In 115, of the Christian era, Antioch in Syria, “Queen of the East,” beautiful in itself, and beautiful for situation, a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, was utterly ruined by earthquake. Afterward rebuilt, in more than all its ancient splendor, by Trajan, the tide of life and wealth again flowed into it, and for centuries we read of no serious disasters of the kind. All apprehension of danger removed, the people became famous for luxurious refinements, and, strangely enough, seem to have united high intellectual qualities with a passionate fondness for amusements. In 458 the city was again terribly shaken, and twice in the sixth century. Each time the destruction was nearly complete; but each time, in less than a century, the city was restored again, but only to stand until 1822, and from that overthrow it has never recovered, being now a miserable town of only six thousand inhabitants. The destruction of five populous cities, on one site, involved a fearful loss of life. Probably more than half a million thus perished. The most destructive earthquake in that, or any other locality, of which we find any mention, was in 562. An immense number of strangers being in attendance at the festival of the Ascension, added to the multitudes belonging to the city. Gibbon estimates that two hundred and fifty thousand persons were buried in the ruins. Among the earliest accounts of earthquakes having particular interest, is the familiar one of that which destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii in the year 63—about sixteen years before those cities were buried in scoria and ashes from Vesuvius. Of modern earthquakes three or four are here mentioned as presenting some interesting phenomena. That of Chili, in 1822, caused the permanent elevation of the country between the Andes and the coast. The area thus raised is estimated at one hundred thousand square miles, and the elevation from two to seven feet. Shore lines, at higher levels, indicate several previous upheavals of the same region, along about the same lines. The opposite of this, a depression of land, was occasioned in the island of Jamaica in 1692, when Port Royal, the capital, was overwhelmed. A thousand acres or more thus sank in less than one minute, the sea rolling in and driving the vessels that were in the harbor over the tops of the houses.