete buildings and of the sweeping away of the slums. They talked of many things and they were enthusiastic. They said that the old Chinatown would be driven away to Hunter’s Point in the southeastern portion of the city near the slaughter-houses. They said the business district should be given a chance to go over there where it belonged, by right of commanding and convenient position. They talked of magnificent palaces to take the place of those that had fallen before the earthquake, fire and dynamite. Courage conquers. We are proud of the American spirit which arises above all difficulties.
[Pg 257]But there are some things which could not be replaced. There could not be another Chinatown like the old one, with all its quaint nooks and alleys. All this was gone and a new Chinatown must seem like a sham. There were no more quaint buildings in the Latin quarter, with their old world atmosphere.
Coppas place, center of real bohemia, where artists for many years congregated and adorned the walls with pictures, still remained. But it was lonesome; all its fellows were gone; it was surrounded by ruins. Not an old place remained with a story or with a sentimental charm. San Francisco went to work with a will to rebuild, ships continued to enter its magnificent harbor, and lived down earthquake and fire to again become a great, prosperous, magnificent city.
But the sentiment of its Latin Quarter was gone, for outside of the Coppas place, there was nothing left of the old and loved San Francisco except the gable tiled roof of Mission Dolores, its plain wooden cross surmounting it, and its sweet-toned chimes long stilled. Their voices should ring out anew at intervals to remind all who may hear them that San Francisco has a storied past and a bright future, a future glorious as the brilliant sunsets that come streaming so magnificently through the Golden Gate.
It should be borne in mind that San Francisco was not destroyed by the earthquake. While old buildings in that part of the city which stood on “made” ground east of Montgomery street and some of that district lying south of Market it is true suffered from the shock, it was fire that wrought the great devastation and wiped out the entire business section and more than half of the residence section of the city.
The great modern steel structures were practically uninjured by the earthquake, except for cracked walls and displaced plaster. All those great structures, of course, subsequently were utterly ruined by the flames as far as the interior construction was concerned, but the walls were in most cases intact. The most notable cases of practical immunity from the shock were the St. [Pg 258]Francis Hotel, the Fairmont Hotel, the Flood buildings, the Mills building, the Spreckels buildings, the Chronicle building and scores of other modern steel structures.
The branch of the United States mint on Fifth street and the new postoffice at Seventh and Mission streets were striking examples of the superiority of the workmanship put into federal buildings. The old mint building, surrounded by a wide space of pavement, was absolutely unharmed. Not even the few palm trees which stand on either side of its broad entrance were withered by the flames that devoured everything around it.
The new postoffice building also was virtually undamaged by fire. The earthquake shock did some damage to the different entrances to the building; the walls were uninjured. Every window pane, of course, was gone, as they were in almost every building in town, but the government was able to resume postal business immediately.
The Fairmont Hotel, while seriously damaged in the interior, was left intact as to the walls and the management offered space in the building to the various relief committees who desired to house the homeless or to store supplies in those parts of the building considered safe.
One question that confronted the rebuilders was whether the city’s level had sunk as a result of the earthquake.
Parties sent out by City Engineer Thomas P. Woodward for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the city, as a whole, had sunk, reported that there was no general depression, though there were many spaces where there were bad depressions. The most notable depressions were on Valencia, from Nineteenth to Twentieth; lower Market, Howard and Seventeenth and Eighteenth; Van Ness, from Vallejo to Green, and on Folsom in the region of Seventeenth street.
Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
SEEKING LOST FRIENDS.
San Francisco Call Register Bureau. Looking for names on cards.
Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
VAN NESS AVENUE RESIDENCE.
All that was left of a fine residence.
TENTING IN THE SQUARE.
ALAMEDA PARK.
The southeast corner of the new postoffice building extended over an old swamp, and here there was a depression of fully four feet. The sinking was confined almost entirely to the lower [Pg 261]parts of the city, and particularly to “made” ground. Mr. Woodward gave it as his opinion that there was no general depression of the city whatever.
City Engineer Woodward was one of those who devised a general scheme for rebuilding the city, by which the new San Francisco was to be a city of magnificent buildings, terraces, boulevards, green parks and playgrounds and gardens.
One prominent feature of Mr. Woodward’s comprehensive scheme was the widening of Van Ness avenue into a magnificent boulevard. To this end he proposed the acquisition by the city through condemnation proceedings of all that choice residence property the full length of Van Ness avenue.
Under his plan there would be no narrow and clogging streets in those sections of the city laid bare by the fire. Streets in the heart of the business district which were proved entirely inadequate for the rush and confusion of a big metropolis were to be widened by slicing from the private holdings on either side, again through process of the courts.
Market street was to be left as it was. So with Third and other streets that were repaired by the city authorities just before the earthquake, but streets in the commission and wholesale sections were to be radically altered, both in width and course.
The big construction companies of New York took a great interest in the San Francisco disaster, especially as far as the damages to building was concerned.
One of the largest construction companies in the world started an engineer for San Francisco at once.
Great satisfaction was expressed by the architects of the San Francisco Chronicle building that the structure had withstood the shocks in good shape and was practically uninjured until assailed on all sides by flames. The Chronicle building was of steel framework, with the outer walls partially anchored to the frame.
George Simpson, the chief engineer of the company that built [Pg 262]the Chronicle building, was of the opinion that the big modern buildings of Chicago and New York would withstand such earthquake shocks as those felt in San Francisco.
“The east, and especially New York city,” said Mr. Simpson, “is far ahead of the west in the matter of thorough building construction. In the case of our modern buildings the steel framework sits on a bed of concrete that has been built on top of solid rock foundation.
“Now, it will be observed that all of the steel frame buildings in San Francisco withstood the shocks and the only damage done to them outside of fire was the falling out of part of the walls. In these cases the outer walls were merely built on the steel work. With our big buildings the walls are anchored to the steel framework. That is, each big piece of stone has imbedded in it a steel bar from which another arm of the same material runs in at right angles and is riveted or bolted to the framework.
“That is what I meant by anchored walls and in the event of an earthquake it would take a terrific shock to loosen these walls. Were it possible to erect an entire steel building resting on a solid foundation there would be no fear from earthquakes. In the Philippines they are now building some churches of steel framework with a sheet iron covering. This is done in anticipation of earthquake shocks.”
The rebuilding of Baltimore required 30,100 tons of structural steel. To rebuild San Francisco on the same basis the estimate was 60,000 tons amounting with freight to $6,000,000.
As compared with the loss of $200,000,000 this was an insignificant amount.
Among those who submitted a comprehensive scheme for a new San Francisco was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the noted architect of Chicago, who designed most of the features of Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition and from whose conceptions the Court of Honor at that exhibition was built, and those who visited the White City in 1893 will never forget the picturesque [Pg 263]grandeur of that enchanted region. Mr. Burnham believed in a new and ideal San Francisco and would see it take its place as the American Paris in the arrangement of its streets and the American Naples in the beauty of its bay and skies. The plans for the ideal San Francisco were his, and hardly had his report been printed than the columns of the old city went down to ruin and fire swept out of existence the landmarks by the gate of gold.
It is now the question, How far will the new San Francisco realize the dreams of those who have had before them for so many years the image of a metropolis of the Pacific with broad boulevards and great parkways and wooded heights—a city of sunken gardens, of airy bridges, of stately gardens and broad expanses?
Daniel H. Burnham had back of him a long record of achievements which earned for him his title of city builder.
He built the Rookery building and the Masonic Temple in Chicago, and then was called to various cities where he supervised the erection of imposing piles which have become landmarks. It was while studying the relations of these large buildings to their surroundings that he became interested in his still greater work, which had to do with squares and blocks and parkways.
Upon the invitation of the Association for the Improvement and Adornment of San Francisco Mr. Burnham went to the Golden Gate, where he devoted months to the plans for a new city. A bungalow was built on the Twins Peaks seven hundred feet above the level of the streets, from which Mr. Burnham and his staff of assistants could command a view of the city and the bay. The material which they sought to make into the perfect city was before them day and night. They saw San Francisco by sunlight, in fog, in storm or in the blaze of a myriad lights. As the work progressed the San Franciscans who were interested in the scheme often climbed to the bungalow to watch the progress of the work.
[Pg 264]The scheme prepared by Mr. Burnham provided first for a civic centre where all the principal city buildings were to be located and also the new union railroad station. About this was to be a broad circular boulevard, a perimeter of distribution, and beyond this a series of broader boulevards or parkways connecting the hills, which were to be converted into parks themselves.
About this was to have been the circling boulevard following the shore line of the peninsula. The scheme included also the extension of the avenue leading to the Golden Gate Park, known as the Panhandle, the building of a Greek amphitheater on the Twin Peaks, with a statue of San Francisco greeting the countries of the Orient. The plan also provided for a new parade ground at the Presidio and the building of numerous parks and playgrounds throughout the city. All this was to have cost millions, but to a man of the largeness of the City Builder this was a detail which was to be reckoned with year by year.
Now that buildings which were to have been acquired by the city to make room for the pathways of the ideal San Francisco are in ashes and twisted beams it may be that the vision of Daniel H. Burnham may soon be realized.
“It is an unfortunate thing,” he said, “that our American cities are not first laid out in accordance with some definite idea. As a matter of fact, however, they simply grow up and later have to be changed in order to give them symmetry. In Europe the whole idea is different. The government has more control over such affairs than it has in this country, and it prescribes just what the height of the buildings shall be. The result is a skyline which is imposing. In this country each man builds for himself.”
Pending the action of the authorities on the plans for the San Francisco Beautiful Mr. Burnham had little to say about the rebuilding. The boulevards connecting the hills were to have been made by taking out blocks of houses, most of which were in poorer sections of the city. This would give a passageway more than two hundred feet wide. The buildings which would have [Pg 265]been condemned have been destroyed, and it then became a question as to whether the authorities of the city would be able to make the change contemplated.
Mr. Burnham’s plan for the New San Francisco left Chinatown out of the reckoning, as there was talk of private capital arranging for the transfer of the quarter to another part of the city. It was the opinion of Mr. Burnham that Chinatown, as occupying a valuable section of San Francisco, would eventually have to go.
“Twin Peaks,” runs the report made by Mr. Burnham, “and the property lying around them, should be acquired for park purposes by the city. The idea was to weave park and residence districts into interesting and economic relations, and also to preserve from the encroachments of building the hill bordered valley running to Lake Merced, so that the vista from the parks to the ocean should be unbroken. It is planned to preserve the beautiful canyon or glen to the south of Twin Peaks and also to maintain as far as possible the wooded background formed by the hills looking south from Golden Gate. This park area of the Twin Peaks, which includes the hills which surround the San Miguel Valley and is terminated by Lake Merced, is a link in the chain of parks girdling the city.
“To the north of Twin Peaks lies a natural hollow. Here it was proposed to create an amphitheatre or stadium of vast proportions. The gentler slopes of the Twin Peaks were to be used as villa properties. The plans for Twin Peaks also included a collective centre or academy, which is to be arranged for the accommodation of men in various branches of intellectual or artistic pursuits. A little open air theatre, after the Greek model, would form a part of this scheme.”
Even Telegraph Hill was to have its precipitate sides terraced and was to be transformed into a park, according to the design of Mr. Burnham. To carry out all the plans of the architect would be a large task just now, but the citizens of the new [Pg 266]San Francisco expect that the broad general lines will be laid down and then in the course of time the rest will be added.
Unexampled as was the loss of property in San Francisco the disaster in that respect alone was converted into a permanent benefit.
No other city with the exception of Chicago ever had such a grand opportunity of rebuilding upon a basis of permanency and beauty.
Instead of shrinking, real estate values rose rapidly and continued to rise. Fancy figures were quoted on sites suitable for business establishments. Structures that remained comparatively intact not far from the old business section were leased at extremely high rates.
Instead of dooming San Francisco the double attack of fire and quake proved a blessing. Unaccountable as it may be to many people in the eastern states, the denizens of that part of the country had no especial fears of a recurrence of the catastrophe. They argued that seismic disturbances of such intensity come once in fifty or one hundred years.
“Next time we will be prepared,” was the regulation comment. The faith of those people, their courage and their enduring hope obliterated all doubt and crushed timidity. The watchword from the day of the disaster was “rebuild.” And generally there was added the injunction, “and make it earthquake proof.”
CHAPTER XXI.
VESUVIUS THREATENS NAPLES.
Beautiful Italian City on the Mediterranean Almost Engulfed in Ashes and Lava from the Terrible Volcano—Worst Eruption Since the Days of Pompeii and Herculaneum—Buildings Crushed and Thousands Rendered Homeless.
THE worst eruption of Mt. Vesuvius since the days when it buried under molten lava and ashes Pompeii and Herculaneum occurred on April 6, 1906. Almost without warning the huge crater opened its fiery mouth and poured from its throat and fiery interior and poured down the mountain sides oceans of burning lava, and warned 60,000 or 70,000 inhabitants of villages in the paths of the fiery floods that their only safety was in immediate flight. From the very start the scene was terrible and awe-inspiring. From the summit of the mountain a column of fire fully 1,000 feet leaped upward and lighted by its awful glare the sky and sea for miles around. Occasionally great masses of molten stone, some weighing as much as a ton were, accompanied by a thunderous noise, ejected from the crater and sent crashing down the mountain side, causing the natives, even as far as Naples, to quake with fear, abandon their homes and fall, praying, on their knees. One of the immense streams of lava which flowed from the crater’s mouth was more than 200 feet wide and, ever broadening, kept advancing at the rate of 21 feet a minute.
The first great modern eruption was that of 1631, eleven years after the pilgrim fathers landed on Plymouth rock. A sudden tidal wave of lava, utterly unexpected, engulfed 18,000 people, many of the coast towns being wholly and the remainder partially wiped out.
[Pg 268]In 1707 the volcano sent forth a cloud of ashes so dense that at midday in the streets of Naples the blackness of the darkest night reigned supreme. The shrieks of terror stricken women pierced the air and the churches were crowded by the populace. The relics of San Januarius—his skull among them—were carried in procession through the streets.
Thirty years later a stream of lava one mile wide and containing 300,000,000 cubic feet burst from the mountain side. The next notable eruption was that of 1760, when new cones formed at the side and gave forth lava, smoke and ashes. Seven years later the king of Naples hastily retreated into the capital from the palace at Portici, threatened by a fresh outburst, and found the Neapolitans again in confusion.
An eruption lasting a year and a half commenced in 1793. Lava was emitted for fifteen hours and the sea boiled 100 yards from the coast.
That the Vesuvius eruptions are gaining in frequency is attested by the record of the nineteenth century, surpassing as it does that of the eighteenth. The first of note occurred in 1822, when the top of the great cone fell in and a lava stream a mile in width poured out. Twelve years later a river of lava nine miles long wiped out a town of 500 houses.
Lava flowed almost to the gates of Naples in 1855 and caused a deplorable loss of property to the cultivated region above.
Blocks of stone forty-five feet in circumference were hurled down the mountain by the spectacular outburst of 1872. Two lava floods rushed down the valley on two sides, ashes were shot thousands of feet in the air and the sea rose for miles. More than 20,000,000 cubic feet of lava was ejected in a single day.
Since 1879 Vesuvius has been variously active there being two eruptions of note in 1900 and two others in 1903. But that of 1905 was more violent than any since 1872. Red hot stones hurled 1,600 feet above the cone dropped down the flanks of the mountain with deafening sound. One stone thrown out weighed [Pg 269]two tons, while 1,844 violent explosions were recorded in a single day by the instruments of the seismic observatory.
The cog railroad running nearly to the top has been badly damaged a number of times in recent years and the occupants of the meteorological observatory on or near the summit have had several narrow escapes.
This institution is situated about a mile and a half from the cone, near the foot of the rope railway ascending that troubled apex. It is a handsome edifice of white stone and can be seen at a great distance against the black background of lava. It stands on the side toward Naples, on the top of a conspicuous ridge 2,080 feet above the level of the sea. On each side of this ridge flows a river of lava during eruptions, but the building has withstood all, unscathed, as yet.
An observer is on duty, night and day, even during the most violent outbursts. During the late one, when a sheet of red-hot lava glowed on either side of the ridge and when fiery projectiles fell all about, the post was not deserted. Inside, mounted upon piers penetrating the ground, are delicate instruments whose indicating hands, resting against record sheets of paper, trace every movement made by the shuddering mountain. One sign by which these great outbursts may almost always be forecast is the falling of water in the wells of the neighboring villages.
The Vesuvian volcanic region, like that of Ætna, is partly land and partly sea, including all of the Bay of Naples, sometimes called “the crater,” lying at the very foot of Vesuvius, with a circuit of fifty-two miles and the metropolis at the extreme northern corner.
The whole base of the mountain is skirted by a series of villages where abide 100,000 souls—birds nesting in the cannon’s mouth. Between these settlements and even above, within the jaws of the fiery demon, the tourist sees scattered huts, tent shaped of straw interwoven.
A road twenty miles long, commencing at Naples, extends [Pg 270]southeastwardly along the shore of the bay and then, winding inland, completely encircles the mountain. This is dotted with villages, all within hearing of the volcanic rumblings and bellowings.
Four miles down the bay road from Naples lies Portici, its 12,000 population dwelling upon lava thrown down to the sea by the eruption of 1631. On this black bed stands the royal palace, built by Charles III. in 1738. Resina, one mile further, is the favorite suburban seat of wealthy Neapolitans. Its 14,000 residents dwell partly upon the ruins of Herculaneum and of Retina, to which latter city Pliny the elder set out during the great eruption which destroyed these cities and Pompeii.
The colossal brazier of Mount Vesuvius dealt most awfully and destructively with the towns on its declivities and near its base. The inhabitants of those villages naturally became panic-stricken and abandoned their homes for the open, although the atmosphere was dense with volcanic ashes and the sulphur fumes of subterranean fires. The people, so long as they dared remain near their homes, crowded the churches day and night, praying for deliverance from the impending peril, manifestations of which were hourly heard and felt in explosions which resembled a heavy cannonade, and in the tremblings of the earth, which were constantly recurring.
The intense heat of the lava destroyed vegetation before the stream reached it. The peasants of Portici, at the west foot of Vesuvius, cleared their grounds of vineyards and trees in the effort to lessen the danger from the fire and resist the progress of the lava to the utmost.
The streams of lava became resistless. They snapped like pipe stems the trunks of chestnut trees hundreds of years old and blighted with their torrid breath the blooms on the peach trees before the trees themselves had been reached. The molten streams did not spare the homes of the peasants, and when these have been razed they dash into the wells, as though seeking to [Pg 271]slake their thirst, and, having filled them, continue their course down the mountain side.
Everywhere in the vicinity of the volcano pitiful scenes were witnessed—women tearing their hair in their grief and old men crying aloud at the loss of their beloved homesteads, while in the distance, in striking contrast, were the sapphire-colored Mediterranean, the violet-hued mountains of the Sorrento peninsula and the island of Capri in the tranquil sea.
The town of Bosco Trecase, on the mountain’s southern declivity, had been transformed into a gray island of ruin by the ashes from the crater of the volcano. Torrents of liquid fire, resembling in the distance serpents with glittering yellow and black scales, coursed in all directions, amid rumblings, detonations and earth tremblings while a pall of sulphurous smoke that hovered over all made breathing difficult.
While the inhabitants, driven before soldiers, were urged to seek safety in flight, fiery lava was invading their homes and the cemetery where their dead was buried. In about 48 hours after the eruptions began not a trace remained of Bosco Trecase, a city of 10,000 population. Several lads who were unharmed when the danger following the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius seemed most imminent subsequently ventured to walk on the cooling lava. They went too far and the crust broke under their weight. They were swallowed up before the helpless onlookers.
About the same time the village of Bosco Reale, to the eastward, became threatened, and the women of the village, weeping with fright, carried a statue of St. Anne as near as they could go to the flowing lava, imploring a miracle to stay the advance of the consuming stream. As the fiery tide persisted in advancing the statue had to be frequently moved backward.
Ottajano, at the northeast foot of the mountain, and 12 miles from Naples, was in the path of destruction and the scenes there when the first victims were unearthed were most terrible. The positions of the bodies showed that the victims had died while in [Pg 272]a state of great terror, the faces being convulsed with fear. Three bodies were found in a confessional of one of the fallen churches.
One body was that of an old woman who was sitting with her right arm raised as though to ward off the advancing danger. The second was that of a child about 8 years old. It was found dead in a position which would indicate that the child had fallen with a little dog close to it and had died with one arm raised across its face to protect itself and its pet from the crumbling ruins. The third body, that of a woman, was reduced to an unrecognizable mass.
Other bodies which were found later caused such an impression among the already frantic population that the authorities did not deem it advisable to permit any more bodies to be identified for the time being.
Five churches and ten houses fell under the weight of ashes and cinders, which lay over four feet deep on the ground. Many were killed and injured.
One mile southward from the site of Bosco Trecase, on the shore of the Gulf of Naples, is Torre Annunziata, a city of 30,000 inhabitants, and the streams of lava having almost surrounded it the inhabitants deserted their homes in terror and fled to Naples and other points. This place was destroyed by an eruption in 1631. At the northern boundary of the town is a picturesque cypress-planted cemetery, and there the lava stream was halted and turned aside. It was as if the dead had effectually cried out to arrest the crushing river of flame, as at Catania the veil of St. Agatha is said to have stayed a similar stream from Mount Ætna.
The visit of the King and Queen of Italy and the Duke of Aosta to the town caused a rumor to be started by the excited people, and particularly among the panic-stricken women, that their presence had resulted in a miracle, and, singularly enough, shortly after the arrival of the sovereigns, and while the King and Queen were trying to console the people, repeating frequently, [Pg 273]“Courage! Be strong!” the wind suddenly changed and the atmosphere, which up to that moment had been impregnated with sulphurous gas and suffocating fumes, cleared away and the sun burst forth. The stream of lava stopped its march, after having destroyed a section of the northeast part of the suburb.
The air rang with benedictions for the King from his devoted subjects. Hope at once returned and the King and Queen were preparing to move on, but the people insisted that they remain, begging that they be not abandoned. The King and Queen wished to visit Torre Del Greco, which is only seven miles distant from Naples, and was also in danger of being wiped out, and the people fled from it in dismay, amid a continued fall of sand and ashes, to points of reputed safety. This village had been eight times destroyed and as often rebuilt. A violent storm of sulphurous rain occurred at San Giuseppe, Vesuviana and Saviano.
The town of Nola, an old place of 15,000 inhabitants, twenty-two miles from Naples, was almost buried under the shower of ashes coming from the crater, which were carried by the wind as far as the Adriatic sea.
The inhabitants of the country in the vicinity of Caserta, a place of about 35,000 people, and termed the Versailles of Naples, were also endangered by cinder ashes and flowing lava.
The village of San Gennaro was partially buried in sand and ashes and several houses were crushed. At that place three persons were killed and more than twenty injured.
Sarno, Portici, Ciricello, Poggio and Morino became practically uninhabitable because of the ashes and fumes, and the people fled from the town. At Sarno three churches and the municipal buildings collapsed. The sand and cinders were six feet deep there and all the inhabitants sought safety in flight.
Sarno is a town of some 10,000 people and is situated about ten miles east of Mount Vesuvius. It contains an old castle, some [Pg 274]sulphur baths and manufactories of paper, copper wares, cotton goods and silk fabrics.
Almost equal to the devastation wrought by the lava was the damage done by cinders and ashes, which in incredible quantities had been carried great distances. This has caused the practical destruction of San Guiseppe, a place of 6,000 inhabitants. All but 200 of the people had fled from there and of these 200 who had assembled in a church to attend mass about 100 were killed.
While the priest was performing his sacred office the roof fell in and all who were not killed were badly injured. These unfortunates were for hours without surgical or medical assistance. The only thing left standing in the church was a statue of St. Anne, the preservation of which the poor, homeless people accepted as a miracle and promise of deliverance from their peril.
A runaway train from San Guiseppe for Naples was derailed, owing to showers of stones from the crater. At some points near the mountain it was estimated that the sands and ashes reached a height of nearly 150 feet.
San Georgio, Cremona, Somma Vesuviana, Resina and other inland and coast towns not mentioned above, also suffered terrible devastation.
The most of the buildings in the villages were of flimsy construction with flat roofs and so were but poorly calculated to bear the weight of ashes and cinders that fell upon them. Inevitably it was found that a considerable number of persons perished by the falling of their homes.
National and local authorities from the first evidences of danger attempted the evacuation of the threatened villages and towns, but adequate means to transport the inhabitants were lacking, although thousands of soldiers with artillery carts had been sent to the places where the sufferers were most in need of assistance.
At many places the people were suffering from panic and a [Pg 275]state of great confusion existed, which was added to by superstition. Some of the parish priests refused to open their churches to people who tried to obtain admittance, fearing that an earthquake would destroy the buildings when full of people and thus increase the list of disasters.
Crowds of women thereupon attacked the churches, pulled down the doors and took possession of the pictures and statues of the saints, which they carried about as a protection against death.
Many people camped along the roads and in the fields, where they thought they would be safer than in the towns, defying the elements, though nearly blinded by ashes, wet to the skin by rain and terrorized by the gigantic curved flaming mass above, resembling a scimitar ready to fall upon them.
The atmosphere during the eruptions was oppressive and yellow with ashes from Vesuvius, causing a feeling of apprehension regarding what the future may hold in store for this city and its vicinity. The volcano was completely hidden in a dense mass of cinder-laden smoke, the only other signs of activity being frequent and very severe detonations and deep rumblings.
All the trains from and to Naples were delayed owing to the tracks being covered with cinders and telegraphic communication with all points was badly congested.
An excursion steamer attempting to reach Naples from the island of Capri had to return, as the passengers were being suffocated by the ashes.
The quantity of ashes and cinders thrown during the eruptions was unprecedented. An analysis showed this discharge to be chiefly composed of iron, sulphur and magnesia. When dry the whole region seemed to be under a gray sheet, but after a fall of rain it appeared to have been transformed into an immense lake of chocolate.
During the activity of the mountain several new craters had [Pg 276]opened, especially on its north side and from which streams of lava flooded the beautiful, prosperous and happy land lying on the southeast shores of the Gulf of Naples.
The whole of Vesuvius district as far as Naples, Caserta and Castellammare became one vast desert. The high cone of the volcano was almost entirely destroyed having been swallowed up, so that the height of the mountain is now several hundred feet less than formerly. Its falling in caused a great discharge of red hot stones, flame and smoke.
Professor Di Lorenzo, the scientist and specialist in the study of volcanoes, estimated that the smoke from Vesuvius had reached the height of 25,000 feet. After one of the eruptions ashes from Vesuvius were noticeable in Sicily which is a large island near the extreme end of the peninsula on which Naples is situated and some 200 miles from the crater.
MISSION DOLORES.
This is the oldest building in San Francisco. It was founded October 8, 1776.
Noted as a mission church.
Noted as a mission church.
BUILDING CRUMBLED LIKE EGGSHELLS.
WRECKED BUILDINGS.
CHAPTER XXII.
SCENES IN FRIGHTENED NAPLES.
Blistering Showers of Hot Ashes—The People Frantic—Cry Everywhere “When Will It End?”—Atmosphere Charged with Electricity and Poisonous Fumes.
FROM the first outburst and glare of the eruption all Naples became aroused and trembled with anticipations of horror, and when the hot ashes from the crater of Vesuvius began to fall in blistering showers upon it the entire populace was seized with a fear, which for days was constant, that at any moment they might be crushed into eternity by the awful outpourings from the cauldron of the mountain which was in truth as veritable an inferno as that pictured by Dante. The streets for days, even up to the subsidence of the eruption, were packed with surging crowds, all of whom were fatigued from fear and loss of rest, yet there was hardly one in all the thousands who had not strength enough to pray to the Almighty for deliverance.
At times the fall of sand and ashes appeared to be diminishing, but in the next instant it came again, apparently in greater force than before. The city became frantic from fear and everywhere was heard: “When will it all end?”
The people deserted their shops, the manufactories were nearly all shut down, while the theaters, cafes and places of amusements throughout the city were all closed. The crowds were in a temper for any excess and it would only require a spark to start a conflagration that would have almost equalled that of Vesuvius itself.
When the coating of ashes and cinders covered the ground and [Pg 280]roofs of buildings the people believed that their loved and beautiful Naples was doomed, and would be known thereafter only to archaeologists like other cities which Vesuvius in its wrath had overwhelmed.
All railroad service out of the city was interrupted, the engineers refusing to take out their trains because of the darkness caused by the heavy fall of ashes.
Troops were kept constantly clearing the roofs of buildings of the accumulation of sand and ashes which endangered the structures. The large glass-covered galleries throughout the city, were ordered closed lest the weight upon the roofs should cause them to collapse.
Warships and soldiers which had been ordered to the city did effective service in succoring the most distressed and in the removal of refugees. Their presence was also potent in keeping up public confidence and maintaining order. No danger was too great for the troops to encounter and no fatigue too severe for them. They earned the gratitude and admiration of the people by their devotion to duty and bravery. Not only were they credited with many acts of heroism but they displayed untiring perseverance in searching for the living and the dead among tottering walls, assisting fugitives to reach places of safety, giving aid to the wounded and in burying the dead, and all this while partly suffocated by the ash and cinder laden wind blowing from the volcano.
The employes of a tobacco factory at Naples, thinking the roof was about to fall in fled in panic from the building and communicated their fears to so many people outside that the police were compelled to interfere and restore order. Many persons were injured during the panic.
The prisoners in the city jail mutinied owing to fright and succeeded in breaking open some of the doors inside the building, but were finally subdued by the guards.
King Victor Emmanuel and his Queen, the Duke and Duchess [Pg 281]of Aosta and others of the royal household were active in rendering aid. The king placed the royal palace of Cappodimonti, situated above this city, at the disposal of the wounded refugees. Firemen and ambulance corps were sent from Rome to aid the sufferers.
The work of succor was hampered owing to delays to the railway service, which was interrupted by red-hot stones thrown to a height of 3,000 feet falling on the tracks.
Not for a century had Naples been so threatened nor its people thrown into such a state of panic. Men, women and children tramped about the streets, raving that their deity had forgotten them and that the end of the world was in sight.
Thousands of people flocked from the towns and farms on the slopes of the mountain and the problem of feeding and caring for the horde had grown serious. These people were left homeless by the streams of lava, which lapped up all their property in some cases within a half hour after the owners had fled.
Earthquake shocks which shattered windows and cracked the walls of buildings added to the terror and when a shock occurred the entire population rushed to the streets in terror, many persons crying, “The Madonna has forsaken us; the end of the world has come.”
Vessels lying in the harbor rapidly put to sea with hundreds of the wealthy families, who chartered them outright, while many other ships left because of fear of tidal waves similar to those accompanying the terrific eruption of a century ago, which wrecked scores of vessels and drowned thousands of people here.
The atmosphere of the city became heavily charged with electricity, while breathing at times became almost impossible because of the poisonous fumes and smoke. The detonations from the volcano resembled those of terrible explosions and the falling of the hot ashes made life indeed a burden for the Neapolitans.
The churches of the city were open during the days and nights and were crowded with panic-stricken people. Members of the [Pg 282]clergy did their utmost to calm their fears, but the effects of their arguments went almost for naught when renewed earthquake shocks were experienced.
While Mount Vesuvius continued active volumes of cinders and ashes emitted from the volcano fell upon the buildings and streets driving the inhabitants of the city into a condition bordering on frenzy. All night people roamed the streets praying and crying that they might be spared.
The collapse of the Mount Oliveto market, in which 200 or more persons were caught, many being crushed beyond recognition and the continuous rain of sand and ashes throughout the city sent terror to the heart of every Neapolitan.
This market covered a plot of ground 600 feet square. The scenes in the vicinity of the ruins were agonizing, relatives of the victims clamoring to be allowed to go to their dead or dying.
The people seemed demented. They surrounded the market, in many cases tearing their hair, cursing and screaming, “Oh, my husband is there!” or, “Bring out my child!” and endeavoring with their own hands to move heavy beams, from beneath which the groans of the injured were issuing.
The cries for help were so heart-rending that even rescuers were heard to sob aloud as they worked with feverish eagerness to save life or extract the bodies of the dead from the ruins.
Some of the people about the market were heard to exclaim that a curse rested upon the people of Naples for repudiating their saints Monday, when Mount Vesuvius was in its most violent mood.
Even with the sun shining high in the heavens the light was a dim yellow, in the midst of which the few people who remained in the stricken towns, their clothing, hair and beards covered with ashes, moved about in the awful stillness of desolation like gray ghosts.
Railway and tramway travel to and from Naples was much hampered by cinders and ash deposits, and telegraphic [Pg 283]communication with the towns farthest in the danger zone was also for a time interrupted.
The scenic effects varied from hour to hour during the eruptions. At times in the north the sky was chocolate colored, lowering and heavy, under which men and women with their hair and clothing covered with ashes moved above like gray ghosts. Fort San Martino, as it towered above the town, could only just be seen, while Castel Dell’ovo was boldly marked in light, seeming like silver against the brown sky.
To the south beyond the smoke zone lay smiling, sunny Posilipo and its peninsula, while far away glistened the sea a deep blue, on which the islands seemed to float in the glow of the setting sun. Adding to the strange picture, one of the French men of war, which arrived in the bay of Naples was so placed as to be half in the glow and half obscured by the belt of falling ashes.
From the observatory of Mount Vesuvius, where Director Matteucci continued his work in behalf of science and humanity, the scene was one of great impressiveness. To reach the observatory one had to walk for miles over hardened but hot lava covered with sand until he came to a point whence nothing could be seen but vast, gray reaches, sometimes flat and sometimes gathered into huge mounds which took on semblance of human faces.
Above, the heavens were gray like the earth beneath and seemed just as hard and immovable. In all this lonely waste there was no sign of life or vegetation and no sound was heard except the low mutterings of the volcano. One seemed almost impelled to scream aloud to break the horrible stillness of a land seemingly forgotten both by God and man.
In many of the towns some of the inhabitants went about hungry and with throats parched with smoke and dust, seemingly unable to tear themselves away from the ruins of what so recently were their homes.
[Pg 284]The Italian minister of finance suspended the collection of taxes in the disturbed provinces and military authorities distributed rations and placed huts and tents at the disposition of the homeless.
The property loss from the volcanic outbreak has been placed at more than $25,000,000, while some have estimated that the number of persons rendered homeless amounted to nearly 150,000. Probably less than one-half of that number would come near the exact figures.
As an evidence of the widespread and far-reaching influences set in motion by the eruptions of Vesuvius it should be noted that Father Odenbach of St. Ignatius’ college in Cleveland, O., the noted authority on seismic disturbances, reported that his microseismograph, the most delicate instrument known for detecting the presence of earthquakes in any part of the globe, had plainly recorded the disturbances caused by the eruption of Vesuvius. The lines made by the recorder, he said, had shown a wavy motion for several days, indicating a severe agitation in the earth’s surface at a remote point.
CHAPTER XXIII.
VOLCANOES AND EARTHQUAKES EXPLAINED.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
The Theories of Science on Seismic Convulsions—Volcanoes Likened to Boils on the Human Body through Which the Fires and Impurities of the Blood Manifest Themselves—Seepage of Ocean Waters through Crevices in the Rock Reach the Internal Fires of the Earth—Steam is Generated and an Explosion Follows—Geysers and Steam Boilers as Illustrations—Views of the World’s Most Eminent Scientists Concerning the Causes of Eruption of Mount Pelee and La Soufriere.
THE earth, like the human body, is subject to constitutional derangement. The fires and impurities of the blood manifest themselves in the shape of boils and eruptions upon the human body. The internal heat of the earth and the chemical changes which are constantly taking place in the interior of the globe, manifest themselves outwardly in the form of earthquakes and volcanoes. In other words, a volcano is a boil or eruption upon the earth’s surface.
Scientists have advanced many theories concerning the primary causes of volcanoes, and many explanations relating to the igneous matter discharged from their craters. Like the doctors who disagree in the diagnosis of a human malady, the geologists and volcanists are equally unable to agree in all details concerning this form of the earth’s ailment. After all theories relating to the cause of volcanoes have been considered, the one that is most tenable and is sustained by the largest number of scientific men is that which traces volcanic effects back to the old accepted cause of internal fires in the center of the earth. Only in this way can the molten streams of lava emitted by volcanoes be accounted for.
[Pg 286]The youngest student of familiar science knows that heat generates an upward and outward force, and like all other forces that it follows the path of least resistance. This force is always present in the internal regions of the earth, which for ages upon ages has been gradually cooling from its poles toward its center. When conditions occur by which it can outwardly manifest itself, it follows the natural law and escapes where the crust of the earth is thinnest.
But something more than the mere presence of internal fire is necessary to account for volcanic action, although it may in a large degree account for minor seismic convulsions in the form of an earthquake. The elements which enter into the source of volcanic eruption are fire and water. The characteristic phenomenon of a volcanic eruption is the steam which issues from the crater before the appearance of the molten lava, dust, ashes and scoria. This accepted theory is plainly illustrated in the eruption of a geyser, which is merely a small water volcano. The water basin of a geyser is connected by a natural bore with a region of great internal heat, and as fast as the heat turns the water into steam, columns of steam and hot water are thrown up from the crater.
One form of volcanic eruption, and its simplest form, is likewise illustrated in a boiler explosion. Observations of the most violent volcanic eruptions show them to be only tremendous boiler explosions at a great depth beneath the earth’s surface, where a great quantity of water has been temporarily imprisoned and suddenly converted into steam. In minor eruptions the presence of steam is not noticeable in such quantities, which is simply because the amount of imprisoned water was small and the amount of steam generated was only sufficient to expel the volcanic dust and ashes which formed between the earth’s surface and the internal fires of the volcano. The flow of lava which follows violent eruptions is expelled by the outward and upward force of the great internal heat, through the opening made by the steam which precedes it.
[Pg 287]The two lines of volcanoes, one north and south, the other east and west, which intersect in the neighborhood of the West Indies, follow the courses where the crust of the earth is thinnest and where great bodies of water lie on the shallowest parts of the ocean bed.
The terrific heat of the earth’s internal fires is sufficient to cause crevices leading from these bodies of water to the central fires of the volcano, and the character of the volcanic eruption is determined largely by the size of the crevices so created and the amount of water which finds its way through them. The temperature of these internal fires can only be guessed at, but some idea may be formed of their intense heat from the streams of lava emitted from the volcano. These will sometimes run ten or twelve miles in the open air before cooling sufficiently to solidify. From this it will be seen that the fires are much hotter than are required merely to reduce the rock to a liquid form. From this fact, too, may be seen the instantaneous action by which the water seeping or flowing into the volcano’s heart is converted into steam and a tremendous explosive power generated.
The calamity which befell Martinique and St. Vincent will unquestionably lead to a fresh discussion of the causes of volcanic disturbance. Not all of the phenomena involved therein are yet fully understood, and concerning some of them there are perceptible differences of opinion among experts. On at least one point, however, there is general agreement. At a depth of about thirty miles the internal heat of the earth is probably great enough to melt every known substance. Confinement may keep in a rigid condition the material which lies beneath the solid crust, but if an avenue of escape is once opened the stuff would soften and ooze upward. There is a growing tendency, moreover, to recognize the importance of gravitation in producing eruptions. The weight of several miles of rock is almost inconceivable, and it certainly ought to compel “potentially plastic” matter to rise through any crevice [Pg 288]that might be newly formed. Russell, Gilbert and some other authorities regard this as the chief mechanical agent in an eruption, at least when there is a considerable outpouring of lava.
As to the extent to which water operates there is some lack of harmony among volcanists. Shaler, Milne and others hold that substance largely, if not entirely, responsible for the trouble. They point to the fact that many volcanoes are situated near the coast of continents or on islands, where leakage from the ocean may possibly occur. Russell, on the other hand, regards water not as the initial factor, but as an occasional, though important, reinforcement. He suspects that when the molten rock has risen to a considerable distance it encounters that fluid, perhaps in a succession of pockets, and that steam is then suddenly generated. The explosive effects which ensue are of two kinds. By the expansion of the moisture which some of the lava contains the latter is reduced to a state of powder, and thus originate the enormous clouds of fine dust which are ejected. Shocks of greater or less violence are also produced. The less severe ones no doubt sound like the discharge of artillery and give rise to tremors in the immediate vicinity. In extreme cases enough force is developed to rend the walls of the volcano itself. Russell attributes the blowing up of Krakatoa to steam. The culminating episode of the Pelee eruption, though not resulting so disastrously to the mountain, would seem to be due to the same immediate cause. To this particular explosion, too, it seems safe to assign the upheaval which excited a tidal wave.
The precise manner in which the plastic material inside of the terrestrial shell gets access to the surface, is not entirely clear. Nevertheless, it is possible to get some light on the matter. It is now well known that in many places there are deep cracks, or “faults,” in the earth’s crust. Some of them in the remote past have been wide and deep enough to admit molten material from below. The Palisades of the Hudson [Pg 289]are believed to have been formed by such an intrusion, the adjacent rock on the eastern face having since been worn away by the weather or other agents. It has been observed that many volcanoes are distributed along similar faults.
The existence of a chain of volcanic islands in the West Indies suggests the probability that it follows a crack of great antiquity, though the issue of lava and ashes for several centuries may have been limited to a few isolated points. Just how these vents have been reopened is one of the most difficult questions still left for investigation. Given a line of weakness in the rocks, though, and a susceptibility to fresh fracture is afforded. Professor McGee suggests that the overloading of the ocean bed by silt from the Mississippi river or other sources may have been the immediately exciting cause of the recent outbreaks. Other geologists have found a similar explanation acceptable in the case of eruptions elsewhere. The theory has much to commend it to favor.
The Martinique disaster already has drawn from geologists and volcanists many expressions of opinion, and explanations of volcanic phenomena which set forth in detail the causes and effects of volcanic eruptions, in particular, and seismic convulsions, in general.
Dr. A. R. Crook, a professor in Northwestern University, has made a special study of volcanoes. He has made an ascent of the two highest in the world, and has climbed many others for purposes of study. He is an authority upon volcanography.
“There are two great circles of volcanoes about the earth,” said Professor Crook. “One girdles the earth north and south, extending through Tierra del Fuego (called ‘land of fire’ because of its volcanoes), Mexico, the Aleutian islands and down through Australia; the other east and west through Hawaii, Mexico, West Indies, Italy (including Mount Vesuvius) and Asia Minor.
“These two circles intersect at two points. One of these is [Pg 290]the West Indies, which include Martinique, the scene of this terrible disaster; the other is in the islands of Java, Borneo and Sumatra. On the latter islands there are extinct volcanoes. On the former is the terrible Pelee. It is just at these points of intersection of the two volcanic rings that we expect unusual volcanic activity, and it is there that we find it.
“There has been more or less theorizing as to volcanic disturbances moving in cycles, but it cannot be proved. One fact is established, and that is that a volcano is an explosion caused by water coming in contact with the molten mass below the surface of the earth. This is proved by the great clouds of steam that accompany the action.
“The old theory that the very center of the earth is a molten mass,” he says, “is no longer held.” He asserts the latest idea is that the center of the earth is more rigid than glass, though less rigid than steel. About this there is more or less molten matter, and over all the surface crust of the earth. This molten matter causes the surface of the earth to give, to sag, and form what is called “wrinkling.” When water comes in contact with the heated mass an explosion follows that finds its outlet through the places where there is least resistance, and the result is a volcano.
“There is no part of the earth’s surface which is exempt from earthquakes,” said Professor Crook, “and there is no regularity in their appearance. Volcanic eruptions are almost always preceded by earthquakes somewhere in the circle. Recently there were earthquakes in the City of Mexico in which many lives were lost. As it is impossible to predict when the next will take place, it is also impossible to tell where it will be. It will certainly be somewhere in the line of the two circles.
“All this is of interest as showing that the earth is still in process of formation just as much as it was a billion years ago. We see the same thing in Yellowstone Park. There most decided changes have taken place even in the last eight years. [Pg 291]Old Faithful, which used to play regularly every sixty minutes, now does so only once in twice the time.”
With reference to contributions to science, which might be expected from investigations at Martinique, Professor Crook said:
“Even new elements might be discovered, and seismic theories either confirmed or disproved. A volcano always throws off a great variety of materials, hydrochloric and sulphuric acids, iron, silica (sand), sulphur, calcium and magnesium. The lava is of two kinds. That which is easily fusible flows more rapidly than a horse can trot. A more viscous kind cools into shapes like ropes. The latter is common in Hawaii.
“The danger of living in proximity to a volcano is usually well known, but the iron oxides render the soil extremely fertile. This is seen in Sicily about Ætna and Vesuvius. It is seen also in Martinique, where an area of forty miles square was occupied by 160,000 people.
“Owing to the presence of the fumes of chlorine it is probable that many of the victims in St. Pierre were asphyxiated, and so died easily. Others doubtless were buried in ashes, like the Roman soldier in Pompeii, or were caught in some enclosed place which being surrounded by molten lava resulted in slow roasting. It is indeed a horrible disaster and one which we may well pray not to see duplicated. Science, however, has no means of knowing that it may not occur again.”
Professor Robert T. Hill, of the United States Geological Survey, who visited the French West Indies on a tour of scientific inspection, says:
“Across the throat of the Caribbean extends a chain of islands which are really smoldering furnaces, with fires banked up, ever ready to break forth at some unexpected and inopportune moment. This group, commencing with Saba, near Porto Rico, and ending with Grenada, consists of ancient ash heaps, piled up in times past by volcanic action. For nearly [Pg 292]one hundred years there has been not the slightest sign of explosion and we had grown to class these volcanoes as extinct.
“Volcanism is still one of the most inexplicable and profound problems which defy the power of geologists to explain, and one of its most singular peculiarities is the fact that it sometimes breaks forth simultaneously in widely distant portions of the earth. A sympathetic relation of this kind has long been known between Hecla and Vesuvius, and it is very probable that the Carib volcanoes have some such sympathetic relation with the volcanoes of Central America and southern Mexico. At the time of the explosion of St. Vincent other explosions preceded or followed it in northern South America and Central America.
“The outburst of Mount Pelee, in Martinique, is apparently the culmination of a number of recent volcanic disturbances which have been unusually severe. Colima, in Mexico, was in eruption but a few months previous, while Chelpancingo, the capital of the State of Guerrero, was nearly destroyed by earthquakes which followed.
“Only a few days before Mount Pelee erupted, the cities of Guatemala were shaken down by tremendous earthquakes.”
Professor N. S. Shaler, of Harvard University, a world authority on volcanic disturbances, says:
“Volcanic outbreaks are merely the explosion of steam under high pressure—steam which is bound in rocks buried underneath the surface of the earth and there subjected to such tremendous heat that when the conditions are right its pent up energy breaks forth, and it shatters its stone prison walls into dust.
“The common belief is that water enters the rocks during the crystallization period, and that these rocks, through the natural action of rivers and streams, become deposited in the bottom of the ocean. Here they lie for many ages, becoming buried deeper and deeper under masses of like sediment, [Pg 293]which are constantly being washed down upon them from above. This process is called the blanketing process.
“When the first layer has reached a depth of a few thousand feet the rocks which contain the water of crystallization are subjected to a terrific heat. This heat generates steam, which is held in a state of frightful tension in its rocky prison.
“It is at these moments that volcanic eruptions occur. They result from wrinkling in the outer crust of the earth’s surface—wrinklings caused by the constant shrinking of the earth itself and by the contraction of the outer surface as it settles on the plastic center underneath. Fissures are caused by these foldings, and as these fissures reach down into the earth the pressure is removed from the rocks and the compressed steam in them and it explodes with tremendous force.
“The rocks containing the water are blown into dust, which sometimes is carried so high as to escape the power of the earth’s attraction and float by itself through space. After the explosions have occurred lava pours forth. This is merely melted rock which overflows like water from a boiling kettle. But the explosion always precedes the flow, and one will notice that there is always an outpouring of dust before the lava comes.”
Professor W. J. McGee, of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, says: “It may be that a violent earthquake tremor came after the volcanic eruption, but it does not necessarily follow that the two travel together. Oftentimes we hear of earth tremors with no apparent accompaniment. This was true of the Charleston earthquake in 1886. Earthquakes are caused by mysterious disturbances in the interior of the earth. The most commonly accepted belief is that massive rock beds away down in the earth, at a depth of twelve miles or more, become disturbed from one cause or another, with the result that the disturbance is felt on the earth’s surface, sometimes severely, sometimes faintly.
“Probably the most violent earthquake in history occurred about ten years ago at Krakatoa. The explosion could be [Pg 294]heard for more than one thousand miles, and the earth’s tremors were felt for thousands of miles. The air was filled with particles of earth for months afterward. The air-waves following the explosion are believed to have passed two and one-half times around the globe. The face of the land and sea in the vicinity of the eruption was completely changed.”
Dr. E. Otis Hovey, professor in the Museum of Natural History, New York, offers the following explanation of the Martinique disaster:
“A majority of volcanic eruptions are similar in cause and effect to a boiler explosion. It is now the accepted belief that sudden introduction of cold water on the great molten mass acts as would the pouring of water into a red hot boiler. It causes a great volume of steam, which must have an outlet. You can readily see how water could get into the crater, located as this one was—on an island, and not far from the coast. The volcanic chains crossed at that point. Such crossing would cause a tension of the crust of the earth, which might cause great fissures. If water were to search out those fissures and reach the great molten mass below it is not hard to imagine what the result would be. There are two classes of volcanoes—those which have explosive eruptions, like Vesuvius and Krakatoa, and this latest one, and those of no explosive nature, like Mauna Loa and Kilauea, in Hawaii, which boil up and flow over. It is the explosive eruption which brings widespread destruction, and it is astonishing to learn of the tremendous power one of those eruptions unleashes.”
Professor John Milne, of London, the highest authority in the world on volcanic explosions, classifies eruptions into two grades: Those that build up very slowly. Those that destroy most rapidly.
Copyright 1906, by American-Journal-Examiner. All rights reserved. Any infractions
of this copyright will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
of this copyright will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
CRACK IN THE EARTH.
This photograph shows a crack in the earth in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, caused by the earthquake.
GHOULISH THIEVES LOOTING THE DEAD.
This harrowing scene shows the way the dead and injured are frequently robbed after a disaster.
“The latter are the most dangerous to human life and the physical face of a country. Eruptions that build up mountains are periodical wellings over of molten lava, comparatively harmless. But in this building up, which may cover a period [Pg 297]of centuries, natural volcanic vents are closed up and gases and blazing fires accumulate beneath that must eventually find the air. Sooner or later they must burst forth, and then the terrific disasters of the second class take place. It is the same cause that makes a boiler burst.”
Professor Milne was asked after Krakatoa’s performance:
“Is it likely that there are volcanoes in the world at present that have been quiet for a long time but will one day or another blow their heads off?”
“It is almost certain there are.”
“Some in Europe?”
“Many in Europe.”
“Some in the United States?”
“Undoubtedly.”
Mount Pelee of Martinique has verified the eminent authority’s word.
Professor Angelo Heilprin, of Philadelphia, the eminent geologist and authority on volcanology, declares there is danger that all the West Indian reef islands will collapse and sink into the sea from the effects of the volcanic disturbances now in progress. More than that, he says, the Nicaraguan canal route is in danger because it is in the eruption zone.
“In my opinion the volcano eruptions are not the only things to be feared,” he continued. “It is altogether likely that the volcanic disturbance now going on may result in the collapse of the islands whose peaks spring into activity. The constant eruptions of rock, lava, and ashes, you must know, mean that a hole, as it were, is being made in the bosom of the earth. When this hole reaches a great size, that which is above will be without support, and then subsidence must follow. The volcanoes of Martinique and St. Vincent, and of the neighboring islands of the Caribbean, are situated in a region of extreme weakness of the earth’s crust, which has its parallel in the Mediterranean basin on the opposite side of the Atlantic. This American region of weakness extends westward [Pg 298]from the Lesser Antilles across the Gulf of Mexico into Mexico proper, where are located some of the loftiest volcanoes of the globe, Popocatepetl and Orizaba, both now in somnolent condition, and including the more westerly volcano of Colima, which has been almost continuously in eruption for ten years.
“This same region of weakness includes nearly the whole of Central America. Volcanoes in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Guatemala have been repeatedly active, some almost to the present time, many with destructive effect, and it should be no surprise to have some of them burst out with the same vigor and intensity as Mount Pelee or the Soufriere.”
The National Geographic Society sent three geographers to make a special study of the eruptions in Martinique and St. Vincent: Professor Robert T. Hill of the United States Geological Survey; Professor Israel C. Russell of Ann Arbor, Mich., and C. E. Borchgrevink, the noted Antarctic explorer.
Professor Hovey, after a careful examination of the desolated areas in Martinique and St. Vincent, related important scientific phases of the great eruptions. Speaking first of the work of his companions and himself in St. Vincent, he said:
“Collection of data concerning the eruption of La Soufriere was immediately begun. The history of the eruption is practically that of the disturbance of 1851. Earthquakes occurred here about a year ago, and have occurred at intervals at various places in the West Indies and adjacent regions ever since. At least one resident of Kingstown—F. W. Griffiths—several months ago predicted that La Soufriere would soon break out.
“Finally, on the day of the great eruption, a vast column of volcanic dust, cinders, blocks of lava and asphyxiating gases rose thousands of feet into the air, spreading in all directions. A large portion of this, having reached the upper current, was carried eastward. This, falling, was again divided, and the cinders and deadly gases were swept by the lower winds back upon the eastward side of the mountain. The [Pg 299]wrecked houses show this, the windows on the side toward the crater being unaffected, while those on the farther side were wrecked by the back draught up the mountain.
“There was no wind on the morning of the great outburst, a fact which facilitated the devastation of the country. The hot, asphyxiating gases rolled out of the crater, and many were scorched and suffocated. Hot mud falling from the cloud above stuck to the flesh of the unfortunate victims, causing bad wounds. Great blocks of stone were thrown out of the eastern side of the crater, which could be distinctly seen at a distance of four miles.”
Concerning the eruption of Mount Pelee, Mr. Hovey said: “An increase in the temperature of the lake in the old crater of Pelee was observed by visiting geologists as much as two years ago, while hot springs had long been known to exist near the western base of the mountain and four miles north of St. Pierre. The residents of Martinique, however, all considered the volcano extinct in spite of the eruption fifty-one years ago. The ground around the crater of Pelee was reported in 1901 to consist of hot mud, showing that the increase of temperature observed eighteen months earlier had continued.
“Soon after the middle of April, this year, manifestations of renewed activity were more pronounced. Ashes began to fall in St. Pierre and heavy detonations were heard. The houses of the city shook frequently, suffocating gases filled the air at intervals, and the warning phenomena increased until they became very alarming.
“The Guerin sugar factory, on Riviere Blanche, was overwhelmed on May 5 by a stream of liquid mud, which rushed down the west slope of the mountain with fearful rapidity. The pretty lake which occupied the crater of 1851, on the southwest slope of the cone, about a mile from the extreme summit and a thousand feet below it, had disappeared, and a new crater had formed on its site, spreading death and destruction on all sides. Three days later the eruption took place and [Pg 300]devastated the city of St. Pierre, wiping out the inhabitants and changing a garden spot to a desert.
“A vast column of steam and ashes rose to a height of four miles above the sea, as measured by the French artillerymen at Fort de France. After this eruption the mountain quieted somewhat, but burst forth again at 5:15 o’clock on the morning of May 20. This explosion was more violent than that which destroyed St. Pierre.
“On this occasion the volume of steam and ashes rose to a height of seven miles, according to measurements made by Lieutenant McCormick. An examination of the stones which fell at Fort de France showed them to be of a variety of lava called hornblende and andesite. They were bits of the old lava forming a part of the cone. There was no pumice shown to me, but the dust and lapilli all seemed to be composed of comminuted old rock.
“It is evident that the tornado of suffocating gas which wrecked the buildings asphyxiated the people, then started fire, completing the ruin. This accords with the statement which has been made that asphyxiation of the inhabitants preceded the burning of the city. The gas being sulphureted hydrogen, was ignited by lightning or the fires in the city. The same tornado drove the ships in the roadstead to the bottom of the sea or burned them before they could escape.
“Mud was formed in two ways—by the mixture in the atmosphere of dust and condensed steam and by cloudbursts on the upper dust-covered slopes of the cone washing down vast quantities of fine light dust. No flow of lava apparently has attended the eruption as yet, the purely explosive eruptions thus far bringing no molten matter to the surface. The great emission of suffocating gas and the streams of mud are among the new features which Pelee has added to the scientific knowledge of volcanoes.”
Professor Hill was the first man who set foot in the area of craters, fissures, and fumaroles, and, because of his high [Pg 301]position as a scientist, his story was valuable. He reported as follows:
“There were three well marked zones: First, a center of annihilation, in which all life, vegetable and animal, was utterly destroyed—the greater northern part of St. Pierre was in this zone; second, a zone of singeing, blistering flame, which also was fatal to all life, killing all men and animals, burning the leaves on the trees, and scorching, but not utterly destroying, the trees themselves; third, a large outer, nondestructive zone of ashes, wherein some vegetation was injured.
“The focus of annihilation was the new crater midway between the sea and the peak of Mount Pelee where now exists a new area of active volcanism, with hundreds of fumaroles or miniature volcanoes. The new crater is now vomiting black, hot mud, which is falling into the sea. Both craters, the old and the new, are active.
“The destruction of St. Pierre was due to the new crater. The explosion had great superficial force, acting in radial directions, as is evidenced by the dismounting and carrying for yards the guns in the battery on the hill south of St. Pierre and the statue of the Virgin in the same locality, and also by the condition of the ruined houses in St. Pierre. According to the testimony of some persons there was an accompanying flame. Others think the incandescent cinders and the force of their ejection were sufficient to cause the destruction. This must be investigated. I am now following the nature of this.”
Professor Hill started on Monday, May 26, to visit the vicinity of Mount Pelee, and returned to Fort de France Wednesday morning, nearly exhausted. Professor Hill was near the ruins of St. Pierre on Monday night during the series of explosions from Mount Pelee, and was able to describe the volcanic eruption from close observation. Speaking personally of his expedition he said: “My attempt to examine the crater of Mount Pelee has been futile. I succeeded, however, in getting close to Morne Rouge. At seven o’clock on Monday night I [Pg 302]witnessed, from a point near the ruins of St. Pierre, a frightful explosion from Mount Pelee and noted the accompanying phenomena. While these eruptions continue, no sane man should attempt to ascend to the crater of the volcano. Following the salvos of detonations from the mountain, gigantic mushroom-shaped columns of smoke and cinders ascended into the clear, starlit sky, and then spread in a vast black sheet to the south and directly over my head. Through this sheet, which extended a distance of ten miles from the crater, vivid and awful lightning-like bolts flashed with alarming frequency. They followed distinct paths of ignition, but were different from lightning in that the bolts were horizontal and not perpendicular. This is indisputable evidence of the explosive oxidation of the gases after they left the crater. This is a most important observation and explains in part the awful catastrophe. This phenomenon is entirely new in volcanic history.
“I took many photographs, but do not hesitate to acknowledge that I was terrified. But I was not the only person so frightened. Two newspaper correspondents, who were close to Morne Rouge some hours before me, became scared, ran three miles down the mountain, and hastened into Fort de France. The people on the north end of the island are terrified and are fleeing with their cattle and effects. I spent Tuesday night in a house at Deux Choux with a crowd of 200 frightened refugees.
“Nearly all the phenomena of these volcanic outbreaks are new to science, and many of them have not yet been explained. The volcano is still intensely active, and I cannot make any predictions as to what it will do.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
TERRIBLE VOLCANIC DISASTERS OF THE PAST.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Other Cities of the Plain—The Bible Account a Graphic Description of the Event—Ancient Writers Tell of Earthquakes and Volcanoes of Antiquity—Discovery of Buried Cities of which no Records Remain—Formation of the Dead Sea—The Valley of the Jordan and Its Physical Characteristics.
IN the history of earthquakes, nothing is more remarkable than the extreme fewness of those recorded before the beginning of the Christian era, in comparison with those that have been registered since that time. This may be partly accounted for by the fact that before the birth of Christ, there was but a small portion of the habitable surface of the globe known to those who were capable of handing down a record of natural events. The vast increase in the number of earthquakes in recent times is, therefore, undoubtedly due to the enlargement of our knowledge of the earth’s surface, and to the greater freedom of communication now subsisting among mankind.
Earthquakes might have been as frequent throughout the entire globe in ancient times as now; but the writers of the Bible, and the historians of Greece and Rome might have known nothing of their occurrence. Even at the present time, an earthquake might happen in Central Africa, or in Central Asia, of which we would never hear, and the recollection of which might die out among the natives in a few generations. In countries, too, which are thinly inhabited, and where [Pg 304]there are no large cities to be overthrown, even great earthquakes might happen almost unheeded. The few inhabitants might be awe-struck at the time; but should they sustain no personal harm, the violence of the commotion and the intensity of their terror would soon fade from their memories.
Dr. Daubeny, in his work on volcanoes, cites an example of this complete oblivion, even when the event must have occurred not far from the ancient center of civilization. The town of Lessa, between Rome and Naples, and not far from Gaeta, stands on an eminence composed of volcanic rocks. In digging the foundations for a house at this place some years ago, there were discovered, many feet beneath the present surface, a chamber with antique frescoes and the remains of an amphitheater. Yet there is not only no existing account of the destruction of a town on this site, but not even a tradition of any volcanic eruption in the neighborhood.
The earthquake which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah is not only the oldest on record, but one of the most remarkable. It was accompanied by a volcanic eruption, it upheaved a district of several hundred square leagues, and caused the subsidence of a tract of land not less extensive, altering the whole water system and the levels of the soil. The south of Palestine contained a splendid valley dotted with forests and flourishing cities. This was the valley of Siddim, in which reigned the confederate sovereigns of Sodom, Gomorrah, Adniah, Zeboiim and Zoar. They had joined forces to resist the king of the Elamites, and they had just lost the decisive battle of the campaign when the catastrophe which destroyed the five cities and spread desolation in the flourishing valley took place. As the sun arose, the ground trembled and opened, red-hot stones and burning cinders, which fell like a storm of fire upon the surrounding country, being emitted from the yawning chasm.
In a few words, the Bible relates the dread event:
“And when the morning arose, the angels hastened Lot, [Pg 305]saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
“And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him, and they brought him forth and set him without the city.
“And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain lest thou be consumed.
“And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord, behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die. Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.
“And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for which thou hast spoken. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything until thou be come thither.
“Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.
“Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
“But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
“And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord, and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and lo, the smoke of the city went up as the smoke of a furnace.”
Nothing could be more succinct or terse than this description [Pg 306]of the catastrophe. This was a sudden volcanic eruption like that which destroyed in one night the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. At the time of the convulsion in Palestine while clouds of ashes were emitted from the yawning abyss and fell in fiery showers upon the ground, a vast tract of country, comprising the five cities and some land to the south of them, was violently shaken and overturned.
Of the valleys watered by the Jordan, that of Siddim was the largest and the most populous. All the southern part of this valley, with its woods, its cultivated fields, and its broad river, was upheaved. While upon the other side the plain subsided, and for a distance of a hundred leagues was transformed into a vast cavern of unknown depth. Upon that day the waters of the Jordan, suddenly arrested by the upheaval of the soil lower down the stream, must have flowed rapidly back toward their source, again to flow not less impetuously along their accustomed incline, and to fall into the abyss created by the subsidence of the valley and the break-up of the bed of the stream.
When, after the disaster, the inhabitants of neighboring regions came to visit the scene of it, they found the whole aspect of the district altered. The valley of Siddim had ceased to exist, and an immense sheet of water covered the space which it once occupied. Beyond this vast reservoir, to the south, the Jordan, which formerly fertilized the country as far as the Red Sea, had also disappeared. The whole country was covered with lava, ashes and salt; all the cultivated fields, the hamlets and villages, had been involved in the cataclysm.
The record of this great catastrophe is preserved not only by Scripture, but by the living and spoken traditions of the East, all the legends of Syria, as well as ancient historians like Tacitus and Strabo, relating how Lake Asphaltite was formed during the terrible shock and how opulent cities were [Pg 307]swallowed up in the abyss or destroyed by fire from out of the earth.
But even if popular traditions had been forgotten, and if the writings of ancient authors had been lost, the very aspect of the country would suffice to show that it had suffered from some terrible subterranean convulsion. As it was upon the morrow of the catastrophe itself, so it has remained with its calcined rocks, its blocks of salt, its masses of black lava, its rough ravines, its sulphurous springs, its boiling waters, its bituminous marshes, its riven mountains, and its vast Lake Asphaltite, which is the Dead Sea.
This sea, the depth of which has never been sounded, evokes by its origin and its mysterious aspect, the dolorous image of death. Situated about 690 feet below the level of the ocean, in the depression of the soil caused by the earthquake, its waters extend over an area of a hundred square leagues to the foot of the salt mountains and basaltic rocks which encircle it. One can detect no trace of vegetation or animal life; not a sound is heard upon its shores, impregnated with salt and bitumen; the birds avoid flying over its dreary surface from which emanate deadly effluvia, and nothing can exist in its bitter, salt, oily, and heavy waters. Not a breeze ever stirs the surface of this silent sea, nothing moves therein save the thick load of asphalt which now and again rises from the bottom to the surface and floats lazily on to the desolate strand.
The Jordan has remained what it was in ancient times, the blessed stream, the vivifying artery of Palestine. Taking their source in the spotless snows and pure springs of Mount Hermon, its waters have retained the azure hues of the sky and the clearness of crystal. Before the catastrophe, the Jordan, after having traversed and fertilized Palestine, found its way into the Gulf of Arabia, but now, as upon the morrow of the shock which broke up its bed, its waters are lost in the somber abyss of the Dead Sea.
[Pg 308]The Bible mentions an earthquake in Palestine in the reign of Ahab, and one in the reign of Uzziah, which rent the temple. The latter was an event so great that the chroniclers of the time used it in dating occurrences, and Amos speaks of what happened “two years before the earthquake.”
The same convulsions of nature are mentioned many other times in the Bible, in connection with prophecy, revelation and the crucifixion.
Nearly all writings about earthquakes prior to the last century tended to cultivate superstitious notions respecting them. Even Pliny, Herodotus, Livy, and the other classic writers, were quite ignorant of the true causes, and mythology entered into their speculations. In later times the investigation has become a science. The Chinese were pioneers in this direction, having appointed an Imperial Commission in A.D. 136 to inquire into the subject. It is to be doubted, however, if what they reported would be considered as of much scientific value to-day.
By this time it is estimated that in the libraries of the world are more than 2,000 works treating of earth-motions. The phenomena are taken quite out of the realm of superstition. By means of delicate instruments of various kinds, called seismometers, the direction of earth-movements can be traced, and their force gauged, while by means of a simple magnet with a metal piece attached to it, an earthquake can be foretold. These instruments tell us that scarcely a day passes without an earthquake in some portion of the globe. The internal causes of these manifestations are ever active, whatever the causes may be.
CHAPTER XXV.
VESUVIUS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Most Famous Volcanic Eruption in History—Roman Cities Overwhelmed—Scenes of Horror Described by Pliny, the Great Classic Writer, an Eye-Witness of the Disaster—Buried in Ashes and Lava—The Stricken Towns Preserved for Centuries and Excavated in Modern Times as a Wonderful Museum of the Life of 1800 Years Ago.
MOUNT VESUVIUS, the world-famed volcano of southern Italy, seen as it is from every part of the city of Naples and its neighborhood, forms the most prominent feature of that portion of the frightful and romantic Campanian coast. For many centuries it has been an object of the greatest interest, and certainly not the least of the many attractions of one of the most notable cities of Europe. Naples, with its bay constitutes as grand a panorama as any to be seen in the world. The mountain is a link in the historical chain which binds us to the past, which takes us back to the days of the Roman Empire. Before the days of Titus it seems to have been unknown as a volcano, and its summit is supposed to have been crowned by a temple of Jupiter.
In the year 25 A.D., Strabo, an eminent historian of the time, wrote: “About these places rises Vesuvius, well cultivated and inhabited all round, except at its top, which is for the most part level, and entirely barren, ashy to the view, displaying cavernous hollows in cineritious rocks, which look as if they had been eaten by fire; so that we may suppose this spot to have been a volcano formerly, with burning craters, now extinguished for want of fuel.”
Though Strabo was a great historian, it is evident that he [Pg 310]was not a prophet. The subsequent history of Vesuvius has shown that at varying periods the mountain has burst forth in great eruptive activity.
Herculaneum was a city of great antiquity, its origin being ascribed by Greek tradition to Hercules, the celebrated hero of the mythological age of Greece; but it is not certain that it was actually founded by a Greek colony, though in the time of Sulla, who lived a hundred years before Christ, it was a municipal and fortified town. Situated on an elevated ground between two rivers, its position could not but be considered important, its port Retina being one of the best on the coast of Campania. Many villas of great splendor were owned in the neighborhood by Roman patricians; Servilia, the mother of Brutus, and the favorite mistress of Julius Cæsar, resided here on an estate which he had given to her.
Pompeii, too, was a very ancient city, and was probably founded by a Grecian colony; for what is considered its oldest building, a Greek temple, from its similarity to the Praestum temples, fixes the date of construction with some certainty at about 650 B.C. This temple, by common consent, is stated to have been dedicated to Hercules, who, according to Solonus, landed at this spot with a procession of oxen.
The situation of Pompeii possessed many local advantages. Upon the verge of the sea, at the mouth of the Sarno, with a fertile plain behind, like many an ancient Italian town, it united the conveniences of commerce with the security of a military station. According to Strabo, Pompeii was first occupied by the Oscans, subsequently by the Tyrrhenians and Pelasgians, and afterwards by the Samnites, in whose hands it continued until it came into the possession of the Romans. The delightful position of the city, the genial climate of the locality, and its many attractions, caused it to become a favorite retreat of the wealthier Romans, who purchased estates in the neighborhood; Cicero, among others, having a villa there.
[Pg 311]In A.D. 63, during the reign of Nero, an earthquake overthrew a considerable portion of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Scarcely had the inhabitants in some measure recovered from their alarm, and begun to rebuild their shattered edifices, when a still more terrible catastrophe occurred, and the first recorded eruption of Vesuvius, on the 23d of August, A.D. 79, completed the ruin of the two cities.
Of this event we fortunately possess a singularly graphic description by one who was not only an eye-witness, but well qualified to observe and record its phenomena—Pliny, the Younger, whose narrative is contained in two letters addressed to the historian Tacitus. These letters run as follows:
“Your request,” he writes, “that I would send you an account of my uncle’s death, in order to transmit a more exact relation of it to posterity, merits my acknowledgements; for should the calamity be celebrated by your pen, its memory, I feel assured, will be rendered imperishable. He was at that time, with the fleet under his command, at Misenum. On the 24th of August, about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him to observe a cloud which seemed of unusual shape and dimensions. He had just returned from taking the benefit of the sun, and after a cold water bath and a slight repast, had retired to his study. He immediately arose, and proceeded to a rising ground, from whence he might more distinctly mark this very uncommon appearance.
“At that distance it could not be clearly perceived from what mountain the cloud issued, but it was afterward ascertained to proceed from Mount Vesuvius. I cannot better describe its figure than by comparing it to that of a pine tree, for it shot up to a great height like a trunk, and extended itself at the top into a kind of branches; occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air that impelled if, the force of which decreased as it advanced upward, or by the expansion of the cloud itself, when pressed back again by its own weight. Sometimes it appeared bright, and sometimes dark and [Pg 312]spotted, as it became more or less impregnated with earth and cinders. This extraordinary phenomenon excited my uncle’s philosophical curiosity to inquire into it more closely. He ordered a light vessel to be got ready for him, and invited me to accompany him if I pleased. I replied that I would rather continue my studies.
“As he was leaving the house, a note was brought to him from Rectina, the wife of Bassus, who was in the utmost alarm at the imminent peril which threatened her; for her villa being situated at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, the only mode of escape was by the sea. She earnestly entreated him, therefore, to hasten to her assistance. He accordingly changed his first design, and what he began out of curiosity, now continued out of heroism. Ordering the galleys to put to sea, he went on board, with an intention of assisting not only Rectina, but several others, for the villas are very numerous along that beautiful shore. Hastening to the very place which other people were abandoning in terror, he steered directly toward the point of danger, and with so much composure of mind that he was able to make and to dictate his observations on the changes and aspects of that dreadful scene.
“He was now so nigh the mountain that the cinders, which grew thicker and hotter the nearer he approached, fell into the vessel, together with pumice-stones and black pieces of burning rock; and now the sudden ebb of the sea, and vast fragments rolling from the mountain, obstructed their nearer approach to the shore. Pausing to consider whether he should turn back again, to which he was advised by his pilot, he exclaimed, ‘Fortune befriends the brave: carry me to Pomponianus.’
EFFECT OF EARTHQUAKE ON MODERN STEEL BUILDING.
The steel framework of many of the modern skyscrapers stood intact after the shock, while the brick and stone walls were shaken out.
UPPER PICTURE—VESUVIUS DURING RECENT ERUPTION.
LOWER PICTURE—ROAD LEADING UP TO VESUVIUS BEFORE ERUPTION.
“Pomponianus was then at Stabiae, separated by a gulf which the sea, after several windings, forms upon the shore. He had already sent his baggage on board; for though not at that time in actual danger, yet being within prospect of it, he was determined, if it drew nearer, to put to sea as soon as the [Pg 315]wind should change. The wind was favorable, however, for carrying my uncle to Pomponianus, whom he found in the greatest consternation. He embraced him tenderly, encouraging and counselling him to keep up his spirits; and still better to dissipate his alarm, he ordered, with an air of unconcern, the baths to be got ready. After having bathed, he sat down to supper with great cheerfulness, or, what was equally courageous, with all the semblance of it.
“Meanwhile, the eruption from Mount Vesuvius broke forth in several places with great violence, and the darkness of the night contributed to render it still more visible and dreadful. But my uncle, to soothe the anxieties of his friend, declared it was only the burning of the villages, which the country people had abandoned to the flames. After this, he retired to rest; and it is certain he was so little discomposed as to fall into a deep sleep; for being somewhat corpulent, and breathing hard, those who attended without actually heard him snore.
“The court which led to his apartment being nearly filled with stones and ashes, it would have been impossible for him, had he continued there longer, to have made his way out; it was thought proper, therefore, to awaken him. He got up and joined Pomponianus and the rest of his company who were not unconcerned enough to think of going to bed. They consulted together which course would be the more prudent: to trust to the houses, which now shook from side to side with frequent and violent concussions; or to escape to the open country, where the calcined stones and cinders fell in such quantities, as notwithstanding their lightness, to threaten destruction. In this dilemma they decided on the open country, as offering the greater chance of safety; a resolution which, while the rest of the company hastily adopted it through their fears, my uncle embraced only after cool and deliberate consideration. Then they went forth, having pillows tied upon their heads with napkins; and this was their [Pg 316]sole defence against the storm of stones that fell around them.
“It was now day everywhere else, but there a deeper darkness prevailed than in the obscurest night, though it was in some degree dissipated by torches and lights of various kinds. They thought proper to go down further upon the shore, to ascertain whether they might safely put out to sea; but found the waves still extremely high and boisterous. There my uncle, having drunk a draught or two of cold water, flung himself down upon a cloth which was spread for him, when immediately the flames and their precursor, a strong stench of sulphur, dispersed the rest of the company, and compelled him to rise. He raised himself with the assistance of two of the servants, but instantly fell down dead; suffocated, I imagine by some gross and noxious vapor. As soon as it was light again, which was not until the third day after this melancholy accident, his body was found entire, and free from any sign of violence, exactly in the same posture that he fell, so that he looked more like one asleep than dead.”
In a second letter to Tacitus, Pliny in relating his own experiences, says:
“Day was rapidly breaking, but the light was exceedingly faint and languid; the buildings all around us tottered; and though we stood upon open ground, yet, as the area was narrow and confined, we could not remain without certain and formidable peril, and we therefore resolved to quit the town. The people followed us in a panic of alarm, and, as to a mind distracted with terror every suggestion seems more prudent than its own, pressed in great crowds about us in our way out.
“As soon as we had reached a convenient distance from the houses, we stood still, in the midst of a perilous and most dreadful scene. The chariots which we had ordered to be drawn out oscillated so violently, though upon level ground, that we could not keep them steady, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea seemed to roll back upon itself, [Pg 317]and to be driven from its strands by the earth’s convulsive throes; it is certain, at least, that the shore was considerably enlarged, and that several marine animals were left upon it. On the other side, a black and terrible cloud, bursting with an igneous serpentine vapor, darted out a long train of fire, resembling, but much larger than the flashes of lightning.
“Soon after the black cloud seemed to descend and enshroud the whole ocean; as, in truth, it entirely concealed the island of Caprea and the headland of Misenum. The ashes now began to fall upon us, though in no considerable quantity. Turning my head, I perceived behind us a dense smoke, which came rolling in our track like a torrent. I proposed, while there was yet some light, to diverge from the highroad, lest my mother should be crushed to death in the dark by the crowd that followed us. Scarcely had we stepped aside when darkness overspread us; not the darkness of a cloudy night, or when there is no moon, but that of a chamber which is close shut, with all the lights extinct.
“And then nothing could be heard but the shrieks of women, the cries of children, and the exclamations of men. Some called aloud for their little ones, others for their parents, others for their husbands, being only able to distinguish persons by their voices; this man lamented his own fate, that man the fate of his family; not a few wished to die out of very fear of death; many lifted their hands to the gods; but most imagined the last eternal night was come, which should destroy the world and the gods together.
“At length, a glimmer of light appeared, which we imagined to be rather the foretoken of an approaching burst of flames, as in truth it was, than the return of day. The fire, however, having fallen at a distance from us, we were again immersed in dense darkness, and a heavy shower of ashes fell upon us, which we were compelled at times to shake off—otherwise we should have been crushed and buried in the heap.
“After a while, this dreadful darkness gradually [Pg 318]disappeared like a cloud of smoke; the actual day returned, and with it the sun, though very faintly, and as when an eclipse is coming on. Every object that presented itself to our eyes (which were extremely weakened) seemed changed, being covered with a crust of white ashes, like a deep layer of snow. We returned to Misenum, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we could, and passed an anxious night between hope and fear, though, indeed, with a much larger share of the latter; for the earthquake still continued, while several excited individuals ran up and down, augmenting their own and their friends’ calamities by terrible predictions.”
The graphic accounts of Pliny the Younger have been confirmed in every respect by scientific examination of the buried cities. The eruption was terrible in all its circumstances—the rolling mud, the cloud of darkness, the flashes of electric fire, the shaking earth—but yet more terrible in its novelty of character and the seemingly wide range of its influence. These combined causes would appear to have exercised a fatal effect on the Pompeians, and but for them nearly all might have escaped. Thus, the amphitheatre was crowded when the catastrophe occurred, but only two or three skeletons have been found in it, which probably were those of gladiators already killed or wounded. The bold, the prompt, and the energetic saved themselves by immediate flight; those who lingered through love or avarice, supine indifference, or palsying fear, perished.
Many sought refuge in the lower rooms or underground cellars of their houses, but there the steaming mud pursued and overtook them. Had it been otherwise, they must have died of hunger or suffocation, as all avenues of egress were absolutely blocked up.
It is impossible to exaggerate the horrors of the last day of the doomed city. The rumbling of the earth beneath; the dense obscurity and murky shadow of the heaven above; the long, heavy roll of the convulsed sea; the strident noise of the [Pg 319]vapors and gases escaping from the mountain-crater; the shifting electric lights, crimson, emerald green, lurid yellow, azure, blood red, which at intervals relieved the blackness, only to make it ghastlier than before; the hot, hissing showers which descended like a rain of fire; the clash and clang of meeting rocks and riven stones; the burning houses and flaming vineyards; the hurrying fugitives, with wan faces and straining eyeballs, calling on those they loved to follow them; the ashes, and cinders, and boiling mud, driving through the darkened streets, and pouring into the public places; above all, that fine, impalpable, but choking dust which entered everywhere, penetrating even to the lowest cellar, and against which human skill could devise no effectual protection; all these things must have combined into a whole of such unusual and such awful terror that the imagination cannot adequately realize it. The stoutest heart was appalled; the best-balanced mind lost its composure. The stern Roman soldier stood rigidly at his post, content to die if discipline required it, but even his iron nerves quailed at the death and destruction around him. Many lost their reason, and wandered through the city, gibbering and shrieking lunatics. And none, we may be sure, who survived the peril, ever forgot the sights and scenes they had witnessed on that day of doom.
Three days and nights were thus endured with all the anguish of suspense and uncertainty. On the fourth day the darkness, by degrees, began to clear away. The day appeared, the sun shining forth; but all nature seemed changed. Buried beneath the lava lay temple and circus, the tribunal, the shrine, the frescoed wall, the bright mosaic floor; but there was neither life nor motion in either city of the dead, though the sea which once bore their argosies still shimmered in the sunshine, and the mountain which accomplished their destruction still breathed forth smoke and fire.
The scene was changed; all was over; smoke and vapor and showers had ceased, and Vesuvius had returned to its normal [Pg 320]slumber. Pompeii and Herculaneum were no more. In their place was a desolated plain, with no monuments visible, no house to be seen—nothing but a great surface of white ashes, which hardened and petrified, and finally disintegrated into soil upon which, years after, might be seen the fruitful vine, the waving corn, and wild flowers in all their loveliness and beauty, hiding the hideous tragedy of a bygone age.
It was about the middle of the eighteenth century that systematic excavations in the ashes that covered Pompeii began. Since that time the work has been slow, though continuous, and great progress has been made in disinterring the buried city. To-day it is a municipal museum of the Roman Empire as it was 1,800 years ago. The architecture is almost unmarred; the colors of decorated tiles on the walls are still bright; the wheel marks are fresh looking; the picture of domestic life as it was is complete, except for the people who were destroyed or driven from the city. No other place in all the world so completely portrays that period of the past to us as does Pompeii, overwhelmed by Vesuvius, hidden for centuries, and now once more in view to the world to-day.
CHAPTER XXVI.
MOUNT ÆTNA AND THE SICILIAN HORRORS.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
A Volcano with a Record of Twenty-five Centuries—Seventy-eight Recorded Eruptions—Three Hundred Thousand Inhabitants Dwelling on the Slopes of the Mountain and in the Valleys at its Base—Stories of Earthquake Shock and Lava Flows—Tales of Destruction—Described by Ancient and Modern Writers and Eye-Witnesses.
MOUNT ÆTNA, one of the most celebrated volcanoes in the world, is situated on the eastern sea-board of Sicily. The ancient poets often alluded to it, and by some it was feigned to be the prison of the giant Euceladus or Typhon, by others the forge of Hephæstus. The flames proceeded from the breath of Euceladus, the thunderous noises of the mountain were his groans, and when he turned upon his side, earthquakes shook the island. Pindar in his first Pythian ode for Hiero of Ætna, winner in the chariot race in 474 B.C., exclaims:—He (Typhon) is fast bound by a pillar of the sky, even by snowy Ætna, nursing the whole year’s length her dazzling snow. Whereout pure springs of unapproachable fire are vomited from the inmost depth: in the daytime the lava streams pour forth a lurid rush of smoke, but in the darkness a red rolling flame sweepeth rocks with uproar to the wide, deep sea. Æschylus (525-456 B.C.) speaks also of the “mighty Typhon.” Thucydides (471-402 B.C.) alludes in the last lines of his third book to three early eruptions of the mountain. Many other early writers speak of Ætna, among them Theocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Livy, Seneca, Lucan, Strabo, and Lucilius Junior. While the poets on the [Pg 322]one hand had invested Ætna with various supernatural attributes, and had made it the prison of a chained giant, and the workshop of a god, Lucretius and others endeavored to show that the eruptions and other phenomena of the mountain could be explained by the ordinary operations of nature.
If we pass to more modern times we find mention of Ætna by Dante, Petrarch, Cardinal Bembo, and other middle age writers. In 1541 Fazello wrote a brief history of the mountain, and described an ascent. In 1591 Antonio Filoteo, who was born on Ætna, published a work in Venice, in which he describes an eruption which he witnessed in 1536. He asserts that the mountain was then, as now, divided into three “regions”—the first very arid, rugged, uneven, and full of broken rocks; the second covered with forests; and the third cultivated in the ordinary manner.
The great eruption of 1669 was described at length by the naturalist Borelli in the year of its occurrence, and a brief account of it was given by the Earl of Winchelsea, English ambassador at Constantinople, who was returning home by way of the Straits of Messina at the time. As the eruption of 1669 was the most considerable one of modern times, it attracted a great deal of attention, and was described by several eye-witnesses.
The height of Ætna has been often determined. The earlier writers had very exaggerated notions on the subject, and a height of three and even four miles has been assigned. It must be borne in mind that the cone of a volcano is liable to variations in height at different periods, and a diminution of more than three hundred feet has occurred during the course of a single eruption of Ætna, owing to the falling of the cone of cinders into the crater. During the last sixty years, however, the height of the mountain has been practically constant at ten thousand eight hundred and seventy-four feet.
There are two cities, Catania and Aci Reale, and sixty-three [Pg 323]towns or villages on Mount Ætna. It is far more thickly populated than any other part of Sicily or Italy. No less than 300,000 people live on the mountain.
A remarkable feature of Ætna is the large number of minor cones which are scattered over its sides. They look small in comparison with the great mass of the mountain, but in reality some of them are of large dimensions.
The best period for making the ascent of Ætna is between June and September, after the melting of the winter snows, and before the falling of the autumnal rains. In winter there are frequently nine or ten miles of snow stretching from the summit downward, the paths are obliterated, and the guides sometimes refuse to accompany travelers. Moreover, violent storms often rage in the upper regions of the mountain, and the wind acquires a force which it is difficult to withstand, and is at the same time piercingly cold.
A list of the eruptions of Ætna from the earliest times has been given by several writers. The first eruption within the historical period probably happened in the seventh century B.C.; the second occurred in the time of Pythagoras. The third eruption, which was in 477 B.C., is mentioned by Thucydides, and it must have been the same eruption to which Pindar and Æschylus allude. An eruption mentioned by Thucydides happened in the year 426 B.C. An outburst of lava took place from Monte di Moja, the most northerly of the minor cones of Ætna, in 396 B.C., and following the course of the river Acesines, now the Alcantara, entered the sea near the site of the Greek colony of Naxos (now Capo di Schiso). We have no record of any further eruption for 256 years, till the year 140 B.C. Six years later an eruption occurred, and the same authorities mention an eruption in the year 126 B.C. Four years later Katana was nearly destroyed by a new eruption. Another, of which we possess no details, occurred during the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey, 49 B.C. Livy speaks of an earthquake which took place in 43 B.C., shortly [Pg 324]before the death of Cæsar, which it was believed to portend. In 38 B.C. and 32 B.C. eruptions took place.
The next eruption of which we hear is that mentioned by Suetonius in his life of Caligula. This was in 40 A.D. An eruption occurred in 72 A.D., after which Ætna was quiescent for nearly two centuries, but in the year 253, in the reign of the Emperor Decius, a violent eruption lasting nine days is recorded. According to Carrera and Photius, an eruption occurred in the year 420. We now find no further record for nearly four hundred years. Geoffrey of Viterbo states that there was an eruption in 812, when Charlemagne was in Messina. After another long interval, in this case of more than three centuries and a half, the mountain again showed activity. In February, 1169, one of the most disastrous eruptions on record took place. A violent earthquake, which was felt as far as Reggio, destroyed Catania in the course of a few minutes, burying fifteen thousand people beneath the ruins. It was the vigil of the feast of St. Agatha, and the cathedral of Catania was crowded with people, who were all buried beneath the ruins, together with the bishops and forty-four Benedictine monks. The side of the cone of the great crater toward Taormina fell into the crater.
There was a great eruption from the eastern side of the mountain in 1181. Lava descended in the same vicinity in 1285. In 1329 Speziale was in Catania, and witnessed a very violent eruption, of which he has left us an account. On the evening of June 28th, about the hour of vespers, Ætna was strongly convulsed, terrible noises were emitted, and flames issued from the south side of the mountain. A new crater, Monte Lepre, opened above the rock of Musarra, and emitted large quantities of dense black smoke. Soon after a torrent of lava poured from the crater, and red-hot masses of rock were projected into the air. Four years after the last eruption it is recorded by Silvaggio that a fresh outburst took place. A manuscript preserved in the archives of [Pg 325]the cathedral of Catania mentions an eruption which took place on August 6, 1371, which caused the destruction of numerous olive groves near the city. An eruption which lasted for twelve days commenced in November, 1408. A violent earthquake in 1444 caused the cone of the mountain to fall into the great crater. An eruption of short duration, of which we have no details, occurred in 1447; and after this Ætna was quiescent for eighty-nine years.
Cardinal Bembo and Fazello mention an eruption which took place toward the close of the fifteenth century. In March, 1536, a quantity of lava issued from the great crater, and several new apertures opened near the summit of the mountain and emitted lava.
A year later, in May, 1537, a fresh outburst occurred. A number of new mouths were opened on the south slope near La Fontanelle, and a quantity of lava burst forth which flowed in the direction of Catania, destroying a part of Nicolosi, and St. Antonio. In four days the lava ran fifteen miles. The cone of the great crater suddenly fell in, so as to become level with the Piano del Lago. The height of the mountain was thus diminished by 320 feet. Three new craters opened in November, 1566, on the northeast slope of the mountain. In 1579, 1603, 1607, 1610, 1614, and 1619, unimportant eruptions occurred. In February, 1633, Nicolosi was partly destroyed by a violent earthquake, and in the following December, earthquakes became frequent around the mountain.
In 1646 a new mouth opened on the northeast side, and five years later several new mouths opened on the west side of the mountain and poured out vast volumes of lava which threatened to overwhelm Bronte. We have a more detailed account of the eruption of 1669 than any previous one. It was observed by many men of different nations, and there are a number of narratives regarding it. The eruption was in every respect one of the most terrible on record. On March 8th, the sun was obscured and a whirlwind blew over the face [Pg 326]of the mountain; at the same time earthquakes were felt, and they continued to increase in violence for three days, at the end of which Nicolosi was converted into a heap of ruins.
On the morning of the 11th a fissure nearly twelve miles in length opened in the side of the mountain, and extended from the Piano di St. Leo to Monte Frumento, a mile from the summit. The fissure was only six feet wide, but it seemed to be of unknown depth, and a bright light proceeded from it. Six mouths opened in a line with the principal fissure, and discharged vast volumes of smoke, accompanied by low bellowing, which could be heard forty miles off. Toward the close of the day a crater opened about a mile below the others, and ejected red-hot stones to a considerable distance, and afterward sand and ashes, which covered the country for a distance of sixty miles.
The new crater soon vomited forth a torrent of lava, which presented a front of two miles. It encircled Monpilieri, and afterward flowed toward Belpasso, a town of 8,000 inhabitants, which was speedily destroyed. Seven mouths of fire opened around the new crater, and in three days united with it, forming one large crater 800 feet in diameter. The torrent of lava had continued to flow, and it destroyed the town of Mascalucia on March 23d. On the same day the crater cast up great quantities of sand, ashes, and scoriae, and formed above itself the great double coned hill called Monti Rossi, from the red color of the ashes of which it is mainly composed. On the 25th very violent earthquakes occurred, and the cone of the great central crater was shaken down into the crater for the fifth time since the beginning of the first century A.D. The original current of lava had divided into three streams, one of which destroyed San Pietro, the second Camporotondo, and the third the lands about Mascalucia, and afterward the village of Misterbianco. Fourteen villages were afterward swept out of existence, and the lava made its way toward Catania. At Albanello, two miles from the city, it undermined a hill [Pg 327]covered with corn fields, and carried it forward a considerable distance; a vineyard was also seen floating on its fiery surface.
When the lava reached the walls of Catania, it accumulated without progression until it rose to the top of the wall, sixty feet in height, and it then fell over in a fiery cascade and overwhelmed a part of the city. Another portion of the same stream threw down 120 feet of the wall and carried death and destruction in its course. On April 23d the lava reached the sea, which it entered as a stream 1800 feet broad and forty feet deep. On reaching the sea the water, of course, began to boil violently, and clouds of steam arose, carrying with them particles of scoriae. The volume of lava emitted during this eruption amounted to many millions of cubic feet. Fewara considers that the length of the stream was at least fifteen miles, while its average width was between two and three miles, so that it covered at least forty square miles of surface.
For a few years after this terrible eruption Ætna was quiescent, but in 1682 a new mouth opened on the east side of the mountain, and lava issued from it and rushed down the precipices of the Val del Bue. Early in January, 1693, clouds of black smoke poured from the great crater, and loud noises resembling the discharge of artillery, were heard. A violent earthquake followed, and Catania was shaken to the ground, burying 18,000 of its inhabitants. It is said that in all fifty cities and towns were destroyed in Sicily, together with approximately 100,000 inhabitants.
The following year witnessed another eruption, but no serious disaster resulted. In March, 1702, three mouths opened in the Contrada del Trifaglietto, near the head of the Val del Bue. In 1723, 1732, 1735, 1744, and 1747, slight eruptions occurred. Early in the year 1775 Ætna began to show signs of disturbance; a great column of black smoke issued from the crater, from which forked lightning was frequently emitted. Loud detonations were heard and two streams of lava issued [Pg 328]from the crater. A new mouth opened near Rocca di Musarra in the Val del Bue, four miles from the summit, and a quantity of lava was ejected from it. An extraordinary flood of water descended from Val del Bue, carrying all before it, and strewing its path with large blocks. Recupero estimated the volume of water at 16,000,000 cubic feet, probably a greater amount than could be furnished by the sudden melting of all the winter’s snow on the mountain. It formed a channel two miles broad, and in some places thirty-four feet deep, and it flowed at the rate of a mile in a minute and a half during the first twelve miles of its course. The flood was probably produced by the melting not only of the winter’s snow, but also of older layers of ice, which were suddenly liquified by the permeation of hot steam and lava, and which had been previously preserved from melting by a deposit of sand and ashes, as in the case of the ancient glacier found near the summit of the mountain in 1828.
In November, 1758, a smart shock of earthquake caused the cone of the great crater to fall in, but no eruption followed. In 1759, 1763, 1766, and 1780, eruptions were noted, and on May 18, 1780, a fissure opened on the southwest side of the mountain and extended from the base of the great crater for seven miles, terminating in a new mouth from which a stream of lava emanated. This encountered the cone of Palmintelli in its course, and separated into two branches, each of which was about 4,000 feet wide. Other mouths opened later in the year, and emitted larger quantities of lava, while in 1781 and 1787 there were slight eruptions. Five years later a fresh outbreak occurred; earthquakes were prevalent, and vast volumes of smoke were carried out to sea, seeming to form a gigantic bridge between Sicily and Africa. A torrent of lava flowed toward Aderno, and a second flowed into the Val del Bue as far as Zuccolaro. A pit called La Cisterna, forty feet in diameter, opened in the Piano del Lago near the great cone, and ejected smoke and masses of old lava saturated with water. [Pg 329]Several mouths opened below the crater, and the country round about Zaffarana was desolated.
In 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800, 1802, 1805, and 1808 slight eruptions occurred. In March, 1809, no less than twenty-one mouths of fire opened between the summit of the mountain and Castiglione, and two years afterward more than thirty mouths opened in a line running eastward from the summit for five miles. They ejected jets of fire, accompanied by much smoke. In 1819 five new mouths of fire opened near the scene of the eruption of 1811; three of these united into one large crater, and poured forth a quantity of lava into the Val del Bue. The lava flowed until it reached a nearly perpendicular precipice at the head of the valley of Calanna, over which it fell in a cascade, and being hardened by its descent, it was forced against the sides of the tufaceous rock at the bottom, so as to produce an extraordinary amount of abrasion, accompanied by clouds of dust worn off by the friction. Mr. Scrope observed that the lava flowed at the rate of about three feet an hour nine months after its emission.
Eruptions occurred in 1831, 1832, 1838, and 1842. Near the end of the following year, fifteen mouths of fire opened near the crater of 1832, at a height of 7,000 feet above the sea. They began by discharging scoriae and sand, and afterward lava, which divided into three streams, the two outer of which soon came to a standstill, while the central stream continued to flow at the rapid rate of 180 feet a minute, the descent being an angle of 25°. The heat at a distance of 120 feet from the current was 90° F. A new crater opened just above Bronte, and discharged lava which threatened the town, but it fortunately encountered Monte Vittoria, and was diverted into another course. While a number of the inhabitants of Bronte were watching the progress of the lava, the front of the stream was suddenly blown out as by an explosion of gunpowder. In an instant red-hot masses were hurled in every direction, and a cloud of vapor enveloped everything. Thirty-six [Pg 330]persons were killed on the spot, and twenty survived but a few hours.
A very violent eruption, which lasted more than nine months, commenced on the 26th of August, 1852. It was first witnessed by a party of six English tourists, who were ascending the mountain from Nicolosi in order to witness the sun rise from the summit. As they approached the Casa Inglesi the crater commenced to give forth ashes and flames of fire. In a narrow defile they were met by a violent hurricane, which overthrew both the mules and the riders, and forced them toward the precipices of Val del Bue. They sheltered themselves beneath some masses of lava, when suddenly an earthquake shook the mountain, and the mules fled in terror. They returned on foot toward daylight to Nicolosi, fortunately without having sustained injury. In the course of the night many rifts opened in that part of Val del Bue called the Balzo di Trifaglietto, and a great fissure opened at the base of Giannicola Grande, and a crater was thrown up, from which for seventeen days showers of sand and scoriae were ejected.
During the next day a quantity of lava flowed down into the Val del Bue, branching off so that one stream flowed to the foot of Mount Finocchio, while the other flowed to Mount Calanna. The eruption continued with abated violence during the early months of 1853, and did not fully cease until May 27th. The entire mass of lava ejected is estimated to be equal to an area six miles long by two miles broad, with an average depth of about twelve feet.
In October, 1864, frequent shocks of earthquake were felt by the dwellers on Ætna. In January, 1865, clouds of smoke were emitted by the great crater, and roaring sounds were heard. On the night of the 30th a violent shock was felt on the northeast side of the mountain, and a mouth opened below Monte Frumento, from which lava was ejected. It flowed at the rate of about a mile a day, and ultimately divided into two streams. By March 10th the new mouths of fire had [Pg 331]increased to seven in number, and they were all situated along a line stretching down from the summit. The three upper craters gave forth loud detonations three or four times a minute. Since 1865, there have been occasional eruptions, but none of great duration, nor has there been any loss of life in consequence.
It will be seen from the foregoing account that there is a great similarity in the general character of the eruptions of Ætna. Earthquakes presage the outburst; loud explosions are heard; rifts open in the sides of the mountain; smoke, sand, ashes, and scoriae are discharged; the action localizes itself in one or more craters; cinders are thrown out and accumulate around the crater in a conical form; ultimately lava rises through the new cone, frequently breaking down one side of it where there is least resistance, and flowing over the surrounding country. Out of the seventy-eight eruptions mentioned above, a comparatively small number have been of extreme violence, while many of them have been of a slight and harmless character.
Italy does not contain a more beautiful or fertile province than Calabria, the celebrated region which the ancients called Magna Grecia, where once flourished Crotona, Tarentum, Sybaris, and so many other prosperous cities. Situated between the volcanoes of Vesuvius and Ætna, Calabria has always been much exposed to the destructive influence of earthquakes, but the most terrible shock ever felt in the province was that of February 5, 1783. The ground was agitated in all directions, swelling like the waves of the ocean. Nothing could withstand such shocks, and not a building upon the surface remained erect. The beautiful city of Messina, the commercial metropolis of Sicily, was reduced to a heap of ruins.
Upon March 4, a fresh shock, almost as violent as the first, completed the work of destruction. The number of persons who perished in Calabria and Sicily during these two earthquakes is estimated at 80,000 and 320 of the 365 towns and [Pg 332]villages which Calabria contained were destroyed. The greater number of those who lost their lives were buried amid the ruins of the houses, but many perished in fires that were kindled in most of the towns, particularly in Oppido, where the flames were fed by great magazines of oil. Not a few, especially among the peasantry dwelling in the country, were suddenly engulfed in fissures. Many who were only half buried in the ruins, and who might have been saved had there been help at hand, were left to die a lingering death from cold and hunger. Four Augustine monks at Terranova perished thus miserably. Having taken refuge in a vaulted sacristy, they were entombed in it alive by the masses of rubbish, and lingered for four days, during which their cries for help could be heard, till death put an end to their sufferings.
Of still more thrilling interest was the case of the Marchioness Spadara. Having fainted at the moment of the first great shock, she was lifted by her husband, who, bearing her in his arms, hurried with her to the harbor. Here, on recovering her senses, she observed that her infant boy had been left behind. Taking advantage of a moment when her husband was too much occupied to notice her, she darted off, and, running back to her house, which was still standing, she snatched her babe from his cradle. Rushing with him in her arms toward the staircase, she found the stair had fallen, barring all further progress in that direction. She fled from room to room, chased by the falling materials, and at length reached a balcony as her last refuge. Holding up her infant, she implored the few passers-by for help; but they all, intent on securing their own safety, turned a deaf ear to her cries. Meanwhile her mansion had caught fire, and ere long the balcony, with the devoted lady still grasping her darling, was hurled into the devouring flames.
A few cases are recorded of devotion similar to that of this heroic woman, but happily attended by more fortunate results. In the great majority of instances, however, the instinct of [Pg 333]self-preservation triumphed over every other feeling, rendering the wretched people callous to the dangers and sufferings of others. Still worse was the conduct of the half savage peasantry. They hastened into the towns like vultures to their prey. Instead of helping the sufferers, they ransacked the smoking ruins for plunder, robbed the persons of the dead, and of those entangled alive among the rubbish. They robbed the very injured who would have paid them handsomely for rescuing them. At Polistena, a gentleman had been buried head downward beneath the ruins of his house, and when his servant saw what had happened he actually stole the silver buckles off his shoes, while his legs were in the air, and made off with them. The unfortunate gentleman, however, managed to rescue himself from his perilous position.
Several cases occurred of persons being rescued alive from the ruins after a lapse of three, four, and even five days, and one on the seventh day after interment. Those who were thus rescued all declared that their direst sufferings were from thirst.
CHAPTER XXVII.
LISBON EARTHQUAKE SCOURGED.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Sixty Thousand Lives Lost in a Few Moments—An Opulent and Populous Capital Destroyed—Graphic Account by an English Merchant Who Resided in the Stricken City—Tidal Waves Drown Thousands in the City Streets—Ships Engulfed in the Harbor—Criminals Rob and Burn—Terrible Desolation and Suffering.
MORE than once in its history has Lisbon, the beautiful capital of Portugal, on the Tagus river, been devastated by earthquakes and tidal waves. Greatest of all these was the appalling disaster of 1755, when in a few minutes thousands upon thousands of the inhabitants were killed or drowned. An English merchant, Mr. Davy, who resided in the ill-fated city at that time, and was an eye-witness of the whole catastrophe, survived the event and wrote to a London friend the following account of it. The narrative reproduced herewith brings the details before the reader with a force and simplicity which leaves no doubt of the exact truth. Mr. Davy wrote as follows:
“On the morning of November 1st I was seated in my apartment, just finishing a letter, when the papers and the table I was writing on began to tremble with a gentle motion, which rather surprised me, as I could not perceive a breath of wind stirring. Whilst I was reflecting with myself what this could be owing to, but without having the least apprehension of the real cause, the whole house began to shake from the very foundation, and a frightful noise came from underground, resembling the hollow, distant rumbling of thunder.
[Pg 335]“Upon this I threw down my pen, and started upon my feet, remaining a moment in suspense, whether I should stay in the apartment or run into the street, as the danger in both places seemed equal. In a moment I was stunned with a most horrid crash, as if every edifice in the city had tumbled down at once. The house I was in shook with such violence that the upper stories immediately fell, and though my apartment, which was on the first floor, did not then share the same fate, yet everything was thrown out of its place in such a manner that it was with no small difficulty I kept my feet, and expected nothing less than to be soon crushed to death, as the walls continued rocking to and fro, opening in several places; large stones falling down on every side from the cracks, and the ends of most of the rafters starting out from the roofs.
“To add to this terrifying scene, the sky in a moment became so gloomy that I could now distinguish no particular object; it was an Egyptian darkness indeed, such as might be felt.
“As soon as the gloom began to disperse and the violence of the shock seemed pretty much abated, the first object I perceived in the room was a woman sitting on the floor with an infant in her arms, all covered with dust, pale and trembling. I asked her how she got hither, but her consternation was so great that she could give me no account of her escape. I suppose that when the tremor first began, she ran out of her own house, and finding herself in such imminent danger from the falling stones, retired into the door of mine, which was almost contiguous to hers, for shelter, and when the shock increased, which filled the door with dust and rubbish, she ran upstairs into my apartment. The poor creature asked me, in the utmost agony, if I did not think the world was at an end; at the same time she complained of being choked, and begged me to procure her some water. Upon this I went to a closet where I kept a large jar of water, but found it broken to pieces. I told her she must not now think of quenching her [Pg 336]thirst, but saving her life, as the house was just falling on our heads, and if a second shock came, would certainly bury us both.
“I hurried down stairs, the woman with me, holding by my arm, and made directly to that end of the street which opens to the Tagus. Finding the passage this way entirely blocked up with the fallen houses to the height of their second stories, I turned back to the other end which led to the main street, and there helped the woman over a vast heap of ruins, with no small hazard to my own life; just as we were going into this street, as there was one part that I could not well climb over without the assistance of my hands as well as feet, I desired her to let go her hold, which she did, remaining two or three feet behind me, at which instant there fell a vast stone from a tottering wall, and crushed both her and the child in pieces. So dismal a spectacle at any other time would have affected me in the highest degree, but the dread I was in of sharing the same fate myself, and the many instances of the same kind which presented themselves all around, were too shocking to make me dwell a moment on this single object.
“I now had a long, narrow street to pass, with the houses on each side four or five stories high, all very old, the greater part already thrown down, or continually falling, and threatening the passengers with inevitable death at every step, numbers of whom lay killed before me, or what I thought far more deplorable, so bruised and wounded that they could not stir to help themselves. For my own part, as destruction appeared to me unavoidable, I only wished I might be made an end of at once, and not have my limbs broken, in which case I could expect nothing else but to be left upon the spot, lingering in misery, like those poor unhappy wretches, without receiving the least succor from any person.
“As self-preservation, however, is the first law of nature, these sad thoughts did not so far prevail as to make me totally despair. I proceeded on as fast as I conveniently could, [Pg 337]though with the utmost caution, and having at length got clear of this horrid passage, I found myself safe and unhurt in the large open space before St. Paul’s church, which had been thrown down a few minutes before, and buried a great part of the congregation. Here I stood for some time, considering what I should do, and not thinking myself safe in this situation, I came to the resolution of climbing over the ruins of the west end of the church, in order to get to the river’s side, that I might be removed as far as possible from the tottering houses, in case of a second shock.
“This, with some difficulty, I accomplished, and here I found a prodigious concourse of people of both sexes, and of all ranks and conditions. There were several priests who had run from the altars in their sacerdotal vestments; ladies half dressed, and some without shoes; all these, whom their mutual dangers had here assembled as to a place of safety, were on their knees at prayer, with the terrors of death in their countenances.
“In the midst of these devotions the second great shock came on, little less violent than the first, and completed the ruin of those buildings which had been already much shattered. The consternation now became so universal, that the shrieks and cries of the frightened people could be distinctly heard from the top of St. Catherine’s hill, a considerable distance off, whither a vast number of the populace had likewise retreated. At the same time we could hear the fall of the parish church there, whereby many persons were killed on the spot, and others mortally wounded. On a sudden I heard a general outcry, ‘The sea is coming in, we are lost!’ Turning my eyes toward the river, which at this place is nearly four miles broad, I could perceive it heaving and swelling in a most unaccountable manner, as no wind was stirring. In an instant there appeared, at some small distance, a large body of water, rising as it were like a mountain. It came on foaming and roaring, and rushed toward the shore with such impetuosity, [Pg 338]that we all immediately ran for our lives, as fast as possible; many were actually swept away, and the rest were above their waists in water, at a good distance from the bank.
“For my own part, I had the narrowest escape, and should certainly have been lost, had I not grasped a large beam that lay on the ground, till the water returned to its channel, which it did with equal rapidity. As there now appeared at least as much danger from the sea as the land, and I scarce knew whither to retire for shelter, I took a sudden resolution of returning, with my clothes all dripping, to the area of St. Paul’s. Here I stood some time, and observed the ships tumbling and tossing about as in a violent storm. Some had broken their cables and were carried to the other side of the Tagus; others were whirled around with incredible swiftness; several large boats were turned keel upward; and all this without any wind, which seemed the more astonishing.
“It was at the time of which I am now writing, that the fine new quay, built entirely of rough marble, at an immense expense, was entirely swallowed up, with all the people on it, who had fled thither for safety, and had reason to think themselves out of danger in such a place. At the same time a great number of boats and small vessels, anchored near it, all likewise full of people, who had retired thither for the same purpose, were all swallowed up, as in a whirlpool, and never more appeared.
“This last dreadful incident I did not see with my own eyes, as it passed three or four stone-throws from the spot where I then was, but I had the account as here given from several masters of ships, who were anchored within two or three hundred yards of the quay, and saw the whole catastrophe. One of them in particular informed me that when the second shock came on, he could perceive the whole city waving backwards and forwards, like the sea when the wind first begins to rise; that the agitation of the earth was so great, even under the river, that it threw up his large anchor from the mooring, [Pg 339]which swam, as he termed it, on the surface of the water; that immediately upon this extraordinary concussion, the river rose at once nearly twenty feet, and in a moment subsided; at which instant he saw the quay, with the whole concourse of people upon it, sink down, and at the same time everyone of the boats and vessels that were near it were drawn into the cavity, which he supposes instantly closed upon them, inasmuch as not the least sign of a wreck was ever seen afterwards.
“I had not been long in the area of St. Paul’s, when I felt the third shock, which though somewhat less violent than the two former, the sea rushed in again and retired with the same rapidity, and I remained up to my knees in water, though I had gotten upon a small eminence at some distance from the river, with the ruins of several intervening houses to break its force. At this time I took notice the waters retired so impetuously, that some vessels were left quite dry, which rode in seven-fathom water. The river thus continued alternately rushing on and retiring several times, in such sort that it was justly dreaded Lisbon would now meet the same fate which a few years ago had befallen the city of Lima. The master of a vessel which arrived here just after the first of November assured me that he felt the shock above forty leagues at sea so sensibly that he really concluded that he had struck upon a rock, till he threw out the lead and could find no bottom; nor could he possibly guess at the cause till the melancholy sight of this desolate city left him no room to doubt it.
“I was now in such a situation that I knew not which way to turn; I was faint from the constant fatigue I had undergone, and I had not yet broken my fast. Yet this had not so much effect on me as the anxiety I was under for a particular friend, who lodged at the top of a very high house in the heart of the city, and being a stranger to the language, could not but be in the utmost danger. I determined to go and learn, if possible, what had become of him. I proceeded, with some hazard, to [Pg 340]the large space before the convent of Corpo Santo, which had been thrown down, and buried a great number of people. Passing through the new square of the palace, I found it full of coaches, chariots, chaises, horses and mules, deserted by their drivers and attendants, and left to starve.
“From this square the way led to my friend’s lodgings through a long, steep and narrow street. The new scenes of horror I met with here exceed all description; nothing could be heard but sighs and groans. I did not meet with a soul in the passage who was not bewailing the loss of his nearest relations and dearest friends. I could hardly take a single step without treading on the dead or dying. In some places lay coaches, with their masters, horses and riders almost crushed in pieces; here, mothers with infants in their arms; there, ladies richly dressed, priests, friars, gentlemen, mechanics, either in the same condition or just expiring; some had their backs broken, others great stones on their breasts; some lay almost buried in the rubbish, and crying out in vain for succor, were left to perish with the rest.
“At length I arrived at the spot opposite to the house where my friend, for whom I was so anxious, resided; and finding this as well as the other contiguous buildings thrown down, I gave him up for lost, and thought only of saving my own life.
“In less than an hour I reached a public house, kept by a Mr. Morley, near the English burying-ground, about a half a mile from the city, where I found a great number of my countrymen in the same wretched circumstances as myself.
“Perhaps you may think the present doleful subject here concluded; but the horrors of the day are sufficient to fill a volume. As soon as it grew dark, another scene presented itself, little less shocking than those already described. The whole city appeared in a blaze, which was so bright that I could easily see to read by it. It may be said without exaggeration that it was on fire in at least a hundred different places [Pg 341]at once, and thus continued burning for six days together, without intermission, or without the least attempt being made to stop its progress.
“It went on consuming everything the earthquake had spared, and the people were so dejected and terrified that few or none had courage enough to venture down to save any part of their substance. I could never learn that this terrible fire was owing to any subterraneous eruption, as some reported, but to three causes, which all concurring at the same time, will naturally account for the prodigious havoc it made. The first of November being All Saint’s Day, a high festival among the Portuguese, every altar in every church and chapel, some of which have more than twenty, was illuminated with a number of wax tapers and lamps, as customary; these setting fire to the curtains and timber work that fell with the shock, the conflagration soon spread to the neighboring houses, and being there joined with the fires in the kitchen chimneys, increased to such a degree, that it might easily have destroyed the whole city, though no other cause had concurred, especially as it met with no interruption.
“But what would appear almost incredible to you, were the fact less notorious and public, is, that a gang of hardened villains, who had escaped from prison when the wall fell, were busily employed in setting fire to those buildings, which stood some chance of escaping the general destruction. I cannot conceive what could have induced them to this hellish work, except to add to the horror and confusion, that they might, by this means, have the better opportunity of plundering with security. But there was no necessity for taking this trouble, as they might certainly have done their business without it, since the whole city was so deserted before night, that I believe not a soul remained in it, except those execrable villains, and others of the same stamp. It is possible some of them might have had other motives besides robbing, as one in particular being apprehended—they say he was a Moor, [Pg 342]condemned to the galleys—confessed at the gallows that he had set fire to the King’s palace with his own hand; at the same time glorying in the action, and declaring with his last breath, that he hoped to have burnt all the royal family.
“The whole number of persons that perished, including those who were burnt or afterwards crushed to death whilst digging in the ruins, is supposed, on the lowest calculation, to amount to more than sixty thousand; and though the damage in other respects cannot be computed, yet you may form some idea of it, when I assure you that this extensive and opulent city is now nothing but a vast heap of ruins; that the rich and poor are at present upon a level; some thousands of families which but the day before had been in easy circumstances, being now scattered about in the fields, wanting every convenience of life, and finding none able to relieve them.
“In order that you may partly realize the prodigious havoc that has been made, I will mention one more instance among the many that have come under my notice. There was a high arched passage, like one of our old city gates, fronting the west door of the ancient cathedral; on the left hand was the famous church of St. Antonio, and on the right, some private houses several stories high. The whole area surrounded by all these buildings did not much exceed one of our small courts in London. At the first shock, numbers of people who were then passing under the arch, fled into the middle of this area for shelter; those in the two churches, as many as could possibly get out, did the same. At this instant, the arched gateway, with the fronts of the two churches and contiguous buildings, all inclined one toward another with the sudden violence of the shock, fell down and buried every soul as they were standing here crowded together.”
The portion of the earth’s surface convulsed by this earthquake is estimated by Humboldt to have been four times greater than the whole extent of Europe. The shocks were felt not only over the Spanish peninsula, but in Morocco and [Pg 343]Algeria they were nearly as violent. At a place about twenty-four miles from the city of Morocco, a great fissure opened in the earth, and the entire village, with all its inhabitants, upward of 8,000 in number, were precipitated into the gulf, which immediately closed over its prey.
The earthquake was also felt as far to the westward as the West Indian islands of Antigua, Barbados, and Martinique, where the tide, which usually rises about two feet, was suddenly elevated above twenty feet, the water being at the same time as black as ink. Toward the northwest the shock was perceptible as far as Canada, whose great lakes were all disturbed. Toward the east it extended to the Alps, to Thuringia, and to Töplitz, where the hot springs were first dried up, and soon after overflowed with ochreous water. In Scotland the waters both of Loch Lomond and Loch Ness rose and fell repeatedly. Toward the northeast, the shock was sensibly felt throughout the flat country of northern Germany, in Sweden, and along the shores of the Baltic.
At sea, 140 miles to the southward of Lisbon, the ship Denia was strained as if she had struck on a rock; the seams of the deck opened, and the compass was upset. On board another ship, 120 miles to the westward of Cape St. Vincent, the shock was so violent as to toss the men up perpendicularly from the deck. The great sea wave rose along the whole southern and western coasts of Portugal and Spain; and at Cadiz it is said to have risen to a height of sixty feet. At Tangier, on the northern coast of Africa, the tide rose and fell eighteen times in rapid succession. At Funchal in Madeira, where the usual ebb and flow of the tide is seven feet, it being half tide at the time, the great wave rolled in, and at once raised the level of the water fifteen feet above high water mark. This immense tide, rushing into the city, caused great damage, and several other parts of the island were similarly flooded. The tide was also suddenly raised on the southern coast of Ireland; the
CHAPTER XXVIII.
JAPAN AND ITS DISASTROUS EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
The Island Empire Subject to Convulsions of Nature—Legends of Ancient Disturbances—Famous Volcano of Fuji-yama Formed in One Night—More Than One Hundred Volcanoes in Japan—Two Hundred and Thirty-two Eruptions Recorded—Devastation of Thriving Towns and Busy Cities—The Capital a Sufferer—Scenes of Desolation after the Most Recent Great Earthquakes.
JAPAN may be considered the home of the volcano and the earthquake. Few months pass there without one or more earth shocks of considerable force, besides numerous lighter ones of too slight a nature to be worthy of remark. Japanese histories furnish many records of these phenomena.
There is an ancient legend of a great earthquake in 286 B.C., when Mount Fuji rose from the bottom of the sea in a single night. This is the highest and most famous mountain of the country. It rises more than 12,000 feet above the water level, and is in shape like a cone; the crater is 500 feet deep. It is regarded by the natives as a sacred mountain, and large numbers of pilgrims make the ascent to the summit at the commencement of the summer. The apex is shaped somewhat like an eight-petaled lotus flower, and offers from three to five peaks to view from different directions. Though now apparently extinct, it was in former times an active volcano, and the histories of the country mention several very disastrous eruptions. Japanese poets never weary in celebrating the praises of Fuji-san, or Fuji-yama, as it is variously called, and its conical form is one of the most familiar in Japanese painting and decorative art.
[Pg 345]As Japan has not yet been scientifically explored throughout, and, moreover, as there is considerable difficulty in defining the kind of mountain to be regarded as a volcano, it is impossible to give an absolute statement as to the number of volcanoes in the country. If under the term volcano be included all mountains which have been in a state of eruption within the historical period, those which have a true volcanic form, together with those that still exhibit on their flanks matter ejected from a crater, we may conclude that there are at least 100 such mountains in the Japanese empire. Of this number about forty-eight are still active.
Altogether about 232 eruptions have been recorded, and of these the greater number took place in the southern districts. This may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that Japanese civilization advanced from the south. In consequence of this, records were made of various phenomena in the south when the northern regions were still unknown and unexplored.
The most famous of the active volcanoes is Asama-yama in Shinano. The earliest eruption of this mountain of which record now exists seems to have been in 1650. After that it was only feebly active for 133 years, when there occurred a very severe eruption in 1783. Even as late as 1870 there was a considerable emission of volcanic matter, at which time also violent shocks of earthquake were felt at Yokohama. The crater is very deep, with irregular rocky walls of a sulphur character, from apertures in which fumes are constantly sent forth.
Probably the earliest authentic instance of an earthquake in Japan is that which is said to have occurred in 416 A.D., when the imperial palace at Kioto was thrown to the ground. Again, in 599, the buildings throughout the province of Yamato were all destroyed, and special prayers were ordered to be offered up to the deity of earthquakes. In 679 a tremendous shock caused many fissures to open in the provinces of Chikuzen and Chikugo, in Kiushiu; the largest of these [Pg 346]chasms was over four miles in length and about twenty feet in width. In 829 the northern province of Dewa was visited in a similar manner; the castle of Akita was overthrown, deep rifts were formed in the ground in every direction, and the Akita river was dried up.
To descend to more recent instances, in 1702 the lofty walls of the outside and inside moats of the castle of Yeddo were destroyed, tidal waves broke along the coast in the vicinity, and the road leading through the famous pass of Hakone, in the hills to the east of Fuji-yama was closed up by the alteration in the surface of the earth. A period of unusual activity was between the years 1780 and 1800, a time when there was great activity elsewhere on the globe. It was during this period that Mount Unsen was blown up, and from 27,000 to 53,000 persons (according to different accounts) perished; that many islands were formed in the Satsuma sea; that Sakura-jima threw out so much pumice material that it was possible to walk a distance of twenty-three miles upon the floating debris in the sea; and that Asama ejected so many blocks of stone—one of which is said to have been forty-two feet in diameter—and a lava-stream sixty-eight kilometres in length.
In 1854 an earthquake destroyed the town of Shimoda, in the province of Idzu, and a Russian frigate, lying in the harbor at the time, was so severely damaged by the waves caused by the shock that she had to be abandoned. In 1855 came a great earthquake which was felt most severely at Yedo, though its destructive power extended for some distance to the west along the line of the Tokaido. It is stated that on this occasion there were in all 14,241 dwelling houses and 1,649 fire proof store houses overturned in the city, and a destructive fire which raged at the same time further increased the loss of life and property.
What was possibly the gravest disaster of its class in this land of volcanoes, since the terrible eruptions which came in the twenty years ending in 1800, occurred in the Bandai-san [Pg 347]region in northern Japan, on July 15, 1888. At about eight o’clock in the morning of that day, almost in the twinkling of an eye, Little Bandai-san was blown into the air, and wiped out of the map of Japan. A few moments later its debris had buried or devastated the surrounding country for miles, and a dozen or more of upland hamlets had been overwhelmed in the earthen deluge, or wrecked by other phenomena attending the outburst. Several hundreds of people had met with sudden and terrible death; scores of others had been injured; and the long roll of disaster included the destruction of horses and cattle, damming up of rivers, and laying waste of large tracts of rice-land and mulberry groves.
A small party was organized in Tokio to visit the scene. As the travelers approached the mountain, they were told that twenty miles in a straight line from Bandai-san no noise or earthquake was experienced on the 15th, but mist and gloom prevailed for about seven hours, the result of a shower of impalpable blue-gray ash, which fell to a depth of half an inch, and greatly puzzled the inhabitants. An ascent of about 3,000 feet was made to the back of the newly formed crater, so as to obtain a clear view of it and of the country which had been overwhelmed. Only on nearing the end of the ascent was the party again brought face to face with signs of the explosion. Here, besides the rain of fine, gray, ashen mud which had fallen on and still covered the ground and all vegetation, they came upon a number of freshly opened pits, evidently in some way the work of the volcano. Ascending the last steep rise to the ridge behind Little Bandai-san, signs of the great disaster grew in number and intensity.
The London Times correspondent, who was one of the party, wrote: “Fetid vapors swept over us, emanating from evil looking pools. Great trees, torn up by their roots, lay all around; and the whole face of the mountain wore the look of having been withered by some fierce and baleful blast. A few minutes further and we had gained the crest of the narrow [Pg 348]ridge, and now, for the first time, looked forth upon the sight we had come to see. I hardly know which to pronounce the more astonishing, the prospect that now opened before our eyes or the suddenness with which it burst upon us. To the former no more fitting phrase, perhaps, can be applied than that of absolute, unredeemed desolation—so intense, so sad, and so bewildering that I despair of describing it adequately in detail.
“On our right, a little above us, rose the in-curved rear wall of what, eight days before, had been Sho-Bandai-san, a ragged, almost sheer cliff, falling, with scarce a break, to a depth of fully 600 feet. In front of the cliff everything had been blown away and scattered over the face of the country before it, in a roughly fan-shaped deposit of for the most part unknown depth—deep enough, however, to erase every landmark, and conceal every feature of the deluged area. At the foot of the cliff, clouds of suffocating steam rose ceaselessly and angrily, and with loud roaring, from two great fissures in the crater bed, and now and then assailed us with their hellish odor. To our eyes, the base, denuded by the explosion, seemed to cover a space of between three and four square miles. This, however, can only be rough conjecture. Equally vague must be all present attempts to determine the volume of the disrupted matter. Yet, if we assume, as a very moderate calculation, that the mean depth of the debris covering a buried area of thirty square miles is not less than fifteen feet, we find that the work achieved by this great mine of Nature’s firing was the upheaval and wide distribution of no fewer than 700,000,000 tons of earth, rocks, and other ponderous material. The real figure is probably very much greater.”
The desolation beyond the crater, and the mighty mass thrown out by the volcano which covered the earth, were almost incredible. “Down the slopes of Bandai-san, across the valley of the Nagase-gawa, choking up the river, and stretching beyond it to the foothills, five or six miles away, [Pg 349]swept a vast, billowy sheet of ash-covered earth or mud, obliterating every foot of the erstwhile smiling landscape. Here and there the eyes rested on huge, disordered heaps of rocky debris, in the distance resembling nothing so much as the giant, concrete, black substructure of some modern breakwater. It was curious to see on the farther side the sharp line of demarkation between the brown sea of mud and the green forests on which it had encroached; or, again, the lakes formed in every tributary glen of the Nagase-gawa by the massive dams so suddenly raised against the passage of their stream waters. One lake was conspicuous among the rest. It was there that the Nagase-gawa itself had been arrested at its issue from a narrow pass by a monster barrier of disrupted matter thrown right across its course. Neither living thing nor any sign of life could be discerned over the whole expanse. All was dismally silent and solitary. Beneath it, however, lay half a score of hamlets, and hundreds of corpses of men, women and children, who had been overtaken by swift and painful deaths.”
Although the little village of Nagasaka was comparatively uninjured, nearly all its able-bodied inhabitants lost their lives in a manner which shows the extraordinary speed with which the mud-stream flowed. When Little Bandai-san blew up, and hot ashes and sand began to fall, the young and strong fled panic-stricken across the fields, making for the opposite hills by paths well known to all. A minute later came a thick darkness, as of midnight. Blinded by this, and dazed by the falling debris and other horrors of the scene, their steps, probably also their senses, failed them. And before the light returned every soul was caught by a swift bore of soft mud, which, rushing down the valley bed, overwhelmed them in a fate more horrible and not less sudden than that of Pharaoh and his host. None escaped save those who stayed at home—mostly the old and very young.
A terrible earthquake convulsed central Japan on the [Pg 350]morning of October 25, 1891. The waves of disturbance traversed thirty-one provinces, over which the earth’s crust was violently shaken for ten minutes together, while slighter shocks were felt for a distance of 400 miles to the north, and traveled under the sea a like distance, making themselves felt in a neighboring island. In Tokio itself, though 170 miles from the center of disturbance, it produced an earthquake greater than any felt for nearly forty years, lasting twelve minutes. Owing, however, to the character of the movement, which was a comparatively slow oscillation, the damage was confined to the wrecking of some roofs and chimneys. Very different were its results in the central zone of agitation, concerning which a correspondent wrote as follows:
“There was a noise as of underground artillery, a shake, a second shake, and in less than thirty seconds the Nagoya-Gifu plain, covering an area of 1,200 square miles, became a sea of waves, more than 40,000 houses fell, and thousands of people lost their lives. The sequence of events was approximately as follows: To commence at Tokio, the capital, which is some 200 miles from the scene of the disaster, on October 25th, very early in the morning, the inhabitants were alarmed by a long, easy swaying of the ground, and many sought refuge outside their doors. There were no shocks, but the ground moved back and forth, swung round, and rose and fell with the easy, gentle motion of a raft upon an ocean swell. Many became dizzy, and some were seized with nausea.”
These indications, together with the movements of the seismographs, denoted a disturbance at a considerable distance, but the first surmise that it was located under the Pacific Ocean, was unfortunately incorrect. The scene of the catastrophe was indicated only by tidings from its outskirts, as all direct news was cut off by the interruption of railway and telegraphic communication. An exploratory and relief party started on the second day from Tokio, not knowing how far [Pg 351]they would be able to proceed by train, and the correspondent who accompanied them thus described his experiences:
“Leaving Tokio by a night train, early next morning we were at Hamamatsu, 137 miles distant from Tokio, on the outside edge of the destructive area. Here, although the motion had been sufficiently severe to destroy some small warehouses, to displace the posts supporting the heavy roof of a temple, and to ruffle a few tiles along the eaves of the houses, nothing serious had occurred. At one point, owing to the lateral spreading of an embankment, there had been a slight sinkage of the line, and we had to proceed with caution. Crossing the entrance to the beautiful lake of Hamana Ko, which tradition says was joined to the sea by the breaking of a sand-spit by the sea waves accompanying an earthquake in 1498, we rose from the rice fields and passed over a country of hill and rock. Further along the line signs of violent movement became more numerous. Huge stone lanterns at the entrances of temples had been rotated or overturned, roofs had lost their tiles, especially along the ridge, sinkages in the line became numerous, and although there was yet another rock barrier between us and the plain of great destruction, it was evident that we were in an area where earth movements had been violent.”
The theatre of maximum destruction was a plain, dotted with villages and homesteads, supporting, under the garden-like culture of Japan, 500 and 800 inhabitants to the square mile, and containing two cities, Nagoya and Gifu, with populations respectively of 162,000 and 30,000, giving probably a round total of half a million human beings. Within about twelve miles of Gifu, a subsidence on a vast scale took place, engulfing a whole range of hills, while over lesser areas the soil in many places slipped down, carrying with it dwellings and their inmates. Gifu was a total wreck, devastated by ruin and conflagration, causing the destruction of half its houses. Ogaki, nine miles to the west, fared even worse, for here only [Pg 352]113 out of 4,434 houses remained standing, and one-tenth of the population were killed or wounded. In one temple, where service was being held, only two out of the entire congregation escaped.
Nagoya, too, suffered heavily, and thousands of houses collapsed. The damage at this place was produced by three violent shocks in quick succession, preceded by a deep, booming sound. During the succeeding 206 hours, 6,600 earth spasms of greater or less intensity were felt at increasing intervals, occurring in the beginning probably at the rate of one a minute. The inhabitants were driven to bivouac in rude shelters in the streets, and there was great suffering among the injured, to whom it was impossible to give proper care for many days after the disaster. Some estimates placed the figure of the killed and wounded as high as 24,000, whilst not less than 300,000 were rendered homeless.
Owing to the frequency of earthquake shocks in Japan, the study of their causes and effects has had a great deal of attention there since the introduction of modern science into the island empire. The Japanese have proved as energetic in this direction as they are in purely material progress on the lines of western civilization, and already they are recognized as the most advanced of all people in their study of seismology and its accompanying phenomena.
CHAPTER XXIX.
KRAKATOA, THE GREATEST OF VOLCANIC EXPLOSIONS.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
The Volcano That Blew Its Own Head Off—The Terrific Crash Heard Three Thousand Miles—Atmospheric Waves Travel Seven Times Around the Earth—A Pillar of Dust Seventeen Miles High—Islands of the Malay Archipelago Blotted Out of Existence—Native Villages Annihilated—Other Disastrous Upheavals in the East Indies.
ONE of the fairest regions of the world is the Malay Archipelago of the East Indies. Here nature is prodigal with her gifts to man, and the cocoa-palm, cinnamon and other trees flourish, and rice, cotton, the sugar cane and tobacco yield their increase under cultivation. But beneath these scenes of loveliness, there are terrific energies, for this region is a focus of intense volcanic action. In the Sunda strait, between Sumatra and Java, there lies a group of small volcanic islands, the largest of which is Krakatoa. It forms part of the “basal wreck” of a large submarine volcano, whose visible edges are also represented by Velaten and Lang islands.
For two hundred years the igneous forces beneath Krakatoa remained dormant; but in September, 1880, premonitory shocks of earthquake were heard in the neighborhood. At length the inhabitants of Batavia and Bintenzorg were startled on May 20, 1883, by booming sounds which came from Krakatoa, one hundred miles distant. A mail steamer passing through the strait, had her compass violently agitated. Next [Pg 354]day a sprinkling of ashes was noticed at some places on each side of the strait, and toward evening a steam-column rising from Krakatoa revealed the locality of the disturbance. The commander of the German war ship Elisabeth, while passing, estimated the dust-column to be about thirty-six thousand feet, or seven miles high.
Volcanic phenomena being common to that region, no fears were entertained by the inhabitants in the vicinity; and an excursion party even started from Batavia to visit the scene of action. They reached the island on May 27th, and saw that the cone of Perborwatan was active, and that a column of vapor arose from it to a height of not less than ten thousand feet, while lumps of pumice were shot up to about six hundred feet. Explosions occurred at intervals of from five to ten minutes, each of these outbursts uncovering the liquid lava in the vent, the glow of which lighted up the overhanging steam-cloud for a few seconds.
Shortly after this visit the activity diminished. But on June 19th it was noticed at Anjer that the height of the dust and vapor-column, and likewise the explosions were again increasing. On the 24th a second column was seen rising. At length, Captain Ferzenaar, chief of the Topographical Survey of Bantam, visited Krakatoa island on August 11th. He found its forests destroyed, and the mantle of dust near the shores was twenty inches thick. Three large vapor-columns were noted, one marking the position of the crater of Perborwatan, while the other two were in the center of the island, and of the latter, one was probably Danan. There were also no less than eleven other eruptive foci, from which issued smaller steam-columns and dust. This was the last report prior to the great paroxysm.
During the next two or three weeks there was a decline in the energy of the volcano, but on the afternoon of Sunday, August 26th, and all through the following night, it was evident that the period of moderate eruptive action had passed, [Pg 355]and that Krakatoa had now entered upon the paroxysmal stage. From sunset on Sunday till midnight the tremendous detonations followed each other so quickly that a continuous roar may be said to have issued from the island. The full terrors of the eruption were now approaching. The distance of ninety-six miles from Krakatoa was not sufficient to permit sleep to the inhabitants of Batavia. All night volcanic thunders sounded like the discharges of artillery at their very doors. On the next morning there were four mighty explosions. The third was of appalling violence, and it gave rise to the most far-reaching effects. The entire series of grand phenomena at that spot extended over a little more than thirty-six hours.
Captain Thompson, of the Media, then seventy-six miles northeast of Krakatoa, saw a black mass like smoke rising into the clouds to an altitude estimated at not less than seventeen miles. The eruption was also viewed by Captain Wooldridge at a distance of forty miles. He speaks of the vapory mass looking like “an immense wall, with bursts of forked lightning, at times like large serpents rushing through the air.” After sunset this dark wall resembled “a blood-red curtain with the edges of all shades of yellow, the whole of a murky tinge, with fierce flashes of lightning.” Two other masters of vessels, at about the same distance from the volcano, report seeing the mastheads and yardarms of their ships aglow with electric fire. Such effects seem to be easily explicable. When we consider how enormous must be the friction going on in the hot air, through the clash against each other of myriads of particles of volcanic dust, during ejection and in their descent, it is evident that such friction is adequate to produce a widespread electrical disturbance in the surrounding atmosphere. The rush of steam through craters or other fissures would also contribute to these disturbances.
From these causes the compasses of passing ships were much disturbed. And yet the fall of magnetic oxide of iron [Pg 356](magnetite), a constituent of volcanic ash, possibly had some share in creating these perturbations. On the telephone line from Ishore, which included a submarine cable about a mile long, reports like pistol shots were heard. At Singapore, five hundred miles from Krakatoa, it was noted at the Oriental Telephone Company’s station that, on putting the receiver to the ear, a roar like that of a waterfall was heard. So great was the mass of vapor and dust in the air, that profound darkness, which lasted many hours, extended even to one hundred and fifty miles from the focus of the eruption. There is the record, among others, that it was “pitch dark” at Anjer at two o’clock in the afternoon of the 26th.
So great, too, was the ejective force that the fine volcanic dust was blown up to a height of fifty thousand feet, or over nine miles, into space. Another estimate gives the enormous altitude of seventeen miles to which the dust had been blown. The volcanic ash, which fell upon the neighboring islands within a circle of nine and one half miles radius, was from sixty-five to one hundred and thirty feet thick. At the back of the island the thickness of the ash beds was from one hundred and ninety-five to two hundred and sixty feet. Masses of floating pumice encumbered the strait. The coarser particles of this ash fell over a known area equal to 285,170 square miles, a space equal to the whole of the New England States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. It is calculated that the matter so ejected must have been considerably over a cubic mile in volume.
Another distinguishing feature of this display of nature’s powers was the magnitude and range of the explosive sounds. Lloyd’s agent at Batavia, ninety-four miles distant from Krakatoa, reported that on the morning of the 27th the reports and concussions were simply deafening. At Carimon, Java, which is three hundred and fifty-five miles distant, the natives heard reports which led them to suppose that a distant ship was in distress; boats put off for what proved to be a futile search. [Pg 357]The explosions were heard not only all over the province of Macassar, nine hundred and sixty-nine miles from the scene of the eruption, but over a yet wider area. At a spot one thousand one hundred and sixteen miles distant—St. Lucia bay, Borneo—some natives heard the awful sound. It stirred their consciences, for, being guilty of murder, they fled, fearing that such sounds signified the approach of an avenging force. Again, in the island of Timor, one thousand three hundred and fifty-one miles away, the people were so alarmed that the government sent off a steamer to seek the cause of the disturbance.
At that time, also, the shepherds on the Victoria plains, West Australia, thought they heard the firing of heavy artillery, at a spot one thousand seven hundred miles distant. At midnight, August 26th, the people of Daly Waters, South Australia, were aroused by what they thought was the blasting of a rock, a sound which lasted a few minutes. “The time and other circumstances show that here again was Krakatoa heard, this time at the enormous distance of two thousand and twenty-three miles.” And yet there is trustworthy evidence that the sounds were heard over even greater distances. Thundering noises were heard at Diego Garcia, in the Chagos islands, two thousand two hundred and sixty-seven miles from Krakatoa. It was imagined that some vessel must be in distress, and search was accordingly made. But most remarkable of all, Mr. James Wallis, chief of police in Rodriguez, across the Indian ocean, and nearly three thousand miles away from Krakatoa, made a statement in which he said that “several times during the night of August 26th-27th reports were heard coming from the eastward like the distant roar of heavy guns. These reports continued at intervals of between three and four hours.” Obviously, some time was needed for the sounds to make such a journey. On the basis of the known rate of velocity, they must have been heard at Rodriguez four hours after they started from their source.
[Pg 358]And yet, great as was the range of such vibrations, they could not be compared with that of the air-wave caused by the mighty outburst. This atmospheric wave started from Krakatoa at two minutes past ten on that eventful Monday morning, moving onward in an ever-widening circle, like that produced when a stone is thrown into smooth water. This ring-like wave traveled on at the rate of from six hundred and seventy-four to seven hundred and twenty-six miles an hour, and went around the world four, if not even seven times, as evidenced by the following facts: Batavia is nearly a hundred miles from the eruptive focus under review. There was connected with its gas-holder the usual pressure recorder. About thirteen minutes after the great outburst, this gauge showed a barometric disturbance equal to about four-tenths of an inch of mercury, that is, an extra air pressure of about a fifth of a pound on every square inch. The effects on the air of minor paroxysmal outbreaks are also recorded by this instrument; but barometers in the most distant places record the same disturbance. The great wave passed and repassed over the globe and no inhabitant was conscious of the fact. Barometers in the principal cities of the world automatically recorded this effect of the first great wave from Krakatoa to its antipodes in Central America, and also the return wave. The first four oscillations left their mark on upward of forty barograms, the fifth and sixth on several, and at Kew, England, the existence of a seventh was certainly established.
At the same time that this immense aerial undulation started on its tour around the world, another wave but of awful destructiveness, a seismic sea-wave, started on a similar journey. There can hardly be a doubt that this so-called “tidal-wave” was synchronous with the greatest of the explosions. A wave from fifty to seventy-two feet high arose and swept with resistless fury upon the shores each side of the straits. The destruction to life and property will probably never be fully known. At least thirty-six thousand lives were [Pg 359]lost; a great part of the district of North Bantam was destroyed; and the towns of Anjer, Merak, Tyringin, and neighboring villages were overwhelmed. A man-of-war, the Berouw, was cast upon the shore of Sumatra nearly two miles inland, and masses of coral from twenty to fifty tons in weight were torn from the bed of the sea and swept upon the shore.
The formerly fertile and densely populated islands of Sibuku and Sibesi were entirely covered by a deposit of dry mud several yards thick, and furrowed by deep crevasses. Of the inhabitants all perished to a man. Three islands, Steers, Calmeyer, and the islet east of Verlaten, completely disappeared and were covered by twelve or fourteen feet of water. Verlaten, formerly one mass of verdure, was uniformly covered with a layer of ashes about one hundred feet thick.
A few days after this eruption some remarkable sky effects were observed in different parts of the world. Many of these effects were of extraordinary beauty. Accordingly scientific inquiry was made, and in due time there was collected and tabulated a list of places from whence these effects were seen, together with the dates of such occurrences. Eventually it was concluded that such optical phenomena had a common cause, and that it must be the dust of ultra-microscopic fineness at an enormous altitude. All the facts indicated that such a cloud started from the Sunda straits, and that the prodigious force of the Krakatoa eruption could at that time alone account for the presence of impalpable matter at such a height in the atmosphere.
This cloud traveled at about double the speed of an express train, by way of the tropics of Cancer and of Capricorn. Carried by westerly-going winds, in three days it had crossed the Indian Ocean and was rapidly moving over Central Africa; two days later it was flying over the Atlantic; then, for two more days over Brazil, and then across the Pacific toward its birth-place. But the wind still carried this [Pg 360]haze of fine particles onward, and again it went around the world within a fortnight. In November, the dust area had expanded so as to include North America and Europe.
Here are a few facts culled from the report of the Royal Society of London. On the 28th, at Seychelles, the sun was seen as through a fog at sunset, and there was a lurid glare all over the sky. At the island of Rodriguez, on that day, “a strange, red, threatening sky was seen at sunset.” At Mauritius (28th), there is the record “Crimson dawn, sun red after rising, gorgeous sunset, first of the afterglows; sky and clouds yellow and red up to the zenith.” 28th and 29th, Natal—“most vivid sunsets, also August 31st and September 5th, sky vivid red, fading into green and purple.” On the last days of August and September 1st, the sun, as seen from South America, appeared blue, while at Panama on the 2nd and 3d of that month, the sun appeared green. “On the 2nd of September, Trinidad, Port of Spain—Sun looked like a blue ball, and after sunset the sky became so red that there was supposed to be a big fire.” “On the 5th of September, Honolulu—Sun set green. Remarkable afterglow first seen. Secondary glow lasted till 7:45 P. M., gold, green and crimson colors. Corona constantly seen from September 5th to December 15th. Misty rippled surface of haze.”
It remains to be said that when this now famous island of Krakatoa was visited shortly after the great eruption, wonderful changes were noted. The whole northern and lower portion of the island had vanished, except an isolated pitchstone rock, ten yards square, and projecting out of the ocean with deep water all around it. What a tremendous work of evisceration this must have been is attested by the fact that where Krakatoa island, girt with luxuriant forests, once towered from three hundred to fourteen hundred feet above the sunlit waters, it is now, in some places, more than a thousand feet below them.
There is no region more frequently visited by earthquakes [Pg 361]than the beautiful lands in the Indian ocean, and nowhere has greater damage been done than on the beautiful island of Java. In former ages Sumatra and Java formed one single island, but in the year 1115, after a terrific earthquake, the isthmus which connected them, disappeared in the waves with all its forests and fertile fields.
These two islands have more than 200 volcanoes, half of which have never been explored, but it is known that whenever there has been an eruption of any one of them, one or the other of the two islands has been visited by an earthquake. Moreover, earthquakes are so frequent in the whole archipelago that the principal ones serve as dates to mark time or to refer to, just as in our own country is the case with any great historic event. A month rarely passes without the soil being shaken, and the disappearance of a village is of frequent occurrence.
In 1822 the earthquake which accompanied the eruption of the Javanese volcano of Yalung-Yung, utterly destroyed 144 towns and villages. In 1772, when the Papand-Yung was in a state of furious eruption, the island of Java was violently agitated, and a tract of nearly twenty-five square leagues, which but the day before had been covered with flourishing villages and farms, was reduced to a heap of ruins. In 1815 an earthquake, accompanied by an eruption of the volcano of Timboro, in the island of Sumatra, destroyed more than 20,000 lives.
It is rare even in this archipelago that there occurs a cataclysm so terrible as that of 1883. When the first eruption of Krakatoa occurred on August 25, it seemed that it was a signal to the other volcanoes of Java and Sumatra. By midday Maha-Meru, the greatest, if not the most active of the Javanese volcanoes, was belching forth flame continuously. The eruption soon extended to the Gunung-Guntus and other volcanoes, until a third of the forty-five craters in Java were either in full blast, or beginning to show signs of eruption. While [Pg 362]these eruptions were going on, the sea was in a state of tremendous agitation. The clouds floating above the water were charged with electricity, and at one moment there were fifteen large water-spouts to be seen at the same time.
Men, women and children fled in terror from their crumbling habitations, and filled the air with their cries of distress. Hundreds of them who had not time to escape were buried beneath the ruins. On Sunday evening the violence of the shocks and of the volcanic eruptions increased, and the island of Java seemed likely to be entirely submerged. Enormous waves dashed against the shore, and in some cases forced their way inland, while enormous crevices opened in the ground, threatening to engulf at one fell swoop all the inhabitants and their houses.
Toward midnight there was a scene of horror passing the powers of imagination. A luminous cloud gathered above the chain of the Kandangs, which run along the southeastern coast of Java. This cloud increased in size each minute, until at last it came to form a sort of dome of a gray and blood-red color, which hung over the earth for a considerable distance. In proportion as this cloud grew, the eruptions gained fresh force, and the floods of lava poured down the mountain sides without ceasing, and spread into the valleys, where they swept all before them. On Monday morning, about two o’clock, the heavy cloud suddenly broke up, and finally disappeared, but when the sun rose it was found that a tract of country extending from Point Capucine to the south as far as Negery Passoerang, to the north and west, and covering an area of about fifty square miles, had entirely disappeared.
There stood the previous day the villages of Negery, and Negery Babawang. Not one of the inhabitants had escaped. They and their villages had been swallowed up by the sea.
CHAPTER XXX.
OUR GREAT HAWAIIAN AND ALASKAN VOLCANOES.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Greatest Volcanoes in the World Are Under the American Flag—Huge Craters in Our Pacific Islands—Native Worship of the Gods of the Flaming Mountains—Eruptions of the Past—Heroic Defiance of Pele, the Goddess of Volcanoes, by a Brave Hawaiian Queen—The Spell of Superstition Broken—Volcanic Peaks in Alaska, Our Northern Territory—Aleutian Islands Report Eruptions.
UNDER the American flag we are ourselves the possessors of some of the greatest active volcanoes in the world, and the greatest of all craters, the latter extinct indeed, for many years, but with a latent power that no one could conceive should it once more begin activity.
Hawaii, Paradise of the Pacific, raised by the fires of the very Inferno out of the depths of the ocean centuries ago, to become in recent years a smiling land of tropic beauty and an American island possession! Hawaii is the land of great volcanoes, sometimes slumbering and again pouring forth floods of molten fire to overwhelm the peaceful villages and arouse the superstitious fears of the natives.
Alaska, too, is a region of great volcanic ranges and eruptive activity, the Aleutian islands being raised from the bed of the Pacific by the same natural forces.
The Hawaiian islands occupy a central position in the North Pacific ocean, about 2,000 miles west of the California coast. The group includes eight inhabited islands, all of [Pg 364]volcanic origin, and they are, substantially, naught but solid aggregations of fused, basaltic rock shot up from the earth’s center, during outbursts of bye-gone ages, and cooled into mountains of stone here in the midst of the greatest body of water on the globe. In many localities, however, the accretions of centuries have so covered them with vegetable growths that their general appearance is not greatly different from that of other sections of the earth’s surface.
The largest of the group is Hawaii, and it includes nearly two-thirds of the total area. Here stand the highest mountains found on any island in the known world. Only a few peaks of the Alps are as high as Mauna Loa (Long mountain), which towers 13,675 feet above the level of the sea, and Mauna Kea (White mountain), the height of which is 13,805 feet. In east Maui stands Haleakala, with an elevation about equal to that of Mount Ætna. This extinct volcano enjoys the distinction of having the largest crater in the world, a monstrous pit, thirty miles in circumference and 2,000 feet deep. The vast, irregular floor contains more than a dozen subsidiary craters or great cones, some of them 750 feet high. At the Kaupo and Koolau gaps the lava is supposed to have burst through and made its way down the mountain sides. The cones are distinctly marked as one looks down upon them; and it is remarkable that from the summit the eye takes in the whole crater, and notes all its contents, diminished, of course, by their great distance. Not a tree, shrub, nor even a tuft of grass obstructs the view. The natives have no traditions of Haleakala in activity. There are signs of several lava flows, and one in particular is clearly much more recent than the others.
The greatest point of interest in the islands is the great crater of Kilauea. It is nine miles in circumference and perhaps a thousand feet deep. Nowhere else within the knowledge of mankind is there a living crater to be compared with it. Moreover, there is no crater which can be entered and explored with ease and comparative safety save Kilauea [Pg 365]alone. There have been a few narrow escapes, but no accidents, and it is needless to add that no description can give anyone an adequate idea of the incomparable splendor of the scene. It is, indeed, a “bottomless pit,” bounded on all sides by precipitous rocks. The entrance is effected by a series of steps, and below these by a scramble over lava and rock debris. The greater part of the crater is a mass of dead, though not cold, lava; and over this the journey is made to the farthest extremity of the pit, where it is necessary to ascend a tolerably steep hill of lava, which is the bank of the fiery lake. A step or two brings one close to the awful margin, and he looks down over smoking, frightful walls, three hundred feet or more, into a great boiling, bubbling, sizzling sea of fire.
The tendency of the current, if it may be so called, is centripetal, though at times it varies, flowing to one side; while along the borders of the pit, waves of slumbering lava, apparently as unmovable as those over which the traveler has just crossed, lie in wrinkled folds and masses, heaped against the shore. If one watches those waves closely, however, he will presently observe what appears like a fiery, red serpent coming up out of the lake and creeping through and under them, like a chain of brilliant flame, its form lengthening as it goes, until it has circumscribed a large share of the entire basin. Then it begins to spread and flatten, as though the body had burst asunder and was dissolving back again, along its whole trail, into the fierce flood of turbulent fury whence it came.
Soon the broad, thick mass of lava, thus surrounded, which seemed fixed and immovable, slowly drifts off from the shore to the center of the lake; reminding one of detached cakes of broken ice, such as are often seen in winter when the thaws come, or during spring freshets when the streams burst their encrusted chains. The force of this comparison is strengthened when those cakes reach the center, for there they go to pieces exactly after the manner of large pieces of ice, and turning upon their edges, disappear in the ravenous vortex [Pg 366]below, which is forever swallowing up all that approaches it, giving nothing back in return.
Two kinds of lava form on the face of the lake. One is stony, hard, and brittle; the other flexible and tough, similar to India-rubber. The flexible kind forms exclusively on one side of the basin and spreads over it like an immense, sombre blanket; and, as it floats down in slow procession to the central abyss, occasionally rises and falls with a flapping motion, by force of the generated gases underneath, like a sheet shaken in the wind.
Occasionally, the fire forces its way through this covering and launches huge, sputtering fountains of red-hot liquid lava high into the air, with a noise that resembles distant bombs exploding; and again, multitudes of smaller founts burst into blossom all over the lake, presenting a spectacle of wild beauty across its entire surface.
In Hawaiian mythology, Pele was the goddess of volcanoes, and she and her numerous family formed a class of deities by themselves. She with her six sisters, Hiiaka, her brother Kamohoalii, and others, were said to have emigrated from Kahiki (Samoa) in ancient times. They were said to have first lived at Moanalua in Oahu, then to have moved their residence to Kalaupapa, Molokai, then to Haleakala, and finally to have settled on Hawaii. Their headquarters were in the Halemaumau, in the crater of Kilauea, but they also caused the eruptions of Mauna Loa and Hualalai. In southern Hawaii Pele was feared more than any other deity, and no one dared to approach her abode without making her an offering of the ohelo-berries that grow in the neighborhood. Whenever an eruption took place, great quantities of hogs and other articles of property were thrown into the lava stream in order to appease her anger.
In 1824, Kapiolani, the daughter of a great chief of Hilo, having been converted to Christianity by the missionaries, determined to break the spell of the native belief in Pele. In [Pg 367]spite of the strenuous opposition of her friends and even of her husband, she made a journey of about 150 miles, mostly on foot, from Kealakekua to Hilo, visiting the great crater of Kilauea on her way, in order to defy the wrath of Pele, and to prove that no such being existed.
On approaching the volcano, she met the priestess of Pele, who warned her not to go near the crater and predicted her death if she violated the tabus of the goddess.
“Who are you?” demanded Kapiolani.
“One in whom the goddess dwells,” she replied.
In answer to a pretended letter of Pele, Kapiolani quoted passages from the Bible until the priestess was silenced. Kapiolani then went forward to the crater, where Mr. Goodrich, one of the missionaries, met her. A hut was built for her on the eastern brink of the crater, and here she passed the night.
The next morning she and her company of about eighty persons descended over 500 feet to the “Black Ledge.” There, in full view of the grand and terrific action of the inner crater, she ate the berries consecrated to Pele, and threw stones into the burning lake, saying: “Jehovah is my God. He kindled these fires. I fear not Pele. If I perish by her anger, then you may fear Pele; but if I trust in Jehovah, and he preserve me when breaking her tabus, then you must fear and serve him alone....”
It is needless to say that she was not harmed, and this act did much to destroy the superstitious dread in which the heathen goddess was held by the ignorant and credulous natives.
The history of Hawaiian volcanic eruptions tells no such tales of horror as regards the loss of life and property as may be read in the accounts of other great volcanoes of the globe. This, however, is simply because the region is less populated, and their tremendous manifestations of power have lacked material to destroy. There have been fatal catastrophes, and ruin has been wrought which seems slight only in comparison with the greater disasters of a similar nature.
[Pg 368]In 1855 an eruption of Mauna Loa occurred. The lava flowed toward Hilo, and for several months, spreading through the dense forests which belt the mountain, crept slowly shorewards, threatening this beautiful portion of Hawaii with the fate of the Cities of the Plain. For five months the inhabitants watched the inundation, which came a little nearer every day. Should they flee or not? Would their beautiful homes become a waste of jagged lava and black sand, like the neighboring district of Puna, once as fair as Hilo? Such questions suggested themselves as they nightly watched the nearing glare, till the fiery waves met with obstacles which piled them up in hillocks eight miles from Hilo, and the suspense was over.
Only gigantic causes can account for the gigantic phenomena of this lava-flow. The eruption traveled forty miles in a straight line, or sixty including sinuosities. It was from one to three miles broad, and from five to 200 feet deep, according to the contours of the mountain slopes over which it flowed. It lasted for thirteen months, pouring out a torrent of lava which covered nearly 300 square miles of land, and its volume was estimated at 38,000,000,000 cubic feet! In 1859 lava fountains 400 feet in height, and with a nearly equal diameter, played on the summit of Mauna Loa. This eruption ran fifty miles to the sea in eight days, but the flow lasted much longer, and added a new promontory to Hawaii.
On March 27, 1868, a series of earthquakes began and became more startling from day to day, until their succession became so rapid that the island quivered like the lid of a boiling pot nearly all the time between the heavier shocks. The trembling was like that of a ship struck by a heavy wave. Late in the afternoon of April 2, the climax came. The crust of the earth rose and sank like the sea in a storm. Rocks were rent, mountains fell, buildings and their contents were shattered, trees swayed like reeds, animals ran about demented; men thought the judgment had come. The earth [Pg 369]opened in thousands of places, the roads in Hilo cracked open; horses and their riders, and people afoot, were thrown violently to the ground. At Kilauea the shocks were as frequent as the ticking of a watch. In Kau, south of Hilo, 300 shocks were counted during the day. An avalanche of red earth, supposed to be lava, burst from the mountain side, throwing rocks high into the air, swallowing up houses, trees, men and animals, and traveling three miles in as many minutes, burying a hamlet with thirty-one inhabitants, and 500 head of cattle.
The people of the valleys fled to the mountains, which themselves were splitting in all directions, and collecting on an elevated spot, with the earth reeling under them, they spent a night of terror. Looking toward the shore, they saw it sink, and at the same moment a wave, whose height was estimated at from forty to sixty feet, hurled itself upon the coast and receded five times, destroying whole villages and engulfing forever forty-six people who had lingered too near the shore.
Still the earthquakes continued, and still the volcanoes gave no sign. People put their ears to the quivering ground and heard, or thought they heard, the surgings of the imprisoned lava sea rending its way among the ribs of the earth. Five days after the destructive earthquake of April 2, the ground south of Hilo burst open with a crash and a roar, which at once answered all questions concerning the volcano. The molten river, after traveling underground for twenty miles, emerged through a fissure two miles in length with a tremendous force and volume. Four huge fountains boiled up with terrific fury, throwing crimson lava and rocks weighing many tons from 500 to 1,000 feet.
Mr. Whitney, of Honolulu, who was near the spot, says: “From these great fountains to the sea flowed a rapid stream of red lava, rolling, rushing, and tumbling like a swollen river, bearing along in its current large rocks that made the lava foam as it dashed down the precipice and through the valley into the sea, surging and roaring throughout its length like a [Pg 370]cataract, with a power and fury perfectly indescribable. It was nothing else than a river of fire from 200 to 800 feet wide and twenty deep, with a speed varying from ten to twenty-five miles an hour. From the scene of these fire fountains, whose united length was about one mile, the river in its rush to the sea divided itself into four streams, between which it shut up men and beasts. Where it entered the sea it extended the coast-line half a mile, but this worthless accession to Hawaiian acreage was dearly purchased by the loss, for ages at least, of 4,000 acres of valuable agricultural land, and a much larger quantity of magnificent forest.”
The entire southeast shore of Hawaii sank from four to six feet, which involved the destruction of several hamlets and the beautiful fringe of cocoanut trees. Though the region was very thinly peopled, 100 lives were sacrificed in this week of horrors; and from the reeling mountains, the uplifted ocean, and the fiery inundation, the terrified survivors fled into Hilo, each with a tale of woe and loss. The number of shocks of earthquake counted was 2,000 in two weeks, an average of 140 a day; but on the other side of the island the number was incalculable.
Since that time there have been several eruptions of these great Hawaiian volcanoes, but none so destructive to life and property. Only two years ago the crater of Mauna Loa was in eruption for some weeks, and travelers journeyed to the vicinity from all over the world to see the grand display of Nature’s power in the fountains of lava and the blazing rivers flowing down the mountain side. The spectacle could be viewed perfectly at night from ships at sea, and from places of safety on shore.
Across the North Pacific, from Kamschatka to Alaska, is a continuous chain of craters in the Aleutian islands, forming almost a bridge over the ocean, and from Alaska down the western coasts of the two Americas is a string of the mightiest volcanoes in existence. Iceland is a seething caldron under [Pg 371]its eternal snows, and in a hundred places where some great, jagged cone of a volcano rises, seemingly dead and lifeless, only a fire-brand in the hand of nature may be needed to awaken it to a fury like that of which its vast lava beds, pinnacles, and craters are so eloquent.
The world’s record for the extent of an eruption probably belongs to the great volcano Skaptan Jokul, in Iceland. This eruption began on June 11, 1783, having been preceded by violent earthquakes. A torrent of lava welled up into the crater, overflowed it, and ran down the sides of the cone into the channel of the Skapta river, completely drying it up. The river had occupied a rocky gorge, from 400 to 600 feet deep, and averaging 200 feet wide. This gorge was filled, a deep lake was filled, and the rock, still at white heat, flowed on into subterranean caverns. Tremendous explosions followed, throwing boulders to enormous heights. A week after the first eruption another stream of lava followed the first, debouched over a precipice into the channel of another river, and finally, at the end of two years, the lava had spread over the plains below in great lakes twelve to fifteen miles wide and a hundred feet deep. Twenty villages were destroyed by fire, and out of 50,000 inhabitants nearly 9,000 perished, either from fire or from noxious vapors.
The Skapta river branch of this lava stream was fifty miles long and in places twelve to fifteen miles wide; the other stream was forty miles long, seven miles broad, and the range of depth in each stream was from 100 to 600 feet. Professor Bischoff has called this, in quantity, the greatest eruption of the world, the lava, piled, having been estimated as of greater volume than is Mont Blanc.
Regarding the volcanoes of the United States, Mount Shasta is one of the most interesting of them. It has an altitude of 14,350 feet, towering more than a mile above its nearest neighbor. Four thousand feet of its peak are above timber line, covered with glaciers, while the mountain’s base is seventeen [Pg 372]miles in diameter. Shasta is almost continually showing slight evidences of its internal fires. Another of the famous cones is that of Mount Hood, standing 11,225 feet, snow-capped, and regarded as an extinct volcano.
As to the volcanic records of the great West, they may be read in the chains of mountains that stretch from Alaska 10,000 miles to Tierra del Fuego. In the giant geysers and hot springs of the Yellowstone Park are evidences of existing fires in the United States; while as to the extent of seismic disturbances of the past, the famous lava beds of Dakota, in which Captain Jack, the Modoc chief, held out against government troops till starved into submission, are volcanic areas full of mute testimony regarding nature’s convulsions.
How soon, if ever, some of these volcanic areas of the United States may burst forth into fresh activity, no one can predict. If the slumbering giants should arouse themselves and shake off the rock fetters which bind their strength, the results might be terrible to contemplate. Those who dwell in the shadow of such peaks as are believed to be extinct, become indifferent to such a possible threat after many years of immunity, but such a disaster as that of St. Pierre arouses thought and directs scrutiny once more upon the ancient volcanic peaks of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas.
CHAPTER XXXI.
SOUTH AMERICAN CITIES DESTROYED.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Earthquakes Ravage the Coast Cities of Peru and the Neighboring Countries—Spanish Capitals in the New World Frequent Sufferers—Lima, Callao and Caracas Devastated—Tidal Waves Accompany the Earthquakes—Juan Fernandez Island Shaken—Fissures Engulf Men and Animals—Peculiar Effects Observed.
THE discovery of America, in 1492, brought a great accession to the number of recorded earthquakes, as South and Central America and the islands near them have furnished almost innumerable instances of the phenomena.
The first of the known earthquakes in the western hemisphere occurred in 1530, and the Gulf of Paria, with the adjacent coast of Cumana, in Venezuela, was the scene of the catastrophe. It was accompanied by a great sea-wave, the tide suddenly rising twenty-four feet, and then retiring. There were also opened in the earth several large fissures, which discharged black, fetid salt water and petroleum. A mountain near the neighboring Gulf of Caracas was split in twain, and has since remained in its cloven condition.
The coast of Peru was visited by an earthquake in the year 1586, and again in 1687. On the first occasion the shock was accompanied by a great sea-wave eighty-four feet high, which inundated the country for two leagues inland. There was still another dreadful convulsion on this coast in 1746, when the sea twice retreated and dashed in again with a tremendous wave about eighty feet high, overwhelming Lima and four other seaports. A portion of the coast sank down, [Pg 374]producing a new bay at Callao; and in several mountains in the neighborhood there were formed large fissures whence water and mud gushed forth. On May 24, 1751, the city of Concepcion, in Chili, was entirely swallowed up during an earthquake, and the sea rolled over its site. The ancient port was destroyed, and a new town was afterwards erected ten miles inland. The great sea-wave, which accompanied this earthquake, rolled in upon the shores of the island of Juan Fernandez, and overwhelmed a colony which had been recently established there. The coast near the ancient port of Concepcion was considerably raised on this occasion, and the high water mark now stands twenty-four feet below its former level.
The coast of Caracas and the adjacent island of Trinidad were violently convulsed in 1776, and the whole city of Cumana was reduced to ruins. The shocks were continued for upwards of a year, and were at first repeated almost hourly. There were frequent eruptions of sulphurous water from fissures in the ground, and an island in the Orinoco disappeared.
Rihamba must have stood, it would appear, almost immediately over the focus of the dreadful earthquake of February 4, 1797. This unfortunate city was situated in the district of Quito, not far from the base of the great volcano of Tunguragua. That mountain was probably the center of disturbance, and the shock was experienced with disastrous effects over a district of country extending about 120 miles from north to south and about sixty miles from east to west. Every town and village comprehended within this district was reduced to ruins. The shocks, however, were felt, though in a milder form, over a much larger area, extending upwards of 500 miles from north to south and more than 400 miles from east to west.
At Riobamba the shocks, which began at about eight o’clock in the morning, are said to have been vertical. Some faint idea may be formed of the extreme violence of this motion from the fact mentioned by Humboldt that the dead bodies of [Pg 375]some of the inhabitants who perished were tossed over a small river to the height of several hundred feet, and landed on an adjacent hill.
Vertical movements, so powerful and so long continued, could not fail to produce an enormous displacement of the ground, and to be very destructive to all buildings which it sustained. The soil was rent, and, as it were, torn asunder and twisted in an extraordinary manner. Several of the fissures opened and closed again; many persons were engulfed in them; but a few saved themselves by simply stretching out their arms, so that, when the fissure closed, the upper parts of their bodies were left above the ground, thus admitting of their being easily extricated. In some instances whole cavalcades of horsemen and troops of laden mules disappeared in those chasms; while some few escaped by throwing themselves back from the edge of the cleft.
The amount of simultaneous elevation and depression of the ground was in some cases as much as twelve feet; and several persons who were in the choir of one of the churches escaped by simply stepping on the pavement of the street, which was brought up to a level with the spot where they stood. Instances occurred of whole houses sinking bodily into the earth, till their roofs were fairly underground; but so little were the buildings thus engulfed injured, that their inhabitants were able still to live in them, and by the light of flambeaux to pass from room to room, the doors opening and shutting as easily as before. The people remained in them, subsisting on the provisions they had in store, for the space of two days, until they were extricated safe and sound. With the majority of the inhabitants, however, it fared otherwise. The loss of life in the city, and throughout the district most convulsed, was enormous, 40,000 persons altogether having perished.
Of Riobamba itself the ruin was complete. When Humboldt took a plan of the place after the catastrophe, he could [Pg 376]find nothing but heaps of stones eight or ten feet high; although the city had contained churches and convents, with many private houses several stories in height. The town of Quero was likewise entirely overthrown.
At Tacunga the ruin was nearly as thorough, not a building having been left standing save an arch in the great square, and part of a neighboring house. The churches of St. Augustin, St. Domingo, and La Merced were at the moment thronged with people hearing mass. Not one escaped alive. All were buried, along with the objects of their worship, under the ruins of their consecrated buildings. In several parts of the town and its neighborhood there were opened larger fissures in the ground, whence quantities of water poured forth. The village of St. Philip, near Tacunga, containing a school in which upwards of forty children were assembled at the time, disappeared bodily in a chasm. A great many other villages with their inhabitants were destroyed, by being either overthrown or engulfed.
Even at Quito, although so distant from the centre of the disturbance, a great deal of damage was done to the churches and other public buildings by the shock, several being wholly ruined. The private houses and other buildings of moderate height, however, were spared. The superstitious inhabitants of this fair city, having been greatly alarmed by an unwonted display of luminous meteors, had devoted the previous day to carrying in procession through their streets the graven images and relics of their saints, in the vain hope of appeasing divine wrath. They were doomed to learn by experience that these idols were powerless to protect even the consecrated edifices dedicated to their honor, and in which they were enshrined.
The Bay of Caracas was the scene of a dreadful earthquake in 1812. The city of Caracas was totally destroyed, and ten thousand of its inhabitants were buried beneath its ruins.
The shock was most severe in the northern part of the [Pg 377]town, nearest to the mountain of La Silla, which rises like a vast dome, with steep cliffs in the direction of the sea. The churches of the Trinity and Alta Gracia, the latter of which was more than one hundred and fifty feet high, and the nave of which was supported by pillars twelve or fifteen feet thick, were reduced to a mass of ruins not more than five or six feet high. The subsidence of the ruins was such that scarcely a vestige of pillar or column could be found. The barracks of San Carlos disappeared altogether, and a regiment of infantry, under arms to take part in a procession, was swallowed up with the exception of a few men.
Nine-tenths of the town was annihilated. The houses which had not collapsed were cracked to such an extent that their occupants did not dare to re-enter them. To the estimate of 10,000 victims caused by the earthquake, must be added the many who succumbed, weeks and months afterward, for want of food and relief. The night of Holy Thursday to Good Friday presented the most lamentable spectacle of desolation and woe which can well be conceived. The thick layer of dust, which, ascending from the ruins, obscured the air like mist, had again settled on the ground; the earthquake shocks had ceased, and the night was calm and clear. A nearly full moon lighted up the scene, and the aspect of the sky was in striking contrast with that of a land strewn with corpses and ruins.
Mothers might be seen running about with their children whom they were vainly trying to recall to life. Distracted families were searching for a brother, a husband, or some other relative, whose fate was unknown to them, but who, they hoped, might be discovered in the crowd. The injured lying half buried beneath the ruins were making piteous appeals for help, and over 2,000 were extricated. Never did human kindness reveal itself in a more touching and ingenious fashion than in the efforts made to relieve the sufferers whose cries were so heart-breaking to hear. There were no tools to clear [Pg 378]away the rubbish, and the work of relief had to be performed with the bare hands.
The injured and the sick who had escaped from the hospitals were carried to the banks of the river Guayra, where their only shelter was the foliage of the trees. The beds, the lint for binding up wounds, the surgical instruments, the medicines and all the objects of immediate necessity were buried beneath the ruins, and for the first few days there was a scarcity of everything, even of food. Water was also very scarce inside the town, as the shock had broken up the conduits of the fountains and the upheaval had blocked the springs that fed them. In order to get water it was necessary to descend to the river Guayra, which had risen to a great height, and there were very few vessels left to get it in.
It was necessary, also, to dispose of the dead with all dispatch, and in the impossibility of giving decent burial to so many thousand corpses, detachments of men were told off to burn them. Funeral pyres were erected between the heaps of ruins, and the ceremony lasted several days.
The fierce shocks which had in less than a minute occasioned such great disasters could not be expected to have confined their destructive effects to one narrow zone of the continent, and these extended to a great part of Venezuela, all along the coast and specially among the mountains inland. The towns of La Guayra, Mayquetia, Antimano, Baruta, La Vega, San Felipe, and Merida were entirely destroyed, the number of deaths exceeding 5,000 at La Guayra and San Felipe.
In November, 1822, the coast of Chile began to be violently convulsed by a succession of shocks, the first of which was of great severity. The heavings of the earth were quite perceptible to the eye. The sea rose and fell to a great extent in the harbor of Valparaiso, and the ships appeared as if they were first rapidly forced through the water, and then struck on the ground. The town of Valparaiso and several others were [Pg 379]completely overthrown. Sounds like those produced by the escape of steam accompanied this earthquake, and it was felt throughout a distance of 1,200 miles along the coast, a portion of which—extending to about 100 miles—was permanently raised to a height varying from two to four feet. At Quintero the elevation was four feet, and at Valparaiso three feet; but about a mile inland from the latter place the elevation was as much as six or seven feet; while the whole surface raised is estimated at nearly 100,000 square miles.
The year 1868 proved very disastrous in South America. On the 13th of August of that year a series of shocks commenced which were felt over a large extent of country, stretching from Ibarra on the northwestern border of Ecuador to Cabija on the coast of Bolivia, a distance of about 1,400 miles. The effects were most severe about the southern portion of the Peruvian coast, where the towns of Iquique, Arica, Tacna, Port Ilay, Arequipa, Pisco, and several others were destroyed, and in the northern parts of Ecuador, where the town of Ibarra was overthrown, burying nearly the whole of the inhabitants under its ruins. A small town in the same quarter, named Cotocachi, was engulfed, and its site is now occupied by a lake. The total loss of lives is estimated at upward of 20,000.
On May 15, 1875, earthquake shocks of a serious character were experienced over large areas of Chile. At Valparaiso the shock lasted for forty-two seconds, with a vertical motion, so that the ground danced under foot. Two churches and many buildings were damaged. Another earthquake occurred at Valparaiso, July 8, when there were six shocks in succession. The inhabitants took refuge in the streets, several people were killed, and much damage was done to property.
About the middle of May, 1875, a most disastrous earthquake visited New Granada, the region of its influence extending over an area 500 miles in width. It was first felt perceptibly at Bogota; thence it traveled north, gaining intensity [Pg 380]as it went, until it reached the southeast boundary line of Magdalena, where its work of destruction began. It traveled along the line of the Andes, destroying, in whole or in part, the cities of Cucuta, San Antonio, and Santiago, and causing the death of about 16,000 persons. On the evening of May 17, a strange rumbling sound was heard beneath the ground, but no shock was felt. This premonitory symptom was followed on the morning of the 18th by a terrific shock. “It suddenly shook down the walls of houses, tumbled down churches, and the principal buildings, burying the citizens in the ruins.” Another shock completed the work of destruction, and shocks at intervals occurred for two days. “To add to the horrors of the calamity, the Lobotera volcano, in front of Santiago, suddenly began to shoot out lava in immense quantities in the form of incandescent balls of fire, which poured into the city and set fire to many buildings.”
On the evening of April 12, 1878, a severe earthquake occurred in Venezuela which destroyed a considerable portion of the town of Cua. Immediately preceding the shock the sky was clear and the moon in perfect brightness. It lasted only two seconds, but in that time the center of the town, which was built on a slight elevation, was laid in ruins. The soil burst at several places, giving issue to water strongly impregnated with poisonous substances.
The Isthmus of Panama was the scene of a succession of earthquakes in September, 1882, which, although the loss of life was small, were exceedingly destructive to property. On the morning of September 7, the inhabitants of Panama were roused from their beds by the occurrence of one of the longest and most severe shocks ever experienced in that earthquake-vexed region. Preceded by a hollow rumbling noise, the first shock lasted nearly thirty seconds, during which it did great damage to buildings. It was severely felt on board ship, passengers declaring that the vessel seemed as if it were lifted bodily from the sea and then allowed to fall back.
[Pg 381]Its effects on the Panama railway were very marked. The stone abutments of several of the bridges were cracked, and the earthworks sank in half a dozen places. In other places the rails were curved as if they had been intentionally bent. Other shocks less severe followed the first, until at 11:30, another sharp shock alarmed the whole city, and drove the inhabitants at once from their houses into the squares. This earthquake was also severely felt at Colon, where it lasted for fully a minute, moving many buildings from their foundations, and creating intense alarm. A deep fissure, 400 yards in length, was opened in the earth.
To what extent this tendency to earthquake shocks threatens the proposed Panama Canal, it is difficult to say. Beyond question a great earthquake would do immense damage to such a channel and its lock gates, but the advocates of the Panama route argue with apparent truth that even so it has a great advantage over the Nicaragua route. In the latter, volcanoes are numerous, and eruptions not infrequent. Lake Nicaragua itself, through which the canal route passes, has in it several islands which are but volcanic peaks raised above the water, and the whole region is subject to disturbances from the interior of the earth.
CHAPTER XXXII.
EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES IN CENTRAL AMERICA AND MEXICO.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
A Region Frequently Disturbed by Subterranean Forces—Guatemala a Fated City—A Lake Eruption in Honduras Described by a Great Painter—City of San Jose Destroyed—Inhabitants Leave the Vicinity to Wander as Beggars—Disturbances on the Route of the Proposed Nicaraguan Canal—San Salvador is Shaken—Mexican Cities Suffer.
CENTRAL AMERICA is continually being disturbed by subterranean forces. Around the deep bays of this vast and splendid region, upon the shores laved by the waters of the Pacific, and also about the large inland lakes, rise, like an army of giants, a number of lofty volcanoes. Whilst most of them are wrapped in slumber which has lasted for centuries, others occasionally roar and groan as if in order to keep themselves awake, and to watch well over their sleeping companions. The fire which consumes their entrails extends far beneath the soil, and often causes it to tremble. Three times within thirty years the town of Guatemala has been destroyed by earthquakes, and there is not in all Guatemala, Honduras, or any other state of Central America a single coast which has not been visited by one or more violent subterranean shocks. When the earthquakes occur in remote regions, far from the habitations of men, in the midst of virgin forests, or in the vicinity of large lakes, they give rise to very singular phenomena.
In 1856, a painter, entrusted with an official mission in Honduras, witnessed an event of this kind, and though he sought [Pg 383]to conceal his identity, he was generally believed to be Herr Heine, the well-known painter and explorer of Central America. Upon the day in question he was sailing across a large lagoon named Criba, some twenty miles broad, the weather being calm, and the sun shining brilliantly. After having secured his boat to the shore, he had landed at the entrance to a beautiful little village commanding a view of the plain dotted with houses and with stately trees. Upon the opposite shore extended the forest, with the sea in the far distance. The chief inhabitant of the village having invited Herr Heine and his companions to come in and rest, the whole party were seated beneath the veranda of the house, engaged in pleasant conversation. Suddenly, a loud noise was heard in the forest. The birds flew off in terror; the cocoanut palms bent and writhed as if in panic, and large branches of them snapped off; shrubs were torn up from the ground and carried across the lake. All this was the effect of a whirlwind traveling through space from south to north.
The whole affair lasted only a few seconds, and calm was re-established in Nature as suddenly as it had been disturbed. Conversation, of course, then turned upon the phenomenon just witnessed, and the natives maintained that atmospheric disturbances of this kind are the forerunners of severe earthquakes or violent volcanic eruptions; some of them declaring that a disaster of this character had doubtless just occurred somewhere. The host, an elderly man much esteemed in the district for his knowledge, went on to describe many such catastrophes which he himself had witnessed. He spoke more particularly of the eruption of the volcano of Coseguina, in Nicaragua, which had been preceded by a fierce whirlwind, which had been so strong that it carried pieces of rock and ashes to a distance of nearly a mile. The captain of a large sailing vessel had told him that upon the following day, when more than 100 miles from the coast, he had found the sea covered with pumice-stone, and had experienced great difficulty in [Pg 384]threading a way for his vessel through these blocks of volcanic stone which were floating upon the surface like icebergs.
Everyone, including the European, had his story to tell, and while the party were still in conversation, a terrible noise like thunder was heard, and the earth began to quake. At first the shocks were felt to be rising upward, but after a few seconds they became transformed into undulations traveling northward, just as the sudden whirlwind had done. The soil undulated like the surface of a stormy sea, and the trees were rocked to and fro so violently that the topmost branches of the palms came in contact with the ground and snapped off. The traveler and his friends, believing themselves to be out of danger, were able to follow with ever-increasing interest the rapid phases of the disturbance, when a strange and alarming phenomenon attracted their notice.
“Our attention was called,” relates Herr Heine, “to a terrible commotion in the direction of the lagoon, but I cannot express what I then saw, I did not know if I was awake or a prey to a nightmare; whether I was in the world of reality or in the world of spirits.”
The water of the lagoon disappeared as if it were engulfed in a sort of a subterranean cavern, or rather, it turned over upon itself, so that from the shore to the center of the lake the bed was quite empty. But in a few moments the water reappeared, and mounting toward the center of the enormous basin, it formed an immense column, which, roaring and flecked with foam, reached so high that it intercepted the sunlight. Suddenly, the column of water collapsed with a noise as of thunder, and the foaming waves dashed toward the shore. Herr Heine and his companions would have perished if they had not been standing upon elevated ground, and, as it was, they could not restrain an exclamation of horror as they saw this mass of water, like solid rock, rolling along the plain, carrying trees, large stones, and whole fields before it.
“I saw all that without at first thinking of our own fate,” [Pg 385]recites Herr Heine, “and I think that the greatness of the peril which threatened the whole country made me indifferent as to the fate of myself and my companions. In any case, when I saw my familiar companion, Carib, nearly carried off, I remained indifferent, and it was only after two others of my followers, Manuel and Michel, had had very narrow escapes, that I succeeded in shaking off my apathy, and going to their assistance.”
When the travelers, whose boat had disappeared, started for the town of San Jose, whence they had come in the morning, they were able to judge for themselves as to the extent of the disaster. All the country which they had passed through had been laid waste. Large masses of rock had been detached from the mountains, and obstructed the course of streams which had overflown their banks or changed their course. Whole villages had been destroyed, and in all directions arose the lamentations of the unfortunate inhabitants. The region over which the waters of the lagoon had been carried was no longer to be identified as the same, covered as it was with debris of every kind, and with a thick layer of sand and rock.
When they started in the morning, the travelers had left San Jose prosperous and full of cheerful stir, but when they returned at night they found it in ruins and almost deserted. The earthquake had overthrown all the houses with the exception of about twenty, and these were very badly damaged.
All the buildings in solid masonry, including the massive church, were heaps of ruins; and most of the inhabitants had perished. The Indians who were prowling in the outskirts of the town took advantage of the catastrophe to carry off all they could from the houses which were still standing and from the ruins of the others. The agility with which these Indians move about among the ruins and escape the falling walls is something wonderful, and they never hesitate to risk their lives for a very trifle.
In Central America disasters of this kind invariably cause [Pg 386]many of the inhabitants to emigrate. Men, women, and children form themselves into groups, and travel through the country. They set the drama in which they have taken part to music, and they journey from one village to another, singing the rude verses they have composed, and then sending the hat around. After they have visited the whole of their own country, they cross into the neighboring state, where they are also assured of a profitable tour. Thus for more than a year Honduras and Nicaragua were visited by bands of homeless victims, chanting in monotone the eruption of Lake Criba and the terrible catastrophe of San Jose.
The western half of Nicaragua, including the basin in which lie Lakes Managua and Nicaragua, is a volcanic center, including some of the largest of the twenty-five active cones and craters of Central America. Stretching from northwest to southeast, the string of craters beginning with Coseguina and Viejo reaches well into the lake basin. At the northern end of Lake Managua stands Momotombo, while from the lake itself rises Momotombito. On the northwestern shore of Lake Nicaragua lies the volcano Mombocho, while between the two lakes is the volcano Masaya. Near the center of Lake Nicaragua are the two volcanoes of Madera and Omotepe.
Since 1835 there have been six eruptions in Nicaragua, one of them, in 1883, being an outbreak in the crater of Omotepe in Lake Nicaragua, the route of the proposed Nicaraguan canal. The Coseguina eruption, the uproar of which was heard more than 1,000 miles away, threw the headland upon which it stands 787 feet out into the sea, and rained ashes and pumice-stone over an area estimated at 1,200,000 square miles.
Like all Spanish towns in America, San Salvador, capital of the republic of that name, covers a large area in proportion to its population. The houses are low, none of them having more than one story, while the walls are very thick in order to be capable of resisting earthquakes. Inside each house of the better class is a courtyard, planted with trees, generally [Pg 387]having a fountain in the center. It was to these spacious courtyards that, in 1854, many of the inhabitants of San Salvador owed their lives, as they found in them a refuge from their falling houses. On the night of April 16, the city was reduced to a heap of ruins, only a single public building and very few private ones having been left standing. Nearly 5,000 of the inhabitants were buried in the ruins. There was a premonitory shock before the great one, and many took heed of its warning and escaped to places of safety, otherwise the loss of life would have been even more terrible.
Guatemala was visited with a series of almost daily tremors from the middle of April to the middle of June, 1870. The most severe shock was on the 12th of June and was sufficiently powerful to overthrow many buildings.
The republic of San Salvador was again visited by a great earthquake in October, 1878. Many towns, such as Incuapa, Guadeloupe, and Santiago de Marie, were almost totally destroyed, and many lives were lost. The shock causing the most damage had at first a kind of oscillatory movement lasting over forty seconds and ending in a general upheaval of the earth; the result being that solid walls, arches, and strongly braced roofs, were broken and severed like pipe-stems. In the vicinity of Incuapa a number of villages disappeared entirely.
The mountainous region of Mexico is highly volcanic, and earthquakes are of frequent occurrence. Very few of them, however, in the historic period, have occasioned great loss of either life or property. One of the most disastrous occurred in January, 1835, when the town of Acapulco was totally destroyed. In April, ten years later, the City of Mexico was much shaken. Considerable damage was done to buildings, especially to churches and other edifices of large size, several of which were reduced to ruins. The loss of life was limited to less than twenty. Probably the most serious convulsion the country has experienced was in 1858, when shocks were felt over almost all the republic, causing many deaths, and destroying [Pg 388]much property. Over 100 people lost their lives on May 11 and 12, 1870, when the city of Oaxaca was visited by a succession of severe shocks, which tore down many buildings. Since this time Mexico has been free from convulsions of any great magnitude, although slight earth tremors are of frequent occurrence in different parts of the country.
Mexican volcanoes, likewise, are famous for their size, though of late years no great eruptions have occurred. There are many isolated peaks, all of volcanic origin, of which Orizaba, with a height of 18,314 feet, and Popocatepetl, 17,300 feet, the most renowned, are both active. The latter has one crater 5,000 feet in diameter. From the summit the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico are both visible.
This crater has not erupted for many years, but in former times it threw its ashes a distance of sixty miles. One can descend into its depths fully 1,000 feet, and view its sulphur walls, hung with stalactites of ice, or see its columns of vapor spouting here and there through crevices that extend down into the interior of the earth. In the ancient Aztec and Toltec mythology of Mexico, this was the Hell of Masaya.
Nowadays great sulphur mines on the peak bring profit to the owners, and ice is quarried from the same vicinity to supply the neighboring city of Puebla.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHARLESTON, GALVESTON, JOHNSTOWN—OUR AMERICAN DISASTERS.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Earthquake Shock in South Carolina—Many Lives Lost in the Riven City—Flames Follow the Convulsion—Galveston Smitten by Tidal Wave and Hurricane—Thousands Die in Flood and Shattered Buildings—The Gulf Coast Desolated—Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Swept by Water from a Bursting Reservoir—Scenes of Horror—Earthquakes on the California Coast.
OUR own land has experienced very few great convulsions of nature. True, there have been frequent earthshocks in California, and all along the Western coast, and occasionally slight tremors have been felt in other sections, but the damage done to life and property has been in almost every instance comparatively light. The only really great disaster of this class that has been recorded in the United States since the white man first set his foot upon the soil, occurred in 1886, when the partial destruction of Charleston, South Carolina, was accomplished by earthquake and fire.
On the morning of August 28, a slight shock was felt throughout North and South Carolina, and in portions of Georgia. It was evidently a warning of the calamity to follow, but naturally was not so recognized, and no particular attention was paid to it. But on the night of August 31, at about ten o’clock, the city was rent asunder by a great shock which swept over it, carrying death and destruction in its path.
During the night there were ten distinct shocks, but they were only the subsiding of the earth-waves. The disaster was wrought by the first. Its force may be inferred from the fact [Pg 390]that the whole area of the country between the Atlantic coast and the Mississippi river, and as far to the north as Milwaukee, felt its power to a greater or lesser degree.
Charleston, however, was the special victim of this elemental destruction. The city was in ruins, two-thirds of its houses were uninhabitable. Railroads and telegraph lines were torn up and destroyed. Fires burst forth in different sections of the city, adding to the horror of the panic-stricken people. Forty lives were lost, over 100 seriously wounded were reported, and property valued at nearly $5,000,000 was destroyed.
A writer in the Charleston News and Courier gave a vivid account of the catastrophe. Extracts from his story follow:
“It is not given to many men to look in the face of the destroyer and yet live; but it is little to say that the group of strong men who shared the experiences of that awful night will carry with them the recollection of it to their dying day. None expected to escape. A sudden rush was simultaneously made for the open air, but before the door was reached all reeled together to the tottering wall and stopped, feeling that hope was vain; that it was only a question of death within the building or without, to be buried by the sinking roof or crushed by the toppling walls. Then the uproar slowly died away in seeming distance.
“The earth was still, and O, the blessed relief of that stillness! But how rudely the silence was broken! As we dashed down the stairway and out into the street, already on every side arose the shrieks, the cries of pain and fear, the prayers and wailings of terrified women and children, commingling with the hoarse shouts of excited men. Out in the street the air was filled with a whitish cloud of dry, stifling dust, through which the gaslights flickered dimly. On every side were hurrying forms of men and women, bareheaded, partly dressed, many of whom were crazed with fear and excitement. Here a woman is supported, half fainting, in the arms of her [Pg 391]husband, who vainly tries to soothe her while he carries her to the open space at the street corner, where present safety seems assured; there a woman lies on the pavement with upturned face and outstretched limbs, and the crowd passes her by, not pausing to see whether she be alive or dead.
“A sudden light flares through a window overlooking the street, it becomes momentarily brighter, and the cry of fire resounds from the multitude. A rush is made toward the spot. A man is seen through the flames trying to escape. But at this moment, somewhere—out at sea, overhead, deep in the ground—is heard again the low, ominous roll which is already too well known to be mistaken. It grows louder and nearer, like the growl of a wild beast swiftly approaching his prey. All is forgotten in the frenzied rush for the open space, where alone there is hope of security, faint though it be.
“The tall buildings on either hand blot out the skies and stars and seem to overhang every foot of ground between them; their shattered cornices and coping, the tops of their frowning walls, appear piled from both sides to the center of the street. It seems that a touch would now send the shattered masses left standing, down upon the people below, who look up to them and shrink together as the tremor of the earthquake again passes under them, and the mysterious reverberations swell and roll along, like some infernal drumbeat summoning them to die. It passes away, and again is experienced the blessed feeling of deliverance from impending calamity, which it may well be believed evokes a mute but earnest offering of mingled prayer and thanksgiving from every heart in the throng.”
One of the most awful tragedies of modern times visited Galveston, Texas, on Saturday, September 8, 1900. A tempest, so terrible that no words can adequately describe its intensity, and a flood which swept over the city like a raging sea, left death and ruin behind it. Sixty-seven blocks in a thickly populated section of the city were devastated, and not [Pg 392]a house withstood the storm. The few that might have held together if dependent upon their own construction and foundations, were buried beneath the stream of buildings and wreckage that rushed west from the Gulf of Mexico, demolishing hundreds of homes and carrying the unfortunate inmates to their death.
A terrific wind, which attained a velocity of from 100 to 120 miles an hour, blew the debris inland and piled it in a hill ranging from ten to twenty feet high. Beneath this long ridge many hundred men, women, and children were buried, and cattle, horses and dogs, and other animals, were piled together in one confused mass.
The principal work of destruction was completed in six short hours, beginning at three o’clock in the afternoon and ending at nine o’clock the same night. In that brief time the accumulations of many a life time were swept away, thousands of lives went out, and the dismal Sunday morning following the catastrophe found a stricken population paralyzed and helpless.
Every hour the situation changed for the worse, and the mind became dazed midst the gruesome scenes. The bodies of human beings, the carcasses of animals, were strewn on every hand. The bay was filled with them. Like jelly-fish, the corpses were swept with the changing tide. Here a face protruded above the water; there the foot of a child; here the long, silken tresses of a young girl; there a tiny hand, and just beneath the glassy surface of the water full outlines of bodies might be seen. Such scenes drove men and women to desperation and insanity. A number sought freedom in the death which they fought so stoutly. A young girl, who survived to find mother, father and sisters dead, crept far out on the wreckage and threw herself into the bay.
During the storm and afterward a great deal of looting was done. Many stores had been closed, their owners leaving to look after their families. The wind forced in the windows, [Pg 393]and left the goods prey for the marauders. Ghouls stripped the dead bodies of jewelry and articles of value. Captain Rafferty, commanding the United States troops in the city, was asked for aid, and he sent seventy men, the remnant of a battery of artillery, to do police duty. Three regiments were sent from Houston and the city was placed under martial law. Hundreds of desperate men roamed the streets, crazed with liquor, which many had drunk because nothing else could be obtained with which to quench their thirst. Numberless bottles and boxes of intoxicating beverages were scattered about and easy to obtain.
Robbery and rioting continued during the night, and as the town was in darkness, the effort of the authorities to control the lawless element was not entirely successful. Big bonfires were built at various places from heaps of rubbish to enable troops the better to see where watchfulness was needed. Reports said that more than 100 looters and vandals were slain in the city and along the island beach.
The most rigid enforcement of martial law was not able to suppress robbery entirely. Thirty-three negroes, with effects taken from dead bodies, were tried by court-martial. They were convicted and ordered to be shot. One negro had twenty-three human fingers with rings on them in his pocket.
An eye-witness of the awful horror said: “I was going to take the train at midnight, and was at the station when the worst of the storm came up. There were 150 people in the depot, and we all remained there for nine hours. The back part of the building blew in Sunday morning and I returned to the Tremont house. The streets were literally filled with dead and dying people. The Sisters’ Orphan Hospital was a terrible scene. I saw there over ninety dead children and eleven dead Sisters. We took the steamer Allen Charlotte across the bay, up Buffalo bay, over to Houston in the morning, and I saw fully fifty dead bodies floating in the water. I saw one dray with sixty-four dead bodies being drawn by four [Pg 394]horses to the wharves, where the bodies were unloaded on a tug and taken out in the gulf for burial.”
Mr. Wortham, ex-secretary of state, after an inspection of the scene, made this statement: “The situation at Galveston beggars description. Fully seventy-five per cent. of the business portion of the town is wrecked, and the same percentage of damage is to be found in the residence district. Along the wharf front great ocean steamers have bodily dumped themselves on the big piers, and lie there, great masses of iron and wood that even fire cannot totally destroy. The great warehouses along the water front are smashed in on one side, unroofed and gutted throughout their length; their contents either piled in heaps or along the streets. Small tugs and sailboats have jammed themselves into buildings, where they were landed by the incoming waves and left by the receding waters.
“Houses are packed and jammed in great confusing masses in all the streets. Great piles of human bodies, dead animals, rotting vegetation, household furniture, and fragments of the houses themselves, are piled in confused heaps right in the main streets of the city. Along the Gulf front human bodies are floating around like cordwood.”
As time passed on the terrible truth was pressed home on the minds of the people that the mortality by the storm had possibly reached 8,000, or nearly one-fourth of the entire population. The exact number will never be known, and no list of the dead could be accurately made out, for the terrible waters carried to sea and washed on distant and lonely shores many of the bodies. The unknown dead of the Galveston horror will forever far surpass the number of those who are known to have perished in that awful night, when the tempest raged and the storm was on the sea, piling the waters to unprecedented heights on Galveston island.
One of the great catastrophes of the century in the United States was the flood that devastated the Conemaugh valley in [Pg 395]Pennsylvania, on May 31, 1889. Though the amount of property destroyed was over $10,000,000 worth, this was the slightest element of loss. That which makes the Johnstown flood so exceptional is the terrible fact that it swept away half as many lives as did the battle of Gettysburg, one of the bloodiest of the Civil War, and transformed a rich and prosperous valley for more than twenty miles into a vast charnel-house.
Johnstown is located on the Pennsylvania Railroad, seventy-eight miles southeast of Pittsburg, and was at the time mentioned a city of about 28,000 inhabitants. It was the most important of the chain of boroughs annihilated; and as such has given the popular title by which the disaster is known. The Conemaugh valley has long been famous for the beauty of its scenery. Lying on the lower western slope of the Alleghany mountains, the valley, enclosed between lofty hills, resembles in a general way an open curved hook, running from South Fork, where the inundation first made itself felt, in a southwesterly direction to Johnstown, and thence sixteen miles northwest to New Florence, where the more terrible effects of the flood ended, though its devastation did not entirely cease at that point.
A lateral valley extends about six miles from South Fork in a southeasterly direction, at the head of which was located the Conemaugh Lake reservoir, owned and used as a summer resort by the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club of Pittsburg. In altitude this lake was about 275 feet above the Johnstown level, and it was about two and one-half miles long and one and one-half miles in its greatest width. In many places it was 100 feet deep, and it held a larger volume of water than any other reservoir in the United States. The dam that restrained the waters was nearly 1,000 feet in length, 110 feet in height, ninety feet thick at the base, and twenty-five feet wide at the top, which was used as a driveway. For ten years or more this dam was believed to be a standing menace to the Conemaugh valley in times of freshet, though [Pg 396]fully equal to all ordinary emergencies. With a dam which was admitted to be structurally weak and with insufficient means of discharging a surplus volume, it was feared that it was only a matter of time before such a reservoir, situated in a region notorious for its freshets, would yield to the enormous pressure and send down its resistless waters like an avalanche to devastate the valley.
This is precisely what it did do. A break came at three o’clock in the afternoon of May 31, caused by protracted rains, which raised the level of the lake. Men were at once put to work to open a sluice-way to ease the pressure, but all attempts were in vain. Two hours before the break came, the threatened danger had been reported in Johnstown, but little attention was paid to it, on the ground that similar alarms had previously proved ill-founded. There is no question that ample warning was given and that all the people in the valley could have escaped had they acted promptly.
When the center of the dam yielded at three o’clock, it did so in a break of 300 feet wide. Trees and rocks were hurled high in the air, and the vast, boiling flood rushed down the ravine like an arrow from a bow. It took one hour to empty the reservoir. In less than five minutes the flood reached South Fork, and thence, changing the direction of its rush, swept through the valley of the Conemaugh. With the procession of the deluge, trees, logs, debris of buildings, rocks, railroad iron, and the indescribable mass of drift were more and more compacted for battering power; and what the advance bore of the flood spared, the mass in the rear, made up of countless battering rams, destroyed.
The distance from Conemaugh lake to Johnstown, something over, eighteen miles, was traversed in about seven minutes; and here the loss of life and the damage to property was simply appalling. Survivors who passed through the experience safely declare its horrors to have been far beyond the power of words to narrate. After the most thorough possible
CHAPTER XXXIV.
ST. PIERRE, MARTINIQUE, ANNIHILATED BY A VOLCANO.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Fifty Thousand Men, Women and Children Slain in an Instant—The Island Capital Obliterated—Molten Fire and Suffocating Gases Rob Multitudes of Life—Death Reigns in the Streets of the Stricken City—The Governor and Foreign Consuls Die at their Posts of Duty—Burst of Flame from Mount Pelee Completes the Ruin—No Escape for the Hapless Residents in the Fated Town—Scenes of Suffering Described—St. Pierre the Pompeii of Today—Desolation over All—Few Left to Tell the Tale of the Morning of Disaster.
BEHOLD a peaceful city in the Caribbean sea, beautiful with the luxuriant vegetation of a tropic isle, happy as the carefree dwellers in such a spot may well be, at ease with the comforts of climate and the natural products which make severe labor unnecessary in these sea-girt colonies. Rising from the water front to the hillsides that lead back toward the slopes of Mount Pelee, St. Pierre, metropolis of the French island of Martinique, sits in picturesque languor, the blue waves of the Caribbean murmuring on the beaches, the verdure-clad ridges of the mountain range forming a background of greenery for the charming picture. Palms shade the narrow, clean, white, paved streets; trade goes on at the wharves; the people visit in social gaiety, dressed in white or bright-colored garments, as is the fashion in these islands, where somberness seldom rules; all the forms of life are cheerful, light-hearted, even thoughtless.
[Pg 398]Suddenly a thrall of black despair is cast over the happy island. The city of pleasure becomes one great tomb. Of its 30,000 men, women and children, all but a few are slain. The Angel of Death has spread his pall over them, a fiery breath has smitten them, and they have fallen as dry stubble before the sweep of flame. A city is dead. An island is desolate. A world is grief-stricken.
And what was the awful power of evil that robbed of life 50,000 in city and neighboring villages almost in a moment? It was this verdure-clad Mount Pelee, their familiar sentinel, in the shade of whose sheltering palms they had built their summer resorts or found their innocent pleasures. It was this shadowing summit, now suddenly become a fiery vent through which earth’s artilleries blazed forth their terrible volleys of molten projectiles, lava masses, huge drifts of ashes, and clouds of flaming, noxious, gaseous emanations to suffocate every living thing. Nothing could withstand such a bombardment from the exhaustless magazines within the vast chambers of the planet, no longer kindly Mother Earth, benign in the beauty of May-time, but cruel, relentless, merciless alike to all.
St. Pierre and the island of Martinique are no strangers to destructive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. In August, 1767, an earthquake killed 1,600 persons in St. Pierre. In 1851 Mount Pelee threatened the city with destruction. St. Pierre was practically destroyed once before, in August, 1891, by the great hurricane which swept over the islands. The harbor of St. Pierre has been a famous one for centuries. It was off this harbor on April 12, 1782, that Admiral Rodney’s fleet defeated the French squadron under the Comte de Grasse and wrested the West Indies from France.
St. Pierre was the largest town and the commercial center of the island. It was the largest town in the French West Indies, and was well built and prosperous. It had a population of about 30,000. It was divided into two parts, known as the upper and lower towns. The lower town was compact with [Pg 399]narrow streets, and unhealthy. The upper town was cleaner, healthier, and handsomely laid out. There was in the upper town a botanical garden and an old Catholic college, as well as a fine hospital.
Mount Pelee, the largest of the group of volcanic mountains, is about 4,400 feet high. It had long been inactive as a volcano, although in August, 1851, it had a violent eruption. It is in the northwestern end of the island, and near the foot of its western slope, fronting the bay, St. Pierre was built.
The Consuls resident at St. Pierre were: For the United States, T. T. Prentis; Great Britain, J. Japp; Denmark, M. E. S. Meyer; Italy, P. Plissonneau; Mexico, E. Dupie; Sweden and Norway, Gustave Borde. There were four banks in the city—the Banque de la Martinique, Banque Transatlantique, Colonial Bank of London, and the Credit Foncier Colonial. There were sixteen commission merchants, twelve dry-goods stores, twenty-two provision dealers, twenty-six rum manufacturers, eleven colonial produce merchants, four brokers, and two hardware dealers.
The whole area of the island, near 400 square miles, is mountainous. Besides Mount Pelee, there are, further south and about midway of the oval, the three crests of Courbet, and all along the great ridge are the black and ragged cones of old volcanoes. In the section south of the deep bay there are two less elevated and more irregular ridges, one running southeast and terminating in the Piton Vauclin, and the other extending westward and presenting to view on the coast Mounts Caraibe and Constant.
The mountainous interior is torn and gashed with ancient earthquake upheavals, and there are perpendicular cliffs, deep clefts and gorges, black holes filled with water, and swift torrents dashing over precipices and falling into caverns—in a word, all the fantastic savagery of volcanic scenery, but the whole covered with the rich verdure of the tropics.
The total population of the island was reckoned at 175,000, [Pg 400]of whom 10,000 were whites, 15,000 of Asiatic origin, and 150,000 blacks of all shades from ebony to light octoroon.
Martinique has two interesting claims to distinction in that the Empress Josephine was born there and that Mme. de Maintenon passed her girlhood on the island as Francoise d’Aubigne. At Fort de France there is a marble statue of the Empress Josephine.
It was just before eight o’clock on the morning of Thursday, May 8, 1902, that the lava and gases of the crater of Mount Pelee burst their bounds and bore destruction to the fated city. Within thirty seconds perhaps 50,000 persons were killed, and the streets of St. Pierre were heaped with dead bodies, soon to be incinerated or buried in the ashes that fell from the fountain of flame. Within ten minutes the city itself had disappeared in a whirling flame vomited from the mountain, though for some hours the inflammable portions of the buildings continued to burn, until all was consumed that could be. The volcano whose ancient crater for more than fifty years had been occupied by a quiet lake in which picnic parties bathed, discharged a torrent of fiery mud, which rolled toward the sea, engulfing everything before it. The city was no more.
St. Pierre was destroyed, not by lava streams and not by showers of red-hot rocks, but by one all-consuming blast of suffocating, poisonous, burning gases. Death came to the inhabitants instantly. It was not a matter of hours or minutes. It was a matter of seconds. They did not burn to death. They died by breathing flame and their bodies were burned afterward. It is not merely true that no person inside the limits of the town escaped, but it is probably a literal fact that no person lived long enough to take two steps toward escape. These facts will go on record as the most astounding in the history of human catastrophes.
The manner of the annihilation of St. Pierre is unique in the history of the world. Pompeii was not a parallel, for Pompeii was eaten up by demoniac rivers of lava, and lava [Pg 401]became its tomb. But where St. Pierre once stood there is not even a lava bed now. The city is gone from the earth.
The half-dead victims who escaped on the Roddam or were brought away by the Suchet, talked of a “hurricane of flame” that had come upon them. That phrase was no figure of speech, but a literal statement of what happened.
When the first rescue parties reached the scene they found bodies lying in the streets of the city—or rather on the ground where streets once were, for in many places it was impossible to trace the line between streets and building sites—to which death came so suddenly that the smiles on the faces did not have time to change to the lines of agony.
That does not mean death by burning, though the bodies had been charred and half-consumed, nor does it mean suffocation, for suffocation is slow. It can mean only that the bath of burning fumes into which the city was plunged affected the victims like a terribly virulent poison when the first whiff of the gases entered their lungs.
There were many of the victims who died with their hands to their mouths. That one motion of the arm was probably the only one that they made before they became unconscious. Others fell to their faces and died with their lips pressed into the earth. There was no time to run, perhaps no time even to cry out, no time to breathe a prayer. It was as if St. Pierre had been just dipped into an immense white-hot furnace and then set out to cool. Mount Pelee went sputtering on, but that made no longer any difference. In the city all life was destroyed.
Every combustible thing was burned. Animal bodies, full of moisture, glowed awhile and then remained charred wrecks. Wood and other easily combustible things burned to ashes. On the ground lay the bodies, amidst heaps of hot mud, heaps of gleaming ashes and piles of volcanic stones. That was all.
That St. Pierre and the strip of coast to the north and south of it were burned in an instant was probably due to the first [Pg 402]break in the mountain coming on its western side and immediately above them, though the direction of the wind may have had a little to do with it. In this way one can understand how the mountain resort of Morne Rouge, where about 600 people were staying, escaped annihilation. Rocks and dust and boiling mud fell upon it, no doubt harming it, but they did not destroy it, for it was out of the pathway of the first awful blast.
For days after this most awful of blasts, beginning indeed immediately after the first explosion, Mount Pelee continued sending down lava streams in many directions. They filled the ravines and followed river courses and made their way to the sea. They did great destruction, but most of the inhabitants in their course had some chance at least to escape.
From Le Precheur around the northern end of the island, to Grande Riviere, Macouba, and Grande Anse, directly across the island from St. Pierre, the lava was flowing. Great crevasses opened from time to time in the hills. The earth undulated like waves. Rivers were thrown out of their courses by the change in land levels. In some places they submerged the land and formed lakes. In other places they were licked up by the lava that flowed on them and turned them to steam.
Constant rumblings, thunder and lightning storms made the surroundings so terrible that many persons actually died of fright.
The West Indian newspapers printed just before the day of the great eruption, and received in foreign countries after the catastrophe, serve to give a graphic picture of the situation in St. Pierre as it was before the outer world knew of the threat of danger. To them, and the letters written and mailed to foreign correspondents before the fatal day, we owe the clear idea of what was going on.
The Voice of St. Lucia, printed at Castries, had this story on May 8 of the days preceding the destruction of St. Pierre:
“Mount Pelee began to show signs of uneasiness in the last days of April. On the 3d inst. it began to throw out dense [Pg 403]volumes of smoke, and at midnight belched out flames, accompanied by rumbling noises. Flames were again visible at half-past five o’clock the next morning, and similar noises were audible. At the foot of Mount Pelee are the villages of Precheurs and Ste. Philomene. The inhabitants were thrown into great consternation by the sights and sounds, and especially by the darkening of the day by volumes of thick smoke and clouds of ashes, which were falling. There was an exodus from all over the district.
“St. Pierre was on the morning of May 3 covered with a layer of ashes about a quarter of an inch thick, and appeared as if enveloped in a fog. The mountain was wrapped in the smoke which issued from it. The greatest anxiety prevailed, and all business was suspended.
“A very anxious morning was passed on the island May 4. Thanks, however, to a sea breeze, the situation appeared better at eleven o’clock, but as the breeze died away at sunset, ashes again began to fall, and the mountain and its environs presented a most dismal spectacle, causing much alarm as to what the night would bring forth. Nothing happened, however, and on Monday morning May 5, although everything was not quite serene, the aspect was decidedly encouraging. Less excitement was visible.
“At about nine o’clock on the morning of the 6th a private telegram came from Martinique, stating that the Plissonneau family had chartered the steamer Topaze, one of the boats of the Compagnie Girard, and had started for St. Lucia. At about eleven o’clock the Topaze arrived with Mrs. Plissonneau, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Plissonneau and three children, Mrs. Pierre Plissonneau and child, and others.
“They report that at noon on Monday a stream of burning lava suddenly rushed down the southwestern slope of the mountain, and, following the course of the Riviere Blanche, the bed of which is dry at this season of the year, overwhelmed everything which obstructed its rush to the sea. Estates and [Pg 404]buildings were covered up by the fiery wave, which appeared to rise to a height of some twenty feet over an area of nearly a quarter of a mile. When the torrent had poured itself into the sea, it was found that the Guerin sugar factory, on the beach, five miles from the mountain and two from St. Pierre, was imbedded in lava. The burning mass of liquid had taken only three minutes from the time it was first perceived to reach the sea, five miles away.
“Then a remarkable phenomenon occurred. The sea receded all along the western coast for about a hundred yards and returned with gentle strength, covering the whole of the sea front of St. Pierre and reaching the first houses on the Place Bertin. This created a general panic, and the people made for the hills. Though the sea retired again, without great damage being done ashore or afloat, the panic continued, intensified by terrible detonations, which broke from the mountain at short intervals, accompanied with dense emissions of smoke and lurid flashes of flame.
“This was awful in daylight, but, when darkness fell, it was more terrible still, and, at each manifestation of the volcano’s anger, people, in their nightclothes, carrying children, and lighted by any sort of lamp or candle they had caught up in their haste, ran out into the dark streets, wailing and screaming, and running aimlessly about the town.
“The mental strain becoming unendurable, the Topaze was got ready, and the refugees hurriedly went on board and started for St. Lucia. In the afternoon the gentlemen of the party, having placed their families in safety, returned by the Topaze to Martinique.
“In the meantime, telegrams were being sent from Martinique, imploring that a steamer be chartered to bring away terrified people from St. Pierre. But the superintendent of the Royal Mail company, at Barbados, would not allow one of the coasting boats, the only steamer available, to go to Martinique. [Pg 405]At a little before five o’clock in the afternoon cable communication was interrupted and remains so.”
Martinique mails, forwarded just prior to the disaster, arrived in Paris on May 18. The newspapers printed a number of private letters from St. Pierre, giving many details of events immediately preceding the catastrophe. The most interesting of these was a letter from a young lady, who was among the victims, dated May 3. After describing the aspect of St. Pierre before dawn, the town being lit up with flames from the volcano, everything covered with ashes, and the people excited, yet not panic-stricken, she said:
“My calmness astonished me. I am awaiting the event tranquilly. My only suffering is from the dust which penetrates everywhere, even through closed windows and doors. We are all calm. Mama is not a bit anxious. Edith alone is frightened. If death awaits us there will be a numerous company to leave the world. Will it be by fire or asphyxia? It will be what God wills. You will have our last thought. Tell brother Robert that we are still alive. This will, perhaps, be no longer true when this letter reaches you.”
The Edith mentioned was a lady visitor who was among the rescued. This and other letters inclosed samples of the ashes which fell over the doomed town. The ashes were a bluish-gray, impalpable powder, resembling newly ground flour and slightly smelling of sulphur.
Another letter, written during the afternoon of May 3, says:
“The population of the neighborhood of the mountain is flocking to the city. Business is suspended, the inhabitants are panic-stricken and the firemen are sprinkling the streets and roofs, to settle the ashes, which are filling the air.”
The letters indicate that evidences of the impending disaster were numerous five days before it occurred.
Still another letter says:
“St. Pierre presents an aspect unknown to the natives. It is a city sprinkled with gray snow, a winter scene without cold. [Pg 406]The inhabitants of the neighborhood are abandoning their houses, villas and cottages, and are flocking to the city. It is a curious pell-mell of women, children and barefooted peasants, big, black fellows loaded with household goods. The air is oppressing; your nose burns. Are we going to die asphyxiated? What has to-morrow in store for us? A flow of lava, rain or stones or a cataclysm from the sea? Who can tell? Will give you my last thought if I must die.”
A St. Pierre paper of May 3 announces that an excursion arranged for the next day to Mount Pelee had been postponed, as the crater was inaccessible, adding that notice would be issued when the excursion would take place.
An inhabitant of Morne Rouge, a town of 600 inhabitants, seven kilometers from St. Pierre, who was watching the volcano at the moment of the catastrophe, said that there were seven luminous points on the volcano’s side just before it burst.
He said that all about him when the explosion came, there was a terrible suction of air which seemed to be dragging him irresistibly toward the mountain in spite of all his resistance. The volcano then emitted a sheet of flame which swept down toward St. Pierre. There was no sharp, distinct roar of explosion as when a great cannon is fired, but only awful jarring rumblings.
He thought that the entire outburst that did all the work of havoc did not last more than thirty seconds. Then there was complete darkness for ten minutes, caused by the dense volumes of sulphurous smoke and clouds of dust and shattered rocks. The entire country all about St. Pierre was turned into a chaotic waste. All the trees were either torn up by the roots or snapped off, to lie level with the ground.
The outlines of the town but imperfectly remained. The tangle of debris was such that after the rescuers came, it was with difficulty that the course of streets could be followed.
In spite of the horrible surroundings, and the universal wave of human sympathy which had been evoked, looting [Pg 407]began almost as soon as relief. As soon as it was possible to land, ghouls began to rob the bodies of the victims. The monsters plied their nefarious trade in small boats. Skimming along the shore they would watch for an opening when troops and rescue parties were elsewhere, then land, grab what they could, and sail away again.
The United States government tug Potomac, while on her way to Fort de France with supplies from San Juan, Porto Rico, overhauled a small boat containing five negroes and a white man. Something in the appearance of the men excited the suspicions of the commander of the Potomac, Lieutenant McCormick, and he ordered them to come on board. When they were searched, their pockets were found to be filled with coin and jewelry. Rings in their possession had evidently been stripped from the fingers of the dead. Lieutenant McCormick placed them all under arrest, and later turned them over to the commander of the French cruiser Suchet for punishment.
Thus it was that no detail of grewsome horror was lacking to make the shocking tale of the destruction of St. Pierre complete.
The hour of the disaster is placed at about eight o’clock. A clerk in Fort de France called up another by telephone in St. Pierre and was talking with him at 7:55 by Fort de France time, when he heard a sudden, awful shriek, and then could hear no more.
“The little that actually happened then can be briefly, very briefly told,” says W. S. Merriwether, the New York Herald correspondent. “It is known that at one minute there lay a city smiling in the summer morning; that in another it was a mass of swirling flames, with every soul of its 30,000 writhing in the throes of death. One moment and church bells were ringing joyful chimes in the ears of St. Pierre’s 30,000 people—the next the flame-clogged bells were sobbing a requiem for 30,000 dead. One waft of morning breeze flowed over cathedral [Pg 408]spires and domes, over facades and arches and roofs and angles of a populous and light-hearted city—the next swept a lone mass of white hot ruins. The sun glistened one moment on sparkling fountains, green parks and fronded palms—its next ray shone on fusing metal, blistered, flame-wrecked squares and charred stumps of trees. One day and the city was all light and color, all gayety and grace—the next its ruins looked as though they had been crusted over with twenty centuries of solitude and silence.”
St. Pierre was a vast charnel-house. Skirting for nearly a league the blue waters of the Caribbean, its smoking ruins became the funeral pyre of 30,000, not one of whom lived long enough to tell adequately a story that will stand grim, awful, unforgotten as that of Herculaneum, when the world is older by a thousand years.
St. Pierre was as dead as Pompeii. Most of her people lay fathoms deep in a tomb made in the twinkling of an eye by the collapse of their homes, and sealed forever under tons of boiling mud, avalanches of scoria and a hurricane of volcanic dust.
Over the entombed city the volcano from a dozen vents yet poured its steaming vapors in long, curling wreaths, that mounted thousands of feet aloft, like smoking incense from a gigantic censer above the bier of some mighty dead.
Such was the disaster which burst upon the hapless people of the island of Martinique, while almost at the same moment a sister isle, St. Vincent, was suffering a kindred fate. Similar in natural conditions, these two little colonies of the West Indies, one French and one English by affiliation, underwent the shock of nature’s assault and sank in grief before a horror-stricken world.
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Transcriber's Note
There are some inconsistencies in the chapter subheadings between the Table of Contents and chapters themselves; these have been left as printed.
There is some variation in factual information—for example, the amount held in the Mint. These occurrences have all been preserved as printed.
There is some variable spelling; this has been repaired where there was an obvious prevalence of one form over the other, but is otherwise left as printed. There is a reference on page 112 to "gambling hells", which seems to be a genuine term, although it could be a typo for "gambling halls". Since there is no way to be certain, it has been preserved as printed. Archaic spelling has been preserved as printed.
Typographic errors in punctuation and spelling (omitted or transposed letters, etc.) have been repaired. Hyphenation has been made consistent where there was a prevalence of one form over the other.
The following errors have also been repaired:
Page 18—John amended to James—"Former Mayor James D. Phelan"
Page 47—aids amended to aides—"It was not without a struggle that Mayor Schmitz and his aides let this, ..."
Page 93—omitted word 'he' added, for sense—"Kanaka Pete chased the man he had marked ..."
Page 160—omitted 0 added to tabular entry for Connecticut.
Page 317—damage to the bottom of the page has left one word partially obscured. From the visible letters and available space, the word is most likely 'gradually', which has been used in this e-text.
Page 372—Callas amended to Callao—"... producing a new bay at Callao; and in several mountains ..."
Page 373—XXXII amended to XXXI—"CHAPTER XXXI."
Page 382—XXXI amended to XXXII—"CHAPTER XXXII."
Page 401—omitted word 'if' added following 'as'—"It was as if St. Pierre had been just dipped ..."
The frontispiece illustrations have been moved to follow the title page. Other illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not in the middle of a paragraph.
Omitted page numbers were blanks in the original.
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