The great earthquake at Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, was in 1755. “The ominous rumbling sound below the surface was almost immediately followed by the shock which threw down the principal part of the city; in the short space of six minutes, it is believed, 60,000 perished. The sea rolled back, leaving the bar dry, and then returned, in a great tidal wave, fifty feet, or more, in height. The mountains around were shaken with great violence, their rocks rent, and thrown in fragments into the valley below. Multitudes of people rushed from their falling buildings to the marble quay, which suddenly sank with them, like a ship foundering at sea; and when the waters closed over the place no fragments of the wreck—none of the vessels near by, that were drawn into the whirlpool, and not one of the thousands of the bodies that were carried down ever appeared again. Over the spot occupied by the quay, the water stood six hundred feet deep; and beneath it, locked in fissured rocks, and in chasms of unknown depth, lie what was the life and wealth of the place, in the middle of the eighteenth century.” Earthquakes, of especial interest, from their recent occurrence and destructive effects, are those of 1857-58, in the kingdom of Naples, and in Mexico; but we have not room to more than mention them. The past summer will be remembered as the period of at least two terrible disasters from earthquakes, in localities distant from each other. The first, July 28, was at Ischia, a beautiful island at the north entrance of the bay of Naples. The principal town, Cassamicciola, was mostly destroyed, and much injury done at other places. The town was a noted health resort, and it is feared many distinguished strangers perished in it. The shocks began in the night, when a majority of the citizens, who frequent such places, were in the theater, and the scene there was terrible. Lamps were overturned; clouds of dust arose, and then the walls of the building opened, and fell, giving no opportunity for escape. The ground opened in many places, and houses and their inhabitants were swallowed up. The hotel Picola Sentinella sank into the earth, with all its inmates. The number destroyed, first estimated at three thousand, was much larger, but how much is not yet certainly known. Years must elapse before the town is restored, when it will be with a new class of inhabitants.