The outbreak of earth forces at San Francisco did not stand alone. There were others elsewhere at nearly the same time, the whole seeming to indicate a general disturbance in the interior of the earth’s crust. Some scientists, indeed, declared that no possible connection could exist between the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the earthquake at San Francisco, but others were inclined to view certain facts in regard to recent seismic and volcanic activity as, to say the least, suggestive.
As to the actual cause of the California earthquake, the wisest confession we can make is that of ignorance, there being almost as little known as to the origin, period and coming of earthquakes as when Pliny wrote 1,800 years ago. The Roman observer knew that the tremor passed like a wave through the surface of the earth; he knew that it had a given direction, and he knew that certain regions were rife with seismic disturbance. More he could not say, and when this is said all has been said that is known to-day.
Setting aside these general considerations, let us return to the question of the disaster at San Francisco on that fatal morning of April 18th. The shock did not come unexpectedly. A month previous there had been a severe earthquake in the Island of Formosa, and many lives were lost there, while an enormous amount of damage was done. Only a few days before the event in San Francisco there was another earthquake in the same island. Still greater havoc was caused by it than by the earthquake in March, but fewer lives were lost, the reason being that the people were warned in time. Early in April the eruption of Mount Vesuvius reached its height and devastated the country around the volcano, covering an enormous territory with ashes, and caused the loss of hundreds of lives.
On Tuesday night, April 17th, word was received from Piatigorsk, Circassia, that there had been two severe earthquake shocks the previous day in Northern Caucasia. The same night a telegram from Madrid said that the newspapers there reported that the long-dormant volcano on Palma, the largest of the Canary Islands, was showing signs of eruption, columns of smoke issuing from the crater.
WIDESPREAD EARTH TREMORS.
While scientists as a rule doubt that there was any connection between these volcanic phenomena and the earthquake at San Francisco, yet reports from the Mount Weather observation station in Virginia, a few miles from Washington, show that the eruptions of Vesuvius acted on the magnetic instruments by electro-magnetic waves in such a way as to disturb the electrical potentials at that place. Be this as it may, there is one 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 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 in 1905, is the same as that of the territory affected by the recent earthquake in the United States. This may or may not have some bearing on the question.
Whatever be thought of all this, one thing is certain, the earthquake which laid San Francisco in ruins was felt the world over, wherever there were instruments in position to detect and record it. The seismograph in the government observatory at Washington showed that the first wave, on April 18th, came at 8.19—equivalent to 5.19 at San Francisco; that at 8.25 there was a stronger wave motion, and that from 8.32 to 8.35 the recording pen was carried off the paper. The vibrations did not entirely cease until 12.35 P. M., during this period there having been nearly half an inch of to and fro motion in the surface of the earth.
RECORDS OF FOREIGN OBSERVATIONS.
From far away New Zealand, on the same date, the government seismograph at the capital, Wellington, recorded seismic waves that apparently passed round the earth five times at intervals of about four hours each.
Across the Atlantic, at Heidelberg, in Germany, the records showed vibrations lasting one hour. At Sarayevo, in Bosnia, there was a sharp shock at 11 A. M., undulating from west to east. At Funfkirchen, in Hungary, at Laibach, in Austria, in the Isle of Wight, off the coast of England, and all through Italy, from north to south, the shocks were felt.
At Hancock, Mich., a shock was felt on April 19th a mile below the surface in the Quincy mine of such severity that one man was killed and four injured by a fall of rock loosened by the trembling of the earth. There is no evidence, however, that this had any connection with the California disaster, the dates not coinciding.
Turning to the Far East, across the Pacific, seismographs in the Imperial University of Tokio showed that the earthquake was felt there eleven minutes later than in San Francisco, and similar instruments in Manila detected the arrival of the seismic waves twenty minutes after the San Francisco shock. In this there was a slight difference in time compared with Tokio, but, considering the distance, near enough to prove that the disturbances came from the same source.
Not until the day following was any noticeable disturbance felt in Honolulu, but on April 19th shocks were plainly felt for six minutes and the water in the harbor rose rapidly. Panic seemed imminent just before the shocks subsided. While earthquakes are by no means infrequent in these islands, this was more severe than any recorded in recent years, causing buildings to sway to and fro and partly demolishing some of frail construction.
If, as the majority of men qualified to discuss earthquakes seem to think, the San Francisco earthquake had no connection with volcanic action, but was caused by what is technically known as a “fault” in the formation of the crust of the earth, it seems easy enough to account for these wave motions travelling round the earth. How widely this may really have made itself felt it is not possible to say. Several of the great earthquakes in Japan have been recorded in the seismographs of the observatories on every continent and in Australia, showing that in severe disturbances of this kind the whole surface strata quiver, alike under the oceans and over the continents and islands. At the time of a shock, of course, half of the world is in darkness and asleep. This is taken to account for the fact that so far only a few observatories have reported catching the San Francisco vibrations.
The instruments invented for the recording of the motions of the earth’s crust are looked upon by scientists as the most delicate of all machines. So highly sensitive are they, indeed, that the very slightest vibratory motion is recorded perfectly. Even the tread of feet cannot escape this instrument if sufficient to cause a vibration.
There are three classes of instruments for the automatic recording of earth tremors, each with its own particular function. First is the seismoscope, which will merely detect and record the fact that there has been such a tremor. Some of these are so equipped as to indicate the time of the disturbance.
Second, is the seismometer, the function of which is to measure the maximum force of the shock, either with or without an indication of its direction. The third instrument is the seismograph, which is so arranged that it will accurately record the number, succession, direction, amplitude and period of successive oscillations. This last instrument is by far the most delicate of the three.
In the construction of this earthquake recording machine the maker must so suspend a heavy body that when its normal position is disturbed in the most infinitesimal degree no reactionary force will be developed tending to restore it to its original position. The inventor has never been found who could accomplish this suspension of a body to perfection. The seismograph of to-day, however, has reached a stage of perfection where close approximations are obtained in the records made.
We have in other chapters described the terrible work of Mount Vesuvius in the past, from the far-off era of the destruction of Pompeii down to the end of the last century. There comes before us now another frightful eruption, one of the greatest in its history, that of 1906. For thirty years before this outbreak the mighty volcano had been comparatively quiet, rarely ceasing, indeed, to smoke and fume, but giving little indication of the vast forces buried in its heart. It showed some sympathy with Mont Pelee in 1902, and continued restless after that time, but it was not until about the middle of February, 1906, that it became threatening, lava beginning to overflow from the crater and make its lurid way down the mountain’s side.
It was in the middle of the first week of April that these indications rose to the danger point, the flow of lava suddenly swelling from a rivulet to a river, pouring in a gleaming flood over the crater’s rim, and meeting the other streams that came streaming down the volcano’s rugged flank. While this went on the mountain remained comparatively quiet, there being no explosions, though a huge cloud of volcanic ash and cinders rose high in the air until it hung over the crater in the shape of an enormous pine tree, while from it a shower of dust and sand, soon to become terrible, began to descend upon the surrounding fields and towns.
Dangerous as is Vesuvius at any time, the people of the vicinity dare its perils for the allurement of its fertile soil. A ring of populous villages encircles it, flourishing vineyards and olive groves extend on all sides, and the hand of industry does not hesitate to attack its threatening flanks. The intervals between its death-dealing throes are so long that the peasants are always ready to dare destruction for the hope of winning the means of life from its soil.
THE RIVERS OF LAVA.
All this locality was now a field of terror and death. Down on the vineyards and villages poured the smothering ashes in an ever increasing rain; toward them slowly and threateningly crawled the fiery serpents of the lava streams; and from their homes fled thousands of the terror-stricken people, frantic with horror and dismay. A number of populous villages were threatened by the lurid lava streams, the most endangered being Bosco Trecase, with its 10,000 inhabitants. Toward this devoted town poured steadily the irresistible flood of molten rock. The soldiers who had been hurried to the front sought to divert its flow by digging a wide ditch across its course and throwing up a high bank of earth, but they worked in vain. The demon of destruction was not to be robbed of its prey. The liquid stream advanced like a colossal serpent of fire, turning its head like a crawling snake to the right and left, but keeping steadily on toward the fated town. The ditch was filled; the bank gave way; the first house was reached and burst into flames; the creeping stream of fire pushed on to the next houses in its way; only then did the despairing people desert their homes and flee for their lives, carrying with them the little they could snatch of their treasured possessions.
F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, who was present at this scene, thus describes the flight of the terrified people:
“I saw men, women and children and infants, whose mothers carried them at the breast or in their aprons, fleeing in an endless procession. Dogs, too, and cats were on the carts, and sometimes even chickens, tied together by the legs, and piles of mattresses and pillows and shapeless bundles of clothes. All were white with dust. Under the lurid glare I saw one old woman lying on her back across a cart, ghastly white and, if not dead already of fear and heat and suffocation, certainly almost gone. We ourselves could hardly breathe.”
It was on Saturday, the 7th, that Bosco Trecase became the prey of the river of molten rock. During that night and the following day the crisis of the eruption came. The observatory on the mountain side was occupied by Professor Matteucci, his assistant, Professor Perret, of New York, and two domestics, all others having been sent away. Their description of the scene in which they found themselves is vividly picturesque. At midnight the situation in the observatory was terrible. The forces of the earthquake were let loose and the ground rocked so that it was almost impossible to stand. The roaring of the main crater was deafening, while the volcano poured forth its contents like a fountain, and the electric display was terrifying, constant claps of thunder following the lurid flashes of lightning, which gave the sky a blood-red hue.
Shortly after three o’clock in the morning the explosive energy of the mighty mass culminated. The whole cone burst open with a tremendous earthquake shock, from the heart of the recently silent mountain came a deafening roar, and red-hot rocks, like the balls from nature’s mighty artillery, were hurled a half mile into the air, while a dense mass of ashes and sand was flung to three or four times this height. All the next day the terrible detonation kept up, and a hail of bullet-like stones poured downward from the skies. Rarely has a more terrible Sunday been seen. It was as if the demons of earth and air were let loose and were seeking to destroy man and his puny works.
THE CRISIS OF THE ERUPTION.
This frightful explosion of the 8th of April was the worst of the dreadful display of volcanic forces, but the work kept up with diminishing intensity much of the following week. The ashes and cinders continued to pour down in suffocating showers, covering the ground to a depth of four or five feet in the vicinity of the volcano and to a considerable depth at Naples, ten miles away. The sun disappeared behind the thick cloud that filled the air, and the scene resembled that described by Pliny more than eighteen hundred years before.
Of Bosco Trecase nothing was left but the large stone church and a few houses. Another river of lava reached the outskirts of Torre del Greco, and a third stopped at the cemetery of Torre Annunziata. Those towns escaped, but thousands of acres of fertile cultivated land, with farm houses and stock, were destroyed. The peninsular railway up the mountain was ruined and the large hotel burned. One writer tells the following tale of what he saw on that fatal Saturday and Sunday:
“On the road I met hundreds of families in flight, carrying their few miserable possessions. The spectacle of collapsing carts and fainting women was frequently seen. When one reached the lava stream a stupefying spectacle presented itself. From a point on the mountain between the towns I saw four rivers of molten fire, one of which, 200 feet wide and over 40 deep, was moving slowly and majestically onward, devouring vineyards and olive groves. I witnessed the destruction of a farm house enveloped on three sides by lava. Immediately overhead the great crater was belching incandescent rock and scoria for an incredible distance. The whole scene was wreathed with flames, and a perpetual roar was heard. Ever and anon the cone of the volcano was encircled with vivid electric phenomena, amid which a downpour of liquid fire on all sides of the crater was revealed in magnificent awfulness. In the evening there was a frightful shock of earthquake, which was repeated at two o’clock on Sunday morning. Simultaneously the lava streams redoubled their onrush, and men, women and children fled precipitately toward the sea. The lava had invaded the road behind them.”
A REIGN OF TERROR.
The great loss of life was due to the vast fall of ashes, which crushed in hundreds of roofs and buried the occupants within the ruins of their homes. In all the neighboring towns buildings were destroyed in great numbers, an early estimate being that fully 5,000 houses had been partly crushed or utterly destroyed. On the Ottajano side of the mountain, where the ashes fell in greatest profusion, all the houses of the villages were damaged, and Ottajano itself was left a wreck, several hundred dead bodies being taken from its ruins. In Naples the ash fall was so incessant that those who could afford it wore automobile coats, caps and goggles, while the people generally sought to save their eyes and faces by the aid of paper masks and umbrellas. The drivers of trolley cars were obliged to wear masks of some transparent material under the vizors of their caps.
DISASTERS AT SAN GIUSEPPE AND NAPLES.
There were two special disasters attended by serious loss of life. On the 9th, while a congregation of two hundred or more were attending mass in the church at San Giuseppe, the roof crushed in from the weight of ashes upon it and fell upon the worshippers below, few or none of whom escaped unhurt. Fifty-four dead bodies were taken from the ruins and a large number were severely injured. The Mayor of the town was dismissed from his office for leaving his post of duty in the face of danger.
The second disaster, one of the same character, took place at Naples. This was on Tuesday, April 10th. Just previous to it the people had been marching in religious processions through the streets, to render thanks for the apparent cessation of the activity of Vesuvius. Motley but picturesque processions were these, headed by boys carrying candles, which burned simply in the full sunshine and bearing aloft images of the Madonna or saints, clad in gorgeous robes of cheap blue or yellow satin. Their joy was suddenly changed to grief by tidings of a frightful disaster. The roof of the Monte Oliveto market, fronting on the Toledo, the main thoroughfare, had suddenly crushed in, burying more than 200 people beneath its heavy fall.
The market had been crowded with buyers and their children, and it was the busiest hours of the day in the great roofed courtyard, covering a space 600 feet square, when, with scarcely a tremor of warning, there came a frightful crash and a dense cloud of dust covered the scene, from out of which came heartrending screams of agony. The volcanic ash which, unnoticed, had gathered thickly on the roof, had broken it in by its weight.
The news set the people frantic with grief and indignation. They insisted that the authorities knew that the roof was unsafe and had neglected their duty. Cursing and screaming in their intense excitement, they surrounded the market, endeavoring with frantic haste to remove the heavy beams from beneath which came the appealing calls for help, many of the rescuers sobbing aloud as they worked. It required a large force of police and soldiers to keep them back and permit the firemen and other trained workers to carry on more systematically the work of relief. Twelve persons proved to have been killed, two fatally injured, twenty-four seriously hurt and over a hundred badly bruised and cut. Among these were many children, whose parents had sent them to do the marketing without a dream of danger, and the grief of the parents was intense. The Duke of Aosta, Prefect of Naples, directed the work of rescue, while his wife assisted in the care of the injured. As the Duchess bent in the hospital to give a cooling drink to a badly bruised little girl she felt a kiss upon her hand. Looking down, she saw a woman kneeling at her feet, who gratefully said: “Your Excellency, she is all I have. I am a widow. May God reward you.”
While this scene of horror was taking place in Naples the fate of the town and villages grouped around the foot of the volcano seemed as hopeless as ever. Early on the 10th the showers of ashes and streams of lava diminished and almost ceased, but later the same day they began again, and the terrified inhabitants feared that a catastrophe like that which buried Pompeii and Herculaneum was about to visit them. The lava which reached the cemetery of Torre Annunziata turned in the direction of Pompeii as if to freshly entomb that exhumed city of the past. A violent storm of sulphurous rain fell at San Giuseppe, Vesuviana and Sariano, and on all sides the fall of sand and ashes came on again in full strength. Even with the sun shining high in the heavens the light was a dim yellow, in the midst of which the few persons who still haunted the stricken towns moved about in the awful stillness of desolation like gray ghosts, their clothing, hair and beards covered with ashes.
THE ERUPTION RESUMED.
A typical case was that of Torre del Greco. Though for thirty hours the place had been deserted, a few ghostly figures could be seen at intervals when the vivid flashes of lightning illuminated the gloom-covered scene, wandering desolately about, hungry and thirsty, their throats parched by smoke and dust, yet unable to tear themselves away from the ruins of their late comfortable homes.
So deep was the ash fall that railway or tramway travel to the inner circle of towns was impossible, and the great depth of fallen dust choked the roads so as to render travel by carriage or on foot very difficult. A party of officials made a tour of inspection by automobile, visiting a number of the town, but were prevented by the state of the roads from reaching others. Ottajano was thus cut off from travel, and a heavy fall of ashes followed the officials in their retreat. At Bosco Trecase the lava had gathered into a lake, already growing solid on top, but a mass of liquid rock beneath.
The lava carried vast masses of burnt stone and sulphur on its surface, like dross on melted lead, and nothing was visible toward Bosco Trecase but endless acres of dark scoriae, broken here and there by the greenish, curling smoke of sulphur. At one point a great cone pine tree, torn up by its roots and turned to black charcoal, stuck out of the mass at a sharp angle. The air was almost unbearable, the heat intense, and few could long bear the dangers and discomfort of the situation.
SCENES OF HORROR.
The greatest depth of ashes encountered was in the vicinity of Ottajano. Here large areas were buried to a depth of several feet. Soldiers had been sent there with military carts, carrying provisions and surgical appliances, with orders to lend their aid in the work of relief. They found it almost impossible to make their way through the deep fine dust, and the tales of horror and heroism they had to tell resembled those that must of old have been borne to Rome by the fleeing inhabitants of Pompeii.
Efforts were made to remove the children and old persons in the carts, but when these had gone a few hundred feet it was found that, although there were four horses harnessed to each vehicle, they could not pull their loads through the ashes. This caused a panic among the children, who expected to be buried in the incessant fall from the volcano, and they fled in all directions in the darkness and blinding rain. Searching parties went after them, but in spite of continuous shouting and calling no trace was found of the little ones, and numbers of the children were undoubtedly smothered by the ashes and sand.
Many of the inhabitants had been buried in the ruins of their houses, and the scenes when the victims were unearthed were often piteous and terrible. The positions of the bodies showed that the victims had died while in 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 eight 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 pet from the crumbling ruins. The third body, that of a woman, was reduced to an unrecognizable mass. These three victims were reverently laid side by side while a procession of friends and relatives offered up prayers beside them.
One soldier rode his horse through the ashes reaching up to its flanks, calling out, “Who wants help?” He was rewarded by hearing a woman’s voice reply in weak tones and, springing from his horse, he floundered through the ashes to the ruined walls of a house from which the voice seemed to come. As he made his way through the soft, treacherous layer of scoriae which surrounded the destroyed habitation, and with difficulty worked his way toward the building the soldier shouted words of encouragement and, climbing over a heap of ruins and braving a toppling wall, entered the building. In the cellar he found the bodies of three children. Near them was a woman, barely alive, who by almost superhuman efforts for hours had succeeded in freeing herself from a mass of debris which had fallen upon her. The soldier picked the woman up in his arms and carried her to a place of safety. It was found that both legs were broken and that she had been badly crushed about the body.
Some extraordinary escapes from death took place. A man and his four children were rescued after having been lost in the ash-covered wilderness for fifty-six hours. They were terribly exhausted, and were reduced almost to skeletons.
Robert Underwood Johnson, one of the editors of the “Century Magazine”, who happened to be in Rome at the time of the eruption, made one of a party who ventured as near the scene of destruction as they could safely approach. From his graphic story of his experiences we copy some of the most interesting details.
AN AMERICAN OBSERVER.
“We caught a train for Torre Annunziata, three miles this side of Pompeii and two miles from the southern end of the wedge of lava which destroyed Bosco Trecase. We had a magnificent view of the eruption, eight miles away. Rising at an angle of fifty degrees, the vast mass of tumult roundness was beautifully accentuated by the full moon, shifting momentarily into new forms and drifting south in low, black clouds of ashes and cinders reaching to Capri. At Torre del Greco we ran under this terrifying pall, apparently a hundred feet above, the solidity of which was soon revealed in the moonlight. The torches of the railway guards added to the effect, but greatly relieved the sulphurous darkness.
“We reached Torre Annunziata at three in the morning. There was little suggestion of a disaster as we trudged through the sleeping town to the lava, two miles away. The brilliant moon gave us a superb view of the volcano, a gray-brown mass rising, expanding and curling in with a profile like a monstrous cyclopean face. But nothing in mythology gives a suggestion of the fascination of this awful force, presenting the sublime beauty above, but in its descent filled with the mysterious malignance of God’s underworld.
“We reached the lava at a picturesque cypress-planted cemetery on the northern boundary of Torre Annunziata. It was as if the dead had effectually cried out to arrest the crushing river of flames which pitilessly engulfed the statue of St. Anne with which the people of Bosco Reale tried to stay it, as at Catania the veil of St. Agathe is said to have stayed a similar stream from Mount Etna.
“We climbed on the lava. It was cool above but still alive with fire below. We could see dimly the extent of the destruction beyond the barrier of brown which had enclosed the streets, torn down the houses, invaded the vineyards and broken Cook’s railways. A better idea of the surroundings was obtained at dawn from the railway. We saw north what was left of Bosco Trecase—a great, square stone church and a few houses inland in a sea of dull, brown lava. North and east rose a thousand patches of blue smoke like swamp miasma. All was dull and desolate slag, with nowhere the familiar serpentine forms of the old lava streams. In terrible contrast with the volcanic evidences were strong cypresses and blooming camelias in a neighboring cemetery.
“We ate a hasty luncheon before sunrise, when the great beauty of the scene was revealed. The column now seemed higher and more massive, rising to three times the height of Vesuvius. Each portion had a concentric motion and new aspects. The south edges floating toward the sea showed exquisite curved surfaces, due to the upper moving current. It was like the decoration of the side of a great sarcophagus. As a yellow dust hangs over Naples and hides the volcano, I count myself fortunate to have seen all day from leeward this spectacle of changing, undiminishing beauty.
“The wedge of cultivated land ruined east of the volcano extended at least ten miles, with a width of twenty or thirty miles. Fancy a rich and thickly populated country of vineyards lying under three to six inches of ashes and cinders of the color of chocolate with milk, while above, to the west, the volcano in full activity is distributing to the outer edges of the circle the same fate, and you will get an idea of the desolate impression of the scene, a tragedy colossal and heartrending. Like that of Calabria, it enlists the sympathy of the civilized world. It takes time for such a calamity to be realized.
“Two miles below San Giuseppe we struck cinders which the soldiers were shoveling, making a narrow road for the refugees. Our wagon driver begged off from completing his contract to take us to San Giuseppe. We had not the heart to insist, so the rest of the journey to the railway at Palma, eight miles, was made laboriously on foot for three hours through sliding cinders.
“In many places temporary shelters had been built by the roadside, like children’s playhouses. Here women were huddled with their bedding, awaiting the coming of supplies which the army had begun to distribute. The men were largely occupied with shoveling cinders from the stronger roofs and floors into heaps three to six feet deep along the roadside. Many two-wheeled carts loaded with salvage, drawn by donkeys or pushed by peasants, were making their way along, the women with bundles on their heads or carrying poultry.
“In the square of San Giuseppe was an encampment of soldiers, with low tents. Near a destroyed church, in coarse yellow linen shrouds, were the bodies of thirty-three of the persons who there lost their lives. The peasants were sad, but uncomplaining; in fact, for so excitable a people they were wonderfully calm. As evidence of the thrift and self-respect of these, we were not once asked for alms during the afternoon.”
THE KING AT THE FRONT.
The Italian Government did all it could at the moment to alleviate the horrors of the situation, sending money to be expended in relief work and dispatching high officials of the government to give aid and encouragement by their presence. The King, Victor Emmanuel, and Queen Helene reached the scene of destruction as early as possible and lent their personal assistance to the work of rescue.
Obliged to leave his automobile, which could not move over the cinder-choked road, the King went forward with difficulty on horseback, the animal floundering through four feet of ashes, stumbling into holes, and half blinded by the fall of dust and cinders.
“How did you escape?” he asked a priest whom he met in his journey.
“I put myself in safety,” was the reply.
“What do you mean?” asked the King.
“Realizing the danger, I left Nola.”
“What!” cried the King, with a flush of anger. “You, a minister of God, were not here to share the danger of your people and administer the last sacraments? You did very wrong and forgot your duty.”
Reaching Ottejano, the King did what he could to expedite the work of rescue at that central point of disaster, more than a hundred dead bodies being taken from the ruins in his presence. He stood with set pale face watching the removal of the victims and directing the movement of the workers. During his visit at the front he inspected the temporary camp hospitals, in which the soldiers were caring for the injured and suffering, speaking to the poor victims, giving them what comfort he could, and asking what he could do to relieve their distress. Every request or desire was received with sympathy and orders given to have it fulfilled.
A pitiful scene took place when the King bent over a poor man, whose right leg had been amputated, and asked what he could do to comfort and aid him in his affliction.
“Send me my son, who is serving as a soldier,” said the maimed peasant.
The King, visibly affected, clasped the old man’s hand and exclaimed:
“My poor fellow! I can do much, but to grant your request would mean breaking the laws, which I must be the first to respect. I would give anything I have were it possible by so doing to send your son to you, but I cannot do so.”
While the King was thus engaged at the scenes of desolation, Queen Helene visited the charitable institutions at Naples and inspected the places where the refugees were housed, doing what she could to improve conditions and add to the comfort of the sufferers. The Princess of Schleswig-Holstein, who was in Naples, made an automobile visit to the afflicted towns, but the motor broke down, and she was forced to return on foot, walking a distance of twelve miles through the ashes and displaying a power of endurance that surprised the natives.
THE CANOPY OF DUST.
By Friday, April 13th, the eruption was practically at an end. Vesuvius had spent itself in the enormous convulsion of the 7th and 8th and the subsequent minor explosions and had returned to its normal state, ceasing to give any signs of life, except the cloud of smoke which still rose from its crater and spread like a thick curtain over and around the mountain. Looked at from Naples, there was none of the familiar aspects of the volcano, with its output of smoke and ashes by day and fiery gleam by night. Now it lay buried in darkness and obscurity, clothed in a dense pall of smoke. At Rome there was sunshine, but twenty miles south hung a misty veil, and twenty-five miles above Naples a zone of semi-obscurity began, blotting out the sun, whose light trickled through with a sickly glare. Everything was whitened with powdery dust; pretty white villas were daubed and dripping with mud, and people were busy shoveling the ashes from their roofs.
The crowds at the stations resembled millers, their clothes flour covered; the Campania presented the appearance of a Dakota prairie after a blizzard of snow, though everything was gray instead of white. The ashes lay in drifts knee deep. As the volcano was approached semi-night replaced the day, the gloom being so deep that telegraph poles twenty feet away could not be seen. Breathing was difficult, and the smoke made the eyes water. At Naples, however, a favorable wind had cleared the air of smoke, the sun shone brightly, and the versatile people were happy once more. The goggles and eye-screens had disappeared, but the streets were anything but comfortable, for some six thousand men were at work clearing the ashes from the roofs and main streets and piling them in the middle of the narrow streets, making the passage of vehicles very difficult and the sidewalks far from comfortable for foot passengers.
But while brightness and joy reigned at Naples, there were gruesome scenes within the volcanic zone. At Bosco Trecase soldiers carried on the work of exhumation, being able to work only an hour at a time on account of the advanced stage of decomposition of the bodies. Many of these were shapeless, unrecognizable masses of flesh and bones, while others were little disfigured. To lessen the danger of an epidemic the bodies were buried as quickly as possible in quicklime.
On Sunday, the 15th, the searchers at Ottejano were surprised at finding two aged women still alive, after six days’ entombment in the ruins. They were among those who had been buried by the falling walls a week before. The rafters of the house had protected them, and a few morsels of food in their pockets aided to keep them alive. At some points there the ashes were ten feet deep. At San Giuseppe bodies of women were found in whose hands were coins and jewels, and one woman held a jewelled rosary. This recalls the results of exploration at Herculaneum and Pompeii, where were similar instances of death overtaking the victims of the volcano while fleeing with their jewels in their hands.
It is interesting to learn that two men stood heroically to their post of duty during the whole scene of the explosion, Professor Matteucci, Director of the Royal Observatory, and his American assistant, Professor Frank A. Perret, of New York. Though the building occupied by them was exposed to the full force of the rain of stones from the burning mountain, they remained undauntedly at their post through that week of terror. On the 14th some of that venturesome fraternity, the newspaper correspondents, reached their eyrie on the highest habitable point on Vesuvius and heard the story of their experiences.
THE HEROES OF THE OBSERVATORY.
For several days Professors Matteucci and Perret and their two servants had been cut off from the outside world and bombarded by the volcano, their rations consisting of bread, cheese and dried onions, until on Friday a hardy guide was induced to push through to them with some provisions. During the eruption the Professor had kept at his instruments, taking observations day and night and making calculations in the midst of the inferno. Roughly dressed, he looked like a Western cowboy after a hard ride in a dust storm. The portico where he stood was knee deep in ashes, and from the observatory terrace narrow paths had been cut through the ashes, but as far as the eye could reach an ocean of ashes and twisted rivers were alone visible, with Vesuvius rising grimly in the midst. The great monster was enveloped in a cloak of white, as if buried under a snowstorm, its surface being here and there slit with gulches in which lava ran. At the bottom of one of those gulches lay the wrecked remnants of the peninsular railway, a portion of its twisted cable protruding through the ashes. As the correspondents ascended the mountain they were surprised by the apparition of natives, men wrinkled with age, who emerged from dugouts just below the observatory and offered them milk and eggs, just as if they were ordinary visitors to the volcano. As they descended they heard the sound of a mandolin from one of these dugouts. Evidently Vesuvius had no terrors for these case-hardened veterans.
We have already told the story gleaned by the correspondents from the daring scientists. Matteucci completed his record of boldness on Friday, the 13th, by climbing to a point far above the observatory, at the imminent risk of his life, to observe the conditions then existing. From what he says he believed the end of the disturbance near, though he did not venture to predict. As for the ashes, which a light wind was then blowing in a direction away from Naples, he said: “The ill wind is now blowing good to other places, for ashes are the best fertilizer it is possible to use. It is merely a question just now of having too much of a good thing.”
This is a fact so far as the volcanic ash is concerned. An examination of the ashes a few days ago shows that they will prove an active and valuable fertilizer. The fertile slopes of Vesuvius have ever been an allurement to the vine-grower, four crops a year being a temptation no possible danger could drive him from, and as soon as the mountain grows surely peaceful after this eruption, we shall find its farmers risking again the chance of its uncertain temper. But this is not the case with the land covered with lava and cinders. Time for their disintegration is necessary before they can be brought under cultivation, and this is a matter of years. After the great eruption of 1871-72 the land covered with cinders did not bear crops for seven years, and there is no reason that they will do so sooner on the present occasion. So for years to come much of the volcanic soil must remain a barren and desert void.
To our account of the great earth convulsions of San Francisco it is in place to append a description of some similar events of older date. It is due to the same causes, whatever these causes may be, the imprisoned forces within the earth acting over great distances during the earthquake, while they are concentrated within some limited space when the volcano begins its work. The earthquake is the most terrible to mankind of all the natural agencies of destruction. While the volcano usually has a greater permanent effect upon surface conditions, it is, as a rule, much less destructive to human life, the earthquake often shaking down cities and burying all their inhabitants in one common grave. Violent earthquakes are also of far more frequent occurrence than destructive volcanic eruptions, many hundreds of them having taken place during the historic period.
While the earthquake is only indirectly connected with the subject of our work, it seems desirable to make some mention of it here, at least so far as relates to those terrible convulsions whose destructiveness has given them special prominence in the history of great disasters. Ancient notable examples are those which threw down the famous Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos of Alexandria. The city of Antioch was a terrible sufferer from this affliction, it having been devastated some time before the Christian era, while in the year 859 more than 15,000 of its houses were destroyed. Of countries subject to earthquakes, Japan has been an especial sufferer, in some cases mountains or islands being elevated in association with shocks; in others, great tracts of land being swallowed up by the sea. The number of deaths in some of these instances was enormous.
Numerous thrilling examples of the destructive work of the earthquake at various periods are on record. Of these we have given elsewhere a tabular list of the more important, and shall confine ourselves to a few striking examples of its destructive action. In the record of great earthquakes, one of the most famous is that which in 1755 visited the city of Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, and left that populous, place in ruin and dire distress. It may be well to recall the details of this dire event to the memories of our readers.
THE GREAT LISBON EARTHQUAKE
On the night of the 31st of October, 1755, the citizens of the fair city of Lisbon lay down to sleep, in merciful ignorance of what was awaiting them on the morrow. The morning of the 1st of November dawned, and gave no sign of approaching calamity. The sun rose in its brightness, the warmth was genial, the breezes gentle, the sky serene. It was All Saints’ Day—a high festival of the Church of Rome. The sacred edifices were thronged with eager crowds, and the ceremonies were in full progress, when the assembled throngs were suddenly startled from their devotions. From the ground beneath came fearful sounds that drowned the peal of the organ and the voices of the choirs. These underground thunders having rolled away, an awful silence ensued. The panic-stricken multitudes were paralyzed with terror. Immediately after the ground began to heave with a long and gentle swell, producing giddiness and faintness among the people. The tall piles swayed to and fro, like willows in the wind. Shrieks of horror rose from the terrified assembly. Again the earth heaved, and this time with a longer and higher wave. Down came the ponderous arches, the stately columns, the massive walls, the lofty spires, tumbling upon the heads of priests and people. The graven images, the deified wafers, and they who had knelt in adoration before them—the worshipped and the worshippers alike—were in a moment buried under one undistinguishable mass of horrible ruins. Only a few, who were near the doors, escaped to tell the tale.
It fared no better with those who had remained in their dwellings. The terrible earth-wave overthrew the larger number of the private houses in the city, burying their inhabitants under the crumbling walls. Those who were in the streets more generally escaped, though some there, too, were killed by falling walls.
The sudden overthrow of so many buildings raised vast volumes of fine dust, which filled the atmosphere and obscured the sun, producing a dense gloom. The air was full of doleful sounds—the groans of agony from the wounded and the dying, screams of despair from the horrified survivors, wails of lamentation from the suddenly bereaved, dismal howlings of dogs, and terrified cries of other animals.
In two or three minutes the clouds of dust fell to the ground, and disclosed the scene of desolation which a few seconds had wrought. The ruin, though general, was not universal. A considerable number of houses were left standing—fortunately tenantless—for a third great earth-wave traversed the city, and most of the buildings which had withstood the previous shocks, already severely shaken, were entirely overthrown.
WATER ADDS TO THE DESTRUCTION
The last disaster filled the surviving citizens with the impulse of flight. The more fortunate of them ran in the direction of the open country, and succeeded in saving their lives; but a great multitude rushed down to the harbor, thinking to escape by sea. Here, however, they were met by a new and unexpected peril. The tide, after first retreating for a little, came rolling in with an immense wave, about fifty feet in height, carrying with it ships, barges and boats, and dashing them in dire confusion upon the crowded shore. Overwhelmed by this huge wave, great numbers were, on its retreat, swept into the seething waters and drowned. A vast throng took refuge on a fine new marble quay, but recently completed, which had cost much labor and expense. This the sea-wave had spared, sweeping harmless by. But, alas! it was only for a moment. The vast structure itself, with the whole of its living burden, sank instantaneously into an awful chasm which opened underneath. The mole and all who were on it, the boats and barges moored to its sides, all of them filled with people, were in a moment ingulfed. Not a single corpse, not a shred of raiment, not a plank nor a splinter floated to the surface, and a hundred fathoms of water covered the spot. To the first great sea-wave several others succeeded, and the bay continued for a long time in a state of tumultuous agitation.
About two hours after the first overthrow of the buildings, a new element of destruction came into play. The fires in the ruined houses kindled the timbers, and a mighty conflagration, urged by a violent wind, soon raged among the ruins, consuming everything combustible, and completing the wreck of the city. This fire, which lasted four days, was not altogether a misfortune. It consumed the thousands of corpses which would otherwise have tainted the air, adding pestilence to the other misfortunes of the survivors. Yet they were threatened with an enemy not less appalling, for famine stared them in the face. Almost everything eatable within the precincts of the city had been consumed. A set of wretches, morever, who had escaped from the ruins of the prisons, prowled among the rubbish of the houses in search of plunder, so that whatever remained in the shape of provisions fell into their hands and was speedily devoured. They also broke into the houses that remained standing, and rifled them of their contents. It is said that many of those who had been only injured by the ruins, and might have escaped by being extricated, were ruthlessly murdered by those merciless villains.
The total loss of life by this terrible catastrophe is estimated at 60,000 persons, of whom about 40,000 perished at once, and the remainder died afterwards of the injuries and privations they sustained. Twelve hundred were buried in the ruins of the general hospital, eight hundred in those of the civil prison, and several thousands in those of the convents. The loss of property amounted to many millions sterling.
WIDE-SPREAD DESTRUCTION
Although the earth-wave traversed the whole city, the shock was felt more severely in some quarters than in others. All the older part of the town, called the Moorish quarter, was entirely overthrown; and of the newer part, about seventy of the principal streets were ruined. Some buildings that withstood the shocks were destroyed by fire. The cathedral, eighteen parish churches, almost all the convents, the halls of the inquisition, the royal residence, and several other fine palaces of the nobility and mansions of the wealthy, the custom-houses, the warehouses filled with merchandise, the public granaries filled with corn, and large timber yards, with their stores of lumber, were either overthrown or burned.
The king and court were not in Lisbon at the time of this great disaster, but were living in the neighborhood at the castle of Belem, which escaped injury. The royal family, however, were so alarmed by the shocks, that they passed the following night in carriages out of doors. None of the officers of state were with them at the time. On the following morning the king hastened to the ruined city, to see what could be done toward restoring order, aiding the wounded, and providing food for the hungry.
The royal family and the members of the court exerted themselves to the uttermost, the ladies devoting themselves to the preparation of lint and bandages, and to nursing the wounded, the sick, and the dying, of whom the numbers were overwhelming. Among the sufferers were men of quality and once opulent citizens, who had been reduced in a moment to absolute penury. The kitchens of the royal palace, which fortunately remained standing, were used for the purpose of preparing food for the starving multitudes. It is said that during the first two or three days a pound of bread was worth an ounce of gold. One of the first measures of the government was to buy up all the corn that could be obtained in the neighborhood of Lisbon, and to sell it again at a moderate price, to those who could afford to buy, distributing it gratis to those who had nothing to pay.
For about a month afterward earthquake shocks continued, some of them severe. It was several months before any of the citizens could summon courage to begin rebuilding the city. But by degrees their confidence returned. The earth had relapsed into repose, and they set about the task of rebuilding with so much energy, that in ten years Lisbon again became one of the most beautiful capitals of Europe.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LISBON EARTHQUAKE
The most distinguishing peculiarities of this earthquake were the swallowing up of the mole, and the vast extent of the earth’s surface over which the shocks were felt. Several of the highest mountains in Portugal were violently shaken, and rent at their summits; huge masses falling from them into the neighboring valleys. These great fractures gave rise to immense volumes of dust, which at a distance were mistaken for smoke by those who beheld them. Flames were also said to have been observed: but if there were any such, they were probably electrical flashes produced by the sudden rupture of the rocks.
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 Algeria they were nearly as violent. At a place about twenty-four miles from the city of Morocco, there is said to have occurred a catastrophe much resembling what took place at the Lisbon mole. A great fissure opened in the earth, and an entire village, with all its inhabitants, upwards of 8,000 in number, were precipitated into the gulf, which immediately closed over its prey.
EARTHQUAKES IN CALABRIA
Of the numerous other examples of destructive earthquakes which might be chosen from Old World annals, it will not be amiss to append a brief account of those which took place in Calabria, Italy, in 1783. These, while less wide-spread in their influence, were much longer in duration than the Lisbon cataclysm, since they continued, at intervals, from the 5th of February until the end of the year. The shocks were felt all over Sicily and as far north as Naples, but the area of severe convulsion was comparatively limited, not exceeding five hundred square miles.
The centre of disturbance seems to have been under the town of Oppido in the farther Calabria, and it extended in every direction from that spot to a distance of about twenty-two miles, with such violence as to overthrow every city, town and village lying within that circle. This ruin was accomplished by the first shock on the 5th of February. The second, of equal violence, on the 28th of March, was less destructive, only because little or nothing had been left for it to overthrow.
At Oppido the motion was in the nature of a vertical upheaval of the ground, which was accompanied by the opening of numerous large chasms, into some of which many houses were ingulfed, the chasms closing over them again almost immediately. The town itself was situated on the summit of a hill, flanked by five steep and difficult slopes; it was so completely overthrown by the first shock that scarcely a fragment of wall was left standing. The hill itself was not thrown down, but a fort which commanded the approach to the place was hurled into the gorge below. It was on the flats immediately surrounding the site of the town and on the rising grounds beyond them that the great fissures and chasms were opened. On the slope of one of the hills opposite the town there appeared a vast chasm, in which a large quantity of soil covered with vines and olive-trees was engulfed. This chasm remained open after the shock, and was somewhat in the form of an amphitheatre, 500 feet long and 200 feet in depth.
MOST CALAMITOUS OF THE LANDSLIPS
The most calamitous of the landslips occurred on the sea-coast of the Straits of Messina, near the celebrated rock of Scilla, where huge masses fell from the tall cliffs, overwhelming many villas and gardens. At Gian Greco a continuous line of precipitous rocks, nearly a mile in length, tumbled down. The aged Prince of Scilla, after the first great shock on the 5th of February, persuaded many of his vassals to quit the dangerous shore, and take refuge in the fishing boats—he himself showing the example. That same night, however, while many of the people were asleep in the boats, and others on a flat plain a little above the sea-level, another powerful shock threw down from the neighboring Mount Jaci a great mass, which fell with a dreadful crash, partly into the sea, and partly upon the plain beneath. Immediately the sea rose to a height of twenty feet above the level ground on which the people were stationed, and rolling over it, swept away the whole multitude. This immense wave then retired, but returned with still greater violence, bringing with it the bodies of the men and animals it had previously swept away, dashing to pieces the whole of the boats, drowning all that were in them, and wafting the fragments far inland. The prince with 1,430 of his people perished by this disaster.
It was on the north-eastern shore of Sicily, however, that the greatest amount of damage was done. The first severe shock, on the 5th of February, overthrew nearly the whole of the beautiful city of Messina, with great loss of life. The shore for a considerable distance along the coast was rent, and the ground along the port, which was before quite level, became afterwards inclined towards the sea, the depth of the water having, at the same time, increased in several parts, through the displacement of portions of the bottom. The quay also subsided about fourteen inches below the level of the sea, and the houses near it were much rent. But it was in the city itself that the most terrible desolation was wrought—a complication of disasters having followed the shock, more especially a fierce conflagration, whose intensity was augmented by the large stores of oil kept in the place.
IMMENSE DESTRUCTION
According to official reports made soon after the events, the destruction caused by the earthquakes of the 5th of February and 28th of March throughout the two Calabrias was immense. About 320 towns and villages were entirely reduced to ruins, and about fifty others seriously damaged. The loss of life was appalling—40,000 having perished by the earthquakes, and 20,000 more having subsequently died from privation and exposure, or from epidemic diseases bred by the stagnant pools and the decaying carcases of men and animals. The greater number were buried amid the ruins of the houses, while others perished in the 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 Terranuova 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 Spastara. 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 the house, which was still standing, she snatched her babe from its cradle. Rushing with him in her arms towards the staircase, she found the stair had fallen—cutting off all further progress in that direction. She fled from room to room, pursued 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 the mansion had caught fire, and before long the balcony, with the devoted lady still grasping her darling, was hurled into the devouring flames.