250 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



having travelled from Lisbon to Scotland at the rate of 

 twenty miles a minute ! 



It has been calculated that in Lisbon alone 60,000 

 persons perished within the brief space of six minutes* 

 But there have been other earthquakes in which even 

 this terrible destruction of life has been surpassed. In 

 1693, 100,000 persons fell victims to the great Sicilian 

 earthquake, and upwards of 300,000 persons are supposed 

 to have perished in the great earthquakes which 

 desolated Antioch in the sixth and seventh centuries. 

 It has been estimated that within the last 4,000 years 

 five or six millions of human beings have perished 

 through the effects of earthquakes. 



It is related that in the great earthquake of 1747 all 

 the inhabitants of the town of Callao were destroyed, 

 save one. The man who escaped, standing on a fort 

 which overlooked the harbour, saw the sea retire to 

 a distance and then return like a vast mountain in 

 height. * He heard a cry of Miserere rise from all parts 

 of the city,' and in a moment all was silent where the 

 town had once flourished there was a wide sea. But 

 the same wave which overwhelmed the town drove past 

 him a small boat, into which he flung himself, and so 

 was saved.* 



No earthquake has ever happened, the circumstances 

 attending which have been so carefully noted as in 



* It must be remarked, however, that Sir Charles Lyell estimates 

 the number of the saved at 200, ' of whom twenty-two were saved on a 

 email fragment of the fort of Vera Cruz, which remained as the only 

 memorial of the town after this dreadful inundation.' 



