winter months many fires which sweep away from 100 to 500 houses. In one winter I was a spectator of three fires, each of which was said to have destroyed upwards of 10,000 houses. Although it would appear that the smaller earthquakes of Japan produce no visible effect upon the native buildings, it is nevertheless probable that small effects may have been produced, the observation of which is rendered difficult by the nature of the structure. If we look at buildings of foreign construction, by which are meant buildings of brick and stone, the picture before us is quite different, and everywhere the effects of earthquakes are palpable even to the most casual observer. Of these effects numerous examples have already been given. Not only are these buildings damaged by the cracking of walls and the overturning of chimneys, but they also appear to be affected internally. For instance, in the timbers of the roof of the museum attached to the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokio, there are a number of diagonal faces acting as struts or ties intended to prevent more or less horizontal movements taking place. Those which are rigidly joined together with bolts and angle irons have apparently suffered from their rigidity, being twisted and bent into various forms. The buildings in Tokio, which are strongly put together, being especially designed to withstand earthquakes, appear to have suffered but little. I know only one example which at the time of the severe shock of 1880 had several of its chimneys damaged. The ordinary houses in Italy, though built of stone and mortar, are but poorly put together, and, as Mallet has remarked, are in no way adapted to withstand the frightful shakings to which they are subjected from time to time. In the large towns, like Naples, Rome, and Florence, where happily earthquakes are of rare occurrence, although the building may be better than that found in the country, the height of the houses and the narrowness of the streets are sufficient to create a shudder, when we think of the possibility of the occurrence of a moderately severe earthquake. In South America, although many buildings are built with brick and stone, the ordinary houses, and even the larger edifices, are specially built to withstand earthquakes. In Mr. James Douglas’s account of a ‘Journey Along the West Coast of South America,’ we read the following[25]: ‘The characteristic building material of Guayaquil is bamboo, which grows to many inches in thickness, and which, when cut partially through longitudinally at distances of an inch or so, and once quite through, can be opened out into fine elastic boards of serviceable width. Houses, and even churches, of a certain primitive beauty are built of such reeds, so bound together with cords that few nails enter into the construction, and which, therefore, yield so readily to the contortions of the earth during an earthquake as to be comparatively safe.’