So long as superstitious ideas prevail among a multitude of people, it is not surprising that they find portentous signs in earth and sky betokening the near approach of the dread visitation. This is naturally increased by the desire to have due warning. The ancient Greeks were especially anxious in this regard. So we find one of their grave geographers, Pausanias, declaring that earthquakes are preceded by unusual rain or drought, eclipses, sudden disappearing of springs, great hurricanes, fiery apparitions in the sky with long trains of light, and the appearance of new stars in the sky. The people of Mendoza, South America, when overtaken by a great earthquake, suddenly remembered that but a short time before, a flaming meteor of a brilliant blue color and awful appearance had hissed past their town. So before the Riobamba earthquake, a brilliant shower of meteors took place; so, also, at the Cumana earthquake. At other times the weather has been unusually rainy; again, long drought has prevailed. Sometimes springs have become suddenly muddy, and cleared as suddenly after the shock. Again, muddy streams have become clear till the shock passed. Again, we are told that all animals manifest great fear before the earthquake comes; that lizards, snakes, mice and rats rush from their holes in terror. Doubtless many smaller animals perceive tremors of the earth that pass unnoticed by men; but as to the efficacy of such signs in general, it is suggestive of Hotspur’s reply to Glendower. The fiery Welshman, endeavoring to prove that he, too, is some great one, asserts that at his nativity “The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets: and at my birth, The frame and huge foundations of the earth Shaked like a coward.” To which Hotspur answers: “Why, so it would have done, At the same season if your mother’s cat Had kittened, and yourself had ne’er been born!”