The Great Galveston Disaster: Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of De — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Great Galveston Disaster: Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of De
John Stuart Mill · en
One of the oldest and prettiest traditions in the world is that which
tells of a submerged city somewhere on the Scandinavian coast, the
minarets and towers of which poets can see reflected in the waters at
sunset, and the bells of which musicians, with ears divinely attuned to
concordant sounds, can hear at vespers. Without either the poet’s eye or
the musician’s ear it is still possible to conclude that traditions
which have survived so many centuries, and which contradict nothing of
the exact truth of science as to original causes, may be as well trusted
as science when it begins to speculate, which is all it does when it
seeks to prove that the Scandinavian fiords were in the country before
the Scandinavian himself.
[Illustration:
HON. JOSEPH D. SAYERS
GOVERNOR OF TEXAS]
[Illustration:
SHOWING TERRIBLE DEVASTATION ON AVENUE 1. BETWEEN TWELFTH AND
THIRTEENTH STREETS]
[Illustration:
THE JOHN SEALY HOSPITAL, GALVESTON]
[Illustration:
A RESIDENCE CARRIED FROM ITS FOUNDATION BY THE RUSH OF WATERS]
[Illustration:
REMOVING DEAD BODIES TO THE BARGES FOR BURIAL AT SEA]
[Illustration:
GENERAL VIEW ALONG THE GALVESTON BEACH AFTER THE FLOOD]
[Illustration:
CREMATING BODIES EXCAVATED FROM THE RUINS]
[Illustration:
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, GALVESTON, DAMAGED BY THE
FLOOD]
STORY OF THE LOST ATLANTIS.
The world, with the lapse of centuries, has not even been able to
outgrow the tradition of the lost Atlantis. Perhaps this is the oldest
of all traditions of cataclysms which have blotted out cities and
continents. It may be that it is because this one comes handed down to
us from the illustrous hand of Plato that we yield to it a veneration
which prolongs its life. Certainly it can never be more than tradition,
without a return to the ages of miracles. Our lately found expertness in
deep sea soundings have given us no new light on Atlantis.
And yet we cling to the old story, and are loath to turn from the
spectacle of a continent in the agonies of a watery burial, or to take
down from the walls of our brain cells the pictures of a submerged world
in which sea moss trails over and around great temples and monuments.
More than half the world believes that there is a lost Atlantis. The
Egyptians believed so, long before Plato’s day. It is in the mouth of an
Egyptian priest, talking to Solon, that Plato puts the description of
the vanished land. That description makes of Atlantis a land larger than
the Texas of to-day.
BELIEVED THE SEA HAD CONCEALED A LAND.
The Greek philosopher located it off the shores of North Africa, a
little to the southwest of Gibraltar. The Platonian description of the
interior of the Atlantis of ancient times is surpassingly beautiful, but
not more so than the rare imaginative power with which Plato writes of
the country and its people, a most fabulous and engaging history.