The Causes and Flienomenaof Earthquakes. 85 



far deeper than we can understand ; and we may with all our 

 study be compelled to leave the absolute knowledge of it till we 

 shall have passed the " flammantia mcenia mundi." We have, 

 however, reason to believe, that earthquakes, and, of course, 

 volcanic action are necessary means for the support of the world 

 in a state of equilibriun, and for the maintenance of the creatures 

 that inhabit it. With all their horrors, they are part and parcel 

 of the contrivances by which this earth maintains its inhabitants 

 'and fulfils the promise made to our race, that " while the earth 

 remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer 

 and winter, and day and night shall not cease." On the other 

 hand, there are circumstances which array this subject with a 

 magnificence that the most cold-blooded philosopher cannot but 

 appreciate. 



Without stepping aside to divert our thoughts into another 

 channel, we must not forget that the history of earthquakes is 

 full of the gravest and most exciting of all reflections. We have 

 the authority of sacred and profane records for the evidence of 

 the truth, that if the Creator has designed derangements in the 

 earth's organism for the carrying out of his merciful designs for 

 the advantage of man, so has He in store means in them for 

 calamities, trouble, and alarm, the times of which (as we are 

 convinced by the failure of our efforts to solve the difficulties 

 presented to us) are in His own hands. 



If geologists are now full of speculations as to the entombed 

 relics of ancient generations of creatures sepulchred in the solid 

 masses of the earth's crust, what might not (as has often been 

 said) be their deductions could they reach the confused heaps of 

 men and animals buried in the sea, or sunk into the depths of 

 the earth suddenly opened for them ! Thousands — tens of thou- 

 sands, hundreds of thousands- — of human beings have perished 

 by earthquakes. And " if," to use the words of a careful inves- 

 tigator of the scientific part of the subject, " we suppose but one 

 great earthquake in three years over the whole earth, and that 

 this involves the entombment of only 10,000 human beings ; and 

 that such has been the economy of our system for the last 4000 

 years, then we shall have a number representing above 13,000,000 

 of men thus suddenly swallowed up, with countless animals of 

 every lower class. Sir Charles Lyell then with good reason 

 suggests, that even in our own day we may yet find remains of men 

 and of their habitations and implements, thus buried deep and 

 embalmed, as it were, by earthquakes that occurred in the days 

 of Moses and the Ptolemies." " Large, however, as thus would 

 seem to be the gross effects of earthquake action upon the or- 

 ganic world, they are, probably, insignificant in comparison with 

 the aggregate entombment of even man alone, due to the every- 

 day progress of accidental events ; and shipwrecks alone will 



