P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY. 



7^3 



the bandage is taken off, the foot is kneaded, 

 to make the joints more flexible, and is then 

 bound up again as quickly as possible with 

 a fresh bandage, which is drawn up more 

 tightly. During the first year the pain is 

 so intense that the sufferer can do nothing, 

 and for about two years the foot aches con- 

 tinually, and has to endure besides a pain 

 like the pricking of sharp needles. If the 

 binding is kept up rigorously, the foot in 

 two years becomes dead and ceases to ache, 

 and the whole leg, from the knee downward, 

 becomes shrunken to be little more than 

 skin and bone. When once formed, the 

 " golden lily," as the Chinese lady calls her 

 delicate little foot, can never recover its 

 original shape ; and, when uncovered, it is 

 so unsightly that women object to take off 

 their bandages even befoie members of their 

 own family. 



A Volcano rising from a Lake. M. de 



Lesseps has communicated some interesting 

 papers on the extraordinary phenomena 

 which accompanied the earthquakes of Jan- 

 uary last, in the republic of San Salvador, 

 to which the French journals add accounts 

 furnished by the consul of the republic and 

 the French consul in Guatemala. The 

 shocks, which, although of considerable 

 strength, were not violent enough to do 

 harm to houses, seemed to proceed from 

 a center in the Lake of Ilopango or Coju- 

 tepeque. The waters of the lake having 

 fallen from an extraordinary level to which 

 they had risen before the shocks began, a 

 small island with three peaks appeared to 

 be rising from the center of the lake. One 

 of the peaks reached a height of about nine- 

 ty feet above the water, and sent forth a 

 column of smoke and flames of consider- 

 able height. An attempt was made to ap- 

 proach the island in a boat, but the waters 

 in contact with the hot rock were boiling, 

 and gave out great jets of vapor. The wa- 

 ter around the volcano continued to boil for 

 some time after the eruption was over, and 

 indicated a temperature of 100 at the 

 edges of the lake. The fish were cooked 

 and rose to the surface, and with them many 

 shells and aquatic animals. The lake is in 

 the line of the volcanoes of Central America, 

 where volcanic cones seem to alternate with 

 lakes, and itself occupies the place of an 



ancient volcano. Its water is brackish, 

 bitter, and almost slimy, and has at times 

 given out bubbles of sulphuretted gas. The 

 rise of the water preceding the eruption 

 agrees curiously with an ancient tradition 

 that earthquakes may be expected when- 

 ever the level of the lake is elevated. So 

 fully was this believed that the people were 

 formerly accustomed to dig channels to carry 

 off the superfluous waters ; and while they 

 did this they had no earthquakes. These 

 facts have a bearing upon the theory that 

 earthquakes and volcanic phenomena are 

 largely due to the action of water. 



Volcanic Eruptions and Earthquakes in 



1 879. According to Herr Fuchs, only three 

 volcanic eruptions took place in 1879, none 

 of which were of extraordinary violence. 

 The most notable one was that coincident 

 with the appearance of a new volcano in Lake 

 Ilopango, in San Salvador, following on a 

 series of earthquakes in December. The 

 eruption of Etna, which began on the 26th of 

 May and lasted for eleven days, was espe- 

 cially marked by an uncommonly long lava- 

 stream of sixteen kilometres, or ten miles. 

 The preceding earthquakes were not very 

 strong. The third eruption was that of the 

 volcano Merapi, in Java, on the 28th of 

 March, which was marked by an abundance 

 of lava and ashes. Only a few of the ninety- 

 nine earthquakes which came to the knowl- 

 edge of Herr Fuchs were of remarkable 

 strength. A violent earthquake was felt in 

 northern Persia for several hours on the 

 night of the 22d of March, and destroyed a 

 number of villages. About nine hundred 

 persons perished between that date and the 

 2d of April, when the last vibrations oc. 

 curred. Earthquakes of unusual strength 

 occurred in the Romagna (Italy) on the 25th 

 of April, and in Mexico on the 17th of May. 

 In the latter earthquake the movement of 

 the ground was observed in all the region 

 from Vera Cruz to the capital, and much 

 injury was done in Cordoba and Orizaba. 

 Violent earthquakes began in a part of 

 China on the 29th of June, extended over 

 thirty districts, and the shocks were re- 

 peated till the middle of August, with the 

 loss of many hundred lives. These earth- 

 quakes were marked by great jets of water 

 spouting up through the opened ground. 



