ABOUT VOLCANOS AND EARTHQUAKES. 19 



Dome are basaltic; that is, consisting of columns placed 

 close together ; and some of the cones are quite com- 

 plete, and covered with loose ashes and cinders, just as 

 Vesuvius is at this hour. 



(27.) In the study of these vast and awful phenomena 

 we are brought in contact with those immense and rude 

 powers of nature which seem to convey to the imagina- 

 tion the impress of brute force and lawless violence ; but 

 it is not so. Such an idea is not more derogatory to the 

 wisdom and benevolence that prevails throughout all the 

 scheme of creation than it is in itself erroneous. In 

 their wildest paroxysms the rage of the volcano and the 

 earthquake is subject to great and immutable laws : 

 they feel the bridle and obey it. The volcano bellows 

 forth its pent-up overplus of energy, and sinks into long 

 and tranquil repose. The earthquake rolls away, and 

 industry, that balm which nature knows how to shed 

 over every wound, effaces its traces, and festoons its 

 ruins with flowers. There is mighty and rough work to 

 be accomplished, and it cannot be done by gentle means. 

 It seerns, no doubt, terrible, awful, perhaps harsh, that 

 twenty or thirty thousand lives should be swept away in 

 a moment by a sudden and unforeseen calamity ; but we 

 must remember that sooner or later every one of those 

 lives must be called for, and it is by no means the most 

 sudden end that is the most afflictive. It is well too that 

 we should contemplate occasionally, if it were only to 

 teach us humility and submission, the immense energies 

 which are everywhere at work in maintaining the system 

 of nature we see going on so smoothly and tranquilly 



