242 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



EARTHQUAKES. 



IT is related in the Timceus of Plato that the ancient 

 Egyptians held the world to be liable to occasional 

 widely extended catastrophes, by which the gods 

 checked the evil propensities of men, and cleansed the 

 earth from guilt. Conflagrations, deluges, and earth- 

 quakes were the instruments of the wrath of the 

 offended gods. After each catastrophe mankind were 

 innocent and happy, but from this state of virtue they 

 gradually fell away until their accumulated offences 

 called for new judgments. Then the gods took counsel 

 together, and unable to bear with the multiplied 

 iniquities of the human race, swept them from the 

 earth in some great cataclysm, or sent a devouring flame 

 to consume them, or shook the solid earth until hills 

 and mountains fell upon and crushed the inhabitants 

 of the whole world. 



One can understand how the confused records of 

 great catastrophes, in which all, or nearly all, the 

 inhabitants of wide districts were destroyed, led in 

 the course of time to the formation of such views as 

 Plato has described. And, indeed, it is not in one 

 nation alone that we find theories of this sort prevalent. 

 In the Institutes of Menu the Hindoos are taught that 

 at the end of each of those cycles of ages which are 

 termed the 'days of Brahma' all forms of life are 

 destroyed from the earth by a great conflagration, 

 followed by a deluge which inundates heaven itself. 



