126 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



1703 in an earthquake at Jeddo, Japan, 200,000 people perished; in 1731 over 

 100,000 people were swallowed up at Pekin, China; in 1797 over 40,000 people 

 in South America were buried in a single second. 



Although of the 225 earthquakes which have occurred in the British Islands 

 only two or three have resulted in injury to property or loss of life, panics in 

 regard to earthquakes have been as common in England as in Central America, 

 where shakings up are of common occurrence. The story is told that when in 

 April, 1750, a lunatic predicted an earthquake for the 8th, thousands of people 

 of London, spent the night of the 7th in carriages and tents in Hyde Park. 



In the earthquake of April 22d the shock was felt most in the towns lying 

 near the east coast in a line extending from London to the northeast through 

 Chelmsford, Colchester and Ipswich to Yarmouth, being most severe at Col- 

 chester and Ipswich. — Chicago hiter Ocean. 



MATURITY AND LONGEVITY AS AFFECTED BY CLIMATE. 



W. PERKINS. 



Pope long since affirmed that 



"The greatest study of mankind is man." 



In accordance with this is the study of nature. Her analogies and harmonies 

 are interesting, wonderful and charming. In no region of our vast country, as 

 for the last three months it has seemed to me, can the wealth of these analogies 

 and harmonies be found in greater profusion than in the "Floral State," where I now 

 write. Coming from the colder northern clime down the great Mississippi in 

 February, spending a fortnight in the Crescent City, as her splendid parades 

 closed I passed on a long railroad run east to Jacksonville, the lovely gateway of 

 Florida. Here as the first days of spring opened, all the charms of the ninety 

 days of spring as found further north, seemed to meet in rapturous harmony. A 

 northerner without his almanac, could scarcely tell whether he had tranced 

 into an April, May or June day. VanW inkle-like it seemed to me as if I had 

 slumbered in my two or three days and night's passage, through fifty, into a new 

 season and a new world. It may be seriously questioned whether a finer or 

 more congenial climate can be found in our world than in central and eastern 

 Florida. Surrounded as is the peninsula by the Gulf upon one side and the 

 Atlantic upon the other, washed by the pellucid streams and gentle rivers, of which 

 the broad St. John is chief, the climate is tempered into its mild and lovely nature 

 the year round. 



As warmth and moisture are essential to growth, vegetables here start more 

 promptly and mature more rapidly than further north. Seeds swell ready to 

 sprout, in a warm moist atmosphere, occasionally in a fog, before going into the 

 ground. The dews are heavy, at times dripping Irom the eaves of houses, and 

 the occasional fogs dense, though clearing away as the sun rises an hour above 



