“It is to earthquakes, rather than to barbarians, from the fifth to the ninth century, that Rome owed the loss of so many superb palaces and temples. One might imagine that in these great disasters, the architect is the ally of the subterranean scourge. The Indian’s hut and the Arab’s tent, may be overturned without any great loss or injury to their owners; but the marble of the patrician crushes him as it falls, and the inhabitants of a great city meet their death under the ruins of their sumptuous buildings. The Peruvians of old were not far wrong in making merry at the folly of their Spanish conquerors, who, in erecting great buildings upon a soil so constantly agitated, were preparing, at great expense, their own tombs.” It will be shown, by and by, how the motions of earthquakes are becoming so carefully noted that their path can be pointed out beforehand. Ere many years are past, the prediction of earthquakes may become as important a feature of the Signal Service Department, as the foretelling of storms. CHAPTER XXIV. EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. “The thunder roared his signal to the sea, While shook the frightened earth through all her coasts, And mountains bowed their trembling heads in awe, And yawning gulfs leaped up amid the plains. The fountains of the mighty deep were rent, The waves, long prisoned in their rocky bounds, Roared, in a strange new freedom rushing forth, And sprang on forest, plain, and mount, and hill, and vale, Exulting in destruction; while the frightened hordes Of men, with birds and beasts of every sort, Fought each with each for refuge from the flood, Yet none escaped.” Records and myths of great earthquakes go back almost to prehistoric times. The Greeks tell of an immense flood--perhaps a sea wave--which overwhelmed Attica immediately after an earthquake in the nineteenth century before Christ. It is known as the deluge of Ogyges, from the name of the reigning king. Some three centuries later is the story of a great earthquake and flood in Thessaly, from which Deucalion and Pyrrha escaped. There is a still vaguer legend of an immense earthquake about 2400 B. C., that shook all Southern Europe, and Asia Minor, opening an outlet for the Black Sea, which had before been entirely inland. In the convulsion of the seas, we are told almost all the people of Greece and Asia Minor perished. Chinese traditions and monuments tell of an immense earthquake at the same period, which suddenly raised the bottom of the great Northern Sea, pouring its waters out upon all North China and drowning the people. Where the great sea once was is now the great Mongolian Desert. [Illustration: THE DELUGE.]