EARTHQUAKES AND THE MOON. From a careful discussion of several thousand earthquakes which have been recorded between 1801 and 1850, and a comparison of the periods at which they occurred with the position of the moon in relation to the earth, M. Perry, of Dijon, infers that earthquakes may possibly be the result of attraction exerted by that body on the supposed fluid centre of our globe, somewhat similar to that which she exercises on the waters of the ocean; and the Committee of the Institute of France have reported favourably upon this theory. THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF LISBON. The eloquent Humboldt remarks, that the activity of an igneous mountain, however terrific and picturesque the spectacle may be which it presents to our contemplation, is always limited to a very small space. It is far otherwise with earthquakes, which, although scarcely perceptible to the eye, nevertheless simultaneously propagate their waves to a distance of many thousand miles. The great earthquake which destroyed the city of Lisbon, November 1st, 1755, was felt in the Alps, on the coast of Sweden, into the Antilles, Antigua, Barbadoes, and Martinique; in the great Canadian lakes, in Thuringia, in the flat country of northern Germany, and in the small inland lakes on the shores of the Baltic. Remote springs were interrupted in their flow,--a phenomenon attending earthquakes which had been noticed among the ancients by Demetrius the Callatian. The hot springs of Töplitz dried up and returned, inundating every thing around, and having their waters coloured with iron ochre. At Cadiz, the sea rose to an elevation of sixty-four feet; while in the Antilles, where the tide usually rises only from twenty-six to twenty-eight inches, it suddenly rose about twenty feet, the water being of an inky blackness. It has been computed that, on November 1st, 1755, a portion of the earth’s surface four times greater than that of Europe was simultaneously shaken.[31] As yet there is no manifestation of force known to us (says the vivid denunciation of the philosopher), including even the murderous invention of our own race, by which a greater number of people have been killed in the short space of a few minutes: 60,000 were destroyed in Sicily in 1693, from 30,000 to 40,000 in the earthquake of Riobamba in 1797, and probably five times as many in Asia Minor and Syria under Tiberius and Justinian the elder, about the years 19 and 526. GEOLOGICAL AGE OF THE DIAMOND.