Shock after shock came in the succeeding decades. One of these destroyed forty thousand persons at Bagdad alone. In 1759, the long list of catastrophes in Asia Minor was increased by one of the most terrible on record. At the first shock the proud Antioch was once more totally destroyed. Within the next forty-five days Baalbec, Sidon, Acre, Foussa, Nazareth, Safit, Tripoli, and scores of lesser towns and villages were almost blotted out. The horrors of that period are too awful for description. Even more fearful, if possible, was the earthquake of 1822, which once more made Antioch a shapeless mass of ruins. Aleppo, Djollib, Riha, Gisser, Chugra, Dieskrich, and Armenas shared a like fate. In the whole pashalic of Aleppo not a house or hut was left standing. Several severe earthquakes have followed during the century. In one, we are told the force of the shocks was so peculiar and powerful that in some places stone walls were converted to heaps of dust or lime. [Illustration: RUINS NEAR NINEVEH.] This record, which is but a partial one, is enough to explain the utterly ruined condition of Baalbec, Palmyra, and many other relics of ancient grandeur. They have contended with a force more terrible than ever was shot or shell of the cannonier. Thousands are familiar with the views of such massive columns and walls of the Temple of Jupiter as are still standing, eighty-four feet high from base to capital. The marvel is, that after such a succession of fearful quakings there is the slightest semblance of their former condition remaining. Terrible as these calamities are, not a great deal beyond the bare fact is known of many of them. To learn more exactly the dreadful capabilities of this stupendous agent, it is necessary to examine European and South American earthquakes that have come directly under the observation of scientific men. From these we may learn more particularly of the details of various fearful shocks. In all Italy, so famed for its warmth and beauty, there is not a more lovely district than Calabria, which lies in the Southern portion of the peninsula. Yet no part of Italy has suffered such great calamities. An earthquake in 1693 shook the whole of Calabria and Sicily, totally destroying sixty towns and villages, and not fewer than one hundred thousand people. Eighteen thousand perished at Catania alone. Forty-eight years later a violent earthquake shattered one hundred and ninety towns in Calabria and completely swallowed up Eufemia, leaving only a stinking lake. But these were before the day of minute scientific observation. In 1783, a series of shocks, unequalled in recent years in violence, began in Calabria and continued through four years. The scene was visited and carefully examined by several able men, and from their accounts a fine conception of the whole may be obtained.