VESUVIUS. 167 



Sandy Hook, on December 24, 1853. In a few 

 moments she was a complete wreck ! The wide range 

 of a tornado's destructiveness is shown by this, that 

 Colonel Keid tells us of one along whose track no less 

 than 110 ships were wrecked, crippled, or dismasted. 

 (From Temple Bar, December 1867.) 



VESUVIUS. 



THE numerous and violent eruptions from Mount 

 Vesuvius during the two last centuries seem to afford 

 an answer to those who think there are traces of a 

 gradually diminishing activity in the earth's internal 

 forces. That such a diminution is taking place, we 

 may admit ; but that its rate of progress is perceptible 

 that we can point to a time within the historical 

 epoch, nay, even within the limits of geological evi- 

 dence, at which the earth's internal forces were cer- 

 tainly more active than they are at the present time- 

 may, I think, be denied absolutely. 



When the science of geology was but young, and 

 its professors sought to compress within a few years 

 (at the outside) a series of events which (we now 

 know) must have occupied many centuries, there was 

 room, indeed, for the supposition that modern volcanic 

 eruptions, as compared with ancient outbursts, are but 

 as the efforts of children compared with the work 

 of giants. And accordingly, we find a distinguished 



