EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. 



217 



returned their loans in full. During the year 73 

 loans aggregating $79,939 had been made, and 

 loans aggregating $61,500 promised to 52 

 churches. 



The Foreign Christian Missionary Society had 

 had the best year in its history. Its total re- 

 ceipts, $178,323, were $6,425 in excess of those of 

 the previous year, and were derived $68,586 from 

 the churches and $48,117 from the Sunday- 

 schools. The bequests amounted to $2,947, or 

 $11,664 less than in 1901, and the annuities to 

 $29,411. Reports were given of work in China, 

 where there were 19 stations and out-stations; 

 Japan, 44 stations, etc.; India, 13 stations, etc.; 

 Scandinavia, 16 churches; Turkey, 24 stations; 

 Hawaii, 3 stations; Africa, 1 station; Cuba, 2 

 stations; England, 14 churches; and in the Phil- 

 ippine Islands, 1 church. At these stations 70 

 missionaries and 234 native helpers were em- 

 ployed, besides the ministers in England; 629 ad- 

 ditions were returned, besides more than 5,700 pu- 

 pils in Sunday-schools and 1,411 pupils in day- 

 schools in China, India, and Japan. Two board- 

 ing-schools were maintained in China, hospital 



work was carried on in China and India. The 

 Drake Bible College was about to open in Japan, 

 with a fund of $20,000; and new buildings were in 

 course of erection or to be built in India. The 

 churches in Canada, England, and Australia coop- 

 erate with the society, supporting 7 missionaries, 

 while the Canadian churches were preparing to 

 support another. 



The annual convention of the English churches 

 w r as held in Southport in September, with Mr. 

 Leslie T. Morgan as president, who delivered an 

 address on The Reunion of Christendom. An 

 increase of 163 members was reported. Work 

 had been begun in three new places. During the 

 past year the churches had raised $19,208 for 

 their local work, $3,546 for home missions, and 

 $1,233 for foreign missions, making in all $24,387. 

 In the convention $2,500 were contributed for 

 home, and about $400 for foreign missions. 



At the annual conference of the South Aus- 

 tralian churches, in September, a net gain of 158 

 members was reported. In Victoria, the number 

 of accessions in six months was about 700. 



DOUKHOBORS.. (See under MANITOBA.) 



E 



EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANIC 

 ERUPTIONS. The year 1902 was one of un- 

 usual volcanic and seismic activity. In Mexico, 

 Guatemala, the West Indies, the Aleutian Islands, 

 and Russia severe disturbances occurred, accom- 

 panied by great loss of life, while the volcanoes of 

 Vesuvius and Mauna Loa, Hawaii, displayed 

 marked activity. But two apparently quiescent 

 and long-forgotten volcanoes gave the most strik- 

 ing exhibition of the impotency of man against 

 the wrath of nature. In one terrible moment a 

 great blast of hot ashes, rocks, and poisonous 

 gases rolling down from the crater of Mont Pele"e, 

 in the island of Martinique, wiped out of existence 

 the beautiful city and commercial center of that 

 island and destroyed its entire population of 30,- 

 000, except one who escaped, and that one, a 

 condemned murderer, was confined in an under- 

 ground chamber. About the same time La Sou- 

 friere, in the neighboring island of St. Vincent, 

 similarly burst forth, sending up great clouds of 

 flame and smoke, red-hot cinders, rocks, and ashes, 

 which, in descending, covered the beautiful green 

 fields with desolation and destroyed thousands of 

 lives. 



x ln earthquake countries it is the common belief 

 that after a series of violent shocks the earth 

 must open to let out its pent-up fires, after which 

 the shiverings that constitute local earthquakes 

 subside. The sequence of such events in the early 

 part of the year appears to justify this belief, 

 were it not offset by the fact that in Japan, where 

 the Government ke'eps a record and studies earth- 

 quake shocks more carefully than they are studied 

 in any other part of the world, 1,000 earthquakes 

 have been recorded annually without any unusual 

 volcanic disturbances. However, on Jan. 16, a 

 section of country on the western coast of Mexico 

 was violently shaken, destroying several cities 

 and towns. The earthquake was felt in the City 

 of Mexico, where the people, rushing from their 

 dwellings and offices, became so panic-stricken 

 that many of them threw themselves on their 

 knees in the middle of the streets and plazas, 

 praying for mercy. Telegraph-poles swayed like 

 trees in a gale, but no particular damage was 

 done, and within thirty seconds it was all over, 

 the earth resuming its normal condition of quie- 



tude. But. Chilpancingo, the capital of the state 

 of Guerrero, which appears to have been in the 

 center of the earthquake zone, was almost totally 

 destroyed. The earthquake occurred on a quiet, 

 pleasant afternoon, about twenty minutes past 

 five o'clock. The ground heaved and shook with 

 such force that not a building was left in Chil- 

 pancingo without some damage. The disturbance 

 began with a slight tremor of the ground, accom- 

 panied by a rumbling noise such as that made 

 by a heavy truck driven over a roughly paved 

 street. The rumbling swelled, and then distinct 

 oscillations of the ground were felt, and then 

 came an upheaval and a crash. Walls fell out- 

 ward, roofs fell in, and clouds of dust ascended 

 amid the shrieks of the wounded and dying and 

 panic-stricken. In their wild terror those who 

 could escape fled over the debris which blocked 

 their way, never stopping to look back, nor heed- 

 ing the cries of the maimed, till they had reached 

 the open fields, the usual goal of safety in coun- 

 tries where the people are accustomed to these 

 violent shakings. As the clouds of dust cleared 

 away and the calmer people looked about them, 

 they saw only their ruined town with its streets 

 blocked with the ruins of their houses. The domed 

 roof of the old Spanish church in which the Mexi- 

 can Declaration of Independence was signed and 

 in which the bones of their patriot, Gen. Bravos, 

 repose had fallen in, burying beneath it two 

 women who were praying. The pedestal that had 

 supported a statue of the general in the little 

 park fronting the church, now supported only a 

 pair of legs, while the body of the statue lay in 

 two pieces on the ground. The belfries of the two 

 churches were cracked from top to base, and the 

 roofs of one-story houses were shaken in and their 

 walls of solid masonry cracked. Comparatively 

 speaking, there was only small loss of life, owing 

 to the fact that the people fled from their houses 

 upon feeling the first tremor of the earth's crust. 

 At Chilapa, another good-sized town within the 

 zone of the shaking, which suffered greatly, the 

 people were gathered in the open plaza, looking 

 at a tight-rope performer. This resulted in many 

 Jives being saved that would have otherwise been 

 buried under falling dtbris; but many people 

 went insane with fright, while many contended 



