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The correspondence herewith submitted will be found painfully replete with accounts of the ruin and wretchedness produced by recent earthquakes, of unparalleled severity, in the Republics of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia.
The earthquakes which occur in both the North and the South Islands, cause alternate depressions and elevations. That of 1855 raised the coast line four feet for many miles in length.
In 1684 and 1691 it was visited by destructive earthquakes and in 1700 it was full of ruins among which grew great trees.
One ancient building, a castle built by Robert Guiscard when he captured Catanzaro in the eleventh century, remained until of late years, its Norman solidity defying earthquakes; but this has been pulled down, deliberately got rid of for the sake of widening a road.
"To think of meeting other people on this desolate island this island of earthquakes." "Oh, please don't speak of earthquakes!" cried Mrs. Nestor. "We are in mortal terror! There have been several since we landed in the most terrible storm day before yesterday. Isn't it awful! It is a regular earthquake island!" "That's what I call it," spoke Tom, grimly.
From the same tree, palm-wine and sugar are made, and the common thatch for houses formed of the leaves lasts six or seven years without removal. Close to the town I noticed the foundation of a ruined house below high-water mark, indicating recent subsidence. Earthquakes are not severe here, and are so infrequent and harmless that the chief houses are built of stone.
Some say they tell of the opening of a flower towards dawn, and others say they concern earthquakes among hills, and others that they tell of the death of fishes, and others that the words be these: Power, Knowledge, Forgetting, and another word that not the gods themselves may ever guess.
The greater portion of the vast area embraced by the Mississippi River and its tributaries has had a very uneventful history, although at times earthquakes may have occurred and the sky may have been darkened by ashes from eruptions in distant parts of the earth. It is in the country west of the Rockies, the region last to be explored and settled, that the objects of our search come to light.
Thei also do warne menne of many thinges, bothe hurtefull and availeable: by the marking, and knowledge of winde and weather, of raine and droughte, of blasing sterres, of the eclipses of the Sonne and Mone, of earthquakes, and manye suche like.
For a hundred and sixty years the huge mountain has been at peace, but the frequent earthquakes still tell of hidden fires, and none can say when the red-hot stones and ashes may once more fall like rain over five provinces.
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