ESSAY ONE (1756) {1.429-61}*
HISTORY
AND
PHYSIOGRAPHY1*
OF THE
MOST REMARKABLE CASES
OF THE
EARTHQUAKE
WHICH TOWARDS THE END OF THE YEAR 1755 SHOOK
A GREAT PART OF THE EARTH.
{431} Nature has not spread everywhere, in vain, a treasure of
rarities for contemplation and admiration. Man, who is intrusted with the
economy [Haushaltung] of the earth, [not only] possesses a capacity, [but]
also takes pleasure in learning to know it, and through his insights
praises2 the Creator. Even the terrible instruments of the visitation of the
human species, the shakings of countries, the raging of the ocean that is
[violently] agitated to its [very] bottom, the fire-spewing mountains,3
summon men to the contemplation of [nature], and are not less implanted in
nature by God as a just consequence of constant laws than other usual
causes of incommodity,4 which are held to be more natural only because
we are better acquainted with them.
The contemplation of such dreadful events is edifying [lehrreich]. It
humbles man by showing him that he has no right, or at least that he has
lost it, to expect convenient consequences only from the laws of nature,
which God has ordered, and he also perhaps learns in this manner to
perspect [einsehen]: that this arena [Tummelplatz] of his desires ought not
equitably to contain the aim of all his views.
++++
* [Throughout these four essays, all notes appearing at the foot of the page
are Kant's, aside from this one. The translators' and editors' notes are
numbered and appear on pp.53-68. See the Note appended to the Table of
Contents for further information.]
++++
PREPARATION.
Of the Nature of the Earth in its Interior.
We know pretty completely the surface of the earth, when the
ampliation5 is concerned. But we have under our feet a world still, with
which we at present are but very little acquainted. The mountain-divides
which open unfathomable clefts6 to our plummet, {432} the caverns which
we meet with in the bowels [Innern] of the mountains, the deepest shafts of
the mines that we enlarge throughout7 centuries, are by far insufficient to
procure us distinct knowledge of the internal structure of the great lump8 we
inhabit.
The greatest depth to which men have descended from the highest
plane of the terra firma9 does not yet amount to 500 fathoms, i.e. not
yet the six thousandth part of the distance to the centre of the earth, and yet
these vaults still find themselves10 in the mountains, and even all terra firma
is a mountain, in which, in order to arrive but at an equal depth with the
bottom of the sea, one must go down at least thrice as deep.
But what nature hides from our eye and from our immediate essays
[Versuchen], she herself discovers by her effects. The earthquakes have
revealed to us that the surface of the earth is full of vaults [Wlbungen] and
cavities, and that under our feet hidden mines with various labyrinths run
everywhere. The progress [Verfolg] of the history of earthquakes will put
this beyond a doubt. These cavities we have to ascribe to the very same
cause which prepared the beds for the seas; for it is certain, when one [is in-
formed] of the remains which the ocean left behind by its former stay
over the whole terra firma, of the immense [unermelichen] heaps of mus-
sels that are found even in the bowels of the mountains, of the petrified sea
animals which are brought up from the deepest shafts, I say, when one is
but in some measure informed [unterrichtet] of all these, one may easily
perspect that firstly, a long time ago,11 the sea covered all the land, that its
stay continued long and is older than the deluge,12 and that finally, the
water could not possibly have drawn back13 otherwise than by its bottom
here and there sinking into deep vaults, and preparing the same deep basin,
into which it has run, and between whose brims it is at present still con-
fined [beschrnkt erhalten wird], while the elevated parts of this sunk-in
crust [Rinde] have become terra firma, which is everywhere undermined by
cavities and whose tract is occupied by the steep ridges [Gipfeln], which
under the name of mountains run through the highest heights of the terra
firma14 according to all those directions in which it extends itself to any
considerable length.
{433} All these cavities contain a glowing fire, or at least that com-
bustible matter [Zeug] which requires but a small stimulation in order to
rage with violence around it15 and to shake or even to split the earth
[Boden] above it.
When we consider the territory of this subterraneous fire in the
whole area16 in which it extends, we must allow that there are few
countries upon the earth which have not sometimes felt its effect. The island
of Iceland in the remotest [part of the] north is subjected, and indeed not
seldom, to its most violent shocks. In England and even Sweden there have
been a few gentle [leichte] concussions. They are however to be found in
the southern countries, I mean,17 in those that lie nearer the equator, more
frequent and stronger. Italy, the islands of all the seas which lie near the
equinoctial line [Mittellinie], chiefly those in the Indian Ocean, are
frequently disturbed by this agitation of their floor.18 Among the latter
there is scarcely a single one that has not a mountain which either at
present spews fire19 sometimes still, or at least did formerly [spew fire],
and they are just as frequently20 subjected to concussion. It is an
agreeable21 precaution, if we [may] believe Hbners' account of it,22 that
the Dutch take in order not to expose the valuable spices of nutmegs and
cloves, which they allow to be cultivated on both the islands of Banda and
Amboina only, to the danger of being extirpated from the earth if
something like the fate of a total destruction by an earthquake should hap-
pen to these islands, by always maintaining23 a nursery of both plants upon
another island at a great distance from them. Peru and Chili, that lie near
the line, are more frequently tormented by this evil than any other country
in the world. In the former country a day seldom passes without a few
small shocks of an earthquake being felt. One does not imagine that this
may be considered24 as a consequence of the far greater heat of the sun,
which acts upon the earth of these countries. In a cave [Keller] that is hardly
40 feet deep, there is almost no25 difference to be distinguished between
summer and winter. So little is the solar heat able to penetrate the earth to
great depths, in order to allure26 the inflammable matter and to put [it] into
commotion. The earthquakes rather accommodate themselves to the nature
of the subterranean vaults and these to those laws, according to which must
have taken place at the beginning the sinkings of the uppermost crust of the
earth, and which, the nearer {434} to the line, have made the deeper and
more various bendings inwards [Einbeugungen], whereby these mines that
contain the tinder for the earthquakes are grown more extensive and thereby
fitter for its incension [Entzndung].
This preparation [by what we have said] of the subterraneous
passages is of no small importance to the insight of that which will
afterwards occur[:] of the wide extending of earthquakes in great
countries, of the tracks they pursue, of the places where they rage the most,
and of those where they first begin.27
I [shall] now capture28 the history of the latest earthquake29 itself. I
understand by it no history of the misfortunes which men have thereby suf-
fered, no list of cities destroyed and inhabitants buried under their ruins.
Everything horrible which the imagination can represent to itself must be
collected in order in some measure to exemplify30 to one's self the con-
sternation [das Entsetzen] in which men must be when the earth under their
feet moves [and is torn with convulsions], when everything around them
falls [to the ground], when the water put in violent motion31 makes the
misfortune complete by overflowing, when the fear of death, the despair on
account of the total loss of all property, [and] finally the sight of others'
misery, discourage32 the most steadfast mind [Muth]. Such a narrative
would be moving, it would, as it has an effect on the heart, perhaps like-
wise enable one to have self-improvement.33 But I leave this history to
more able hands. I [shall] here describe the work of nature only, the re-
markable natural circumstances which accompanied the dreadful event, and
their causes.
Of the Forerunners of the Latest Earthquake.
I look upon the prelude of the subterranean inflammation, that after-
wards grew so amazing, to be the atmospheric phenomenon34 which was
perceived at Locarno in Switzerland on the 14th October last year35 at 8
o'clock in the morning. A warm vapour, as if coming out of an oven, dif-
fused itself and in two hours turned into a red fog, which towards evening
occasioned a rain red as blood, that, when it was caught, deposited 1/9 of a
reddish gluey sediment. The snow six feet deep was likewise tinged red.
This purple rain was perceived [at] 40 hours, that is,36 [to extend] about
20 German miles in quadratum, yes,37 even to Schwaben. On this atmo-
spheric phenomenon followed {435} unnatural downpours,38 that in three
days gave 23 inches of water,39 which is more than falls throughout the
whole year in a country of a moderately damp nature. This rain continued
over40 14 days, though not always with the same violence. The rivers in
Lombardy that have their source in the mountains of Switzerland, as also
the Rhone, swelled with water and overflowed their banks. From this time
prevailed in the air frightful hurricanes, which raged everywhere furiously.
In the middle of November such a purple rain still fell in Ulm, and the
disorder in the atmosphere, the whirlwinds in Italy, [and] the extremely wet
weather continued.
If we would form a conception of the causes of this phenomenon
and of its consequences, then we must attend to41 the nature of the
ground upon which it happened. All the mountains of Switzerland contain
extensive clefts beneath them, which without doubt are connected with the
deepest subterraneous passages. Scheuchzer numbers nearly 20 gulfs,
which at certain times emit wind.42 If we now suppose that the mineral
substances hidden in the interior of these cavities are mixed and thereby
occasion, with those fluidities with which they effervesce [aufbrausen], an
internal fermentation which may prepare the materials nourishing the fire for
that inflammation that within a few days is to break out entirely; if we, e.g.
represent to ourselves that acid which is contained [steckt] in the spirit of
nitre, and which nature herself necessarily prepares, how it, put in motion
either by the afflux [Zuflu] of water or by other causes, attacked the earth
containing iron [die Eisenerde] upon which it fell, then these substances
must have been heated by their being mixed, and have ejected red warm
vapours from the clefts of the mountains, wherewith by the violence of the
ebullition [Aufwallung] the particles of the red earth containing iron were at
the same time mingled and carried away, which occasioned the gluey rain,
[red as] blood, of which we have made mention. The nature of such
vapours tends [geht dahin] to diminish the expansive power of the air, and
even thereby to make the water vapours43 suspended in it run together, as
also, by the attraction of all the humid clouds floating in the ambient [rund
umher] atmosphere, by means of the natural declivity [Abhanges] towards
the region where the height of the columns of air is lessened, to occasion
that violent and constant downpour44 which has been perceived in the
aforementioned countries.
In this manner the subterranean fermentation {436} previously an-
nounced, by ejected vapours, the misfortune which it prepared in secret.*
++++
{436} *Eight days before the concussion the ground [Erde] near Cdiz was
covered by a multitude of worms that had crept out of the earth. Only the
adduced [angefhrte] cause drove them out. Of several other earthquakes,
violent lightning in the air and the fear that one notices in animals52 have
been the precursors.
++++
The achievement of destiny followed after it with slow steps. A fermenta-
tion does not immediately break out into inflammation. The fermenting and
heating substances, in order to produce incension, must meet with a com-
bustible oil, sulphur, bitumen,45 or something of the same [sort]. As long
as the heating extends itself here and there in the subterraneous passages,
and the moment when the dissolved combustible substances are heated in
the mixture with the others up to the point46 to catch fire, the vaults of the
earth are shaken, and the decree [Schlu] of the fates is fulfilled.
The Earthquake and the Agitation of the Water
of the 1st November 1755.
The moment at which this shock happened seems to be the most
accurately determined at 50 minutes [past] 9 o'clock a.m. at Lisbon, this
time agreeing exactly with that at which it was perceived in Madrid,
namely, from 17 to 18 minutes [after] 10 o'clock, when the difference of
latitude of both cities is turned into the difference of time. At the same time
the waters, both those that have a visible connection47 with the ocean and
those that may be of a hidden kind,48 were shaken to an astonishing area.
From Abo in Finland to the archipelago of the West Indies few or no coasts
were free from it. At almost just the same time it controlled49 a tract of
1500 [German] miles. Were one assured that the time at which it was felt at
Glckstadt on the Elbe might according to the public accounts be fixed very
precisely at 30 minutes [past] 11 o'clock, it would thence be concluded that
the agitation of the water took 15 minutes to come from Lisbon to the coasts
of Holstein. At this very time it was likewise felt on all the coasts of the
Mediterranean Sea, and its whole extent50 is not yet known.
The waters on the terra firma that appear to be deprived of every
connection with the sea, the well-springs,51 the lakes, {437} were at the
same time put into an extraordinary commotion [Regung] in many countries
far distant from one another. Most of the lakes in Switzerland, the lake near
Templin in the March, some lakes in Norway and Sweden, were put into an
undulation [eine wallende Bewegung] that was far more boisterous and
irregular than in a storm, and the air was at the same time calm. The lake of
Neuschatel, if we may rely upon the accounts thereof, ran into hidden
clefts, and that of Meiningen also did this, but soon came back
again.53 At this very moment the mineral water of Tplitz in Bohemia
suddenly stopped [blieb ... aus], and returned [kam ... wieder] red as
blood. The force with which the water was driven widened its old passage,
and it thereby acquired a greater afflux. The inhabitants of this place had
good [reason] to sing te Deum laudamus,54 while those of Lisbon struck
up55 quite other tones. Such is [the nature of] the incidents that befall the
human species. The joys of the one and the misfortunes of the other have
frequently a common cause. In the kingdom of Fez in Africa, a subterrane-
ous power split a mountain and poured a blood-red stream56 out of its
gulf. Near Angoulme in France a subterraneal noise was heard, a deep
vault opened itself on the plain and contained in it unfathomable water. At
Gmenos in Provence, a spring grew suddenly slimy and ran afterwards [of
a] reddish colour. The surrounding countries gave notice of similar
alterations in their springs. All these took place at the same minute that the
earthquake laid waste the coasts of Portugal. Here and there during even
this short term of time [Zeitpunkte] a few concussions of the earth were
perceived in far distant countries. But they almost all happened close to the
seacoast. At Cork in Ireland, as also at Glckstadt and at several other
places that lie near the sea, small quakings happened. Milan is perhaps at the
greatest distance from the seashore of any place that was shaken on just
the same day. [On] just this morning at 8 o'clock [Mount] Vesuvio
raged near Naples and was quiet towards the time when the concussions
happened at Portugal.
Contemplation of the Cause of this Agitation
of the Water.
History affords no example of a commotion [Rttelung] of all the
[bodies of] water and of a great part of the earth so extensive and at the
same time in the course of a few minutes. Hence circumspection57 {438} is
necessary, in order to gather the cause of it from a single case. The fol-
lowing causes, especially, which may have produced the quoted58 event of
nature, may be conceived: either firstly, by a concussion of the bottom of
the sea everywhere immediately under those places where the sea was
shaken, and then a reason must be given why the veins of fire which pro-
duced these concussions run merely under the bottom of the seas, without
extending themselves under the countries that are more nearly conjoined
with these seas and frequently break off their connection.59 One would find
himself perplexed by the question, Whence the concussion of the bottom, as
it extended itself from Glckstadt on the North Sea to Lbeck in the east and
to the coasts of Mecklenburg, was not felt in Holstein, which lies in the
middle between these seas, and where only perhaps a slight shaking was
thought to be felt near the coast,60 but none in the interior [parts] of the
country. But one is the most distinctly convinced by the undulation of the
water far distant from the sea, as of the lake of Templin, of those in
Switzerland and others. It may be easily imagined that, in order to put a
[body of] water into such a powerful ebullition61 by the shaking of the
bottom, the concussion must certainly not be small. But why did not all the
circumjacent [umliegende] countries, under which the vein of fire must of
necessity have run, feel this powerful shock? It is easily seen that all the
criteria of truth are contrary to this opinion. A concussion which is im-
pressed around on the solid mass of the earth itself by a violent jolt62 hap-
pening at a place, just as the ground shakes at some63 distance when a
powdermill blows up, in the application to this case likewise loses all
probability, as well from the cause already mentioned64 as on account of
the dreadful area65 which, when it is compared with the area of the whole
earth, makes up a part of it so considerable that its66 concussion must
necessarily draw after it a shaking of the whole globe. But we may now
learn from Buffon that an eruption of subterraneous fire, which a mountain
that were 1700 miles long and 40 broad might throw a mile high, could
not displace the earth a thumb's breadth from its position.67
We have then to seek the extending of this agitation of the water in a
{439} medium that is fitter for communicating a concussion to great dis-
tances, namely, in the water of the sea itself, which is in connection with
that which is put into a violent and sudden commotion by an immediate
shaking of the bottom of the sea.
In the Knigsberg Weekly News68 I have endeavoured to estimate
the force wherewith the sea is pushed on in the whole area by the jolt
proceeding from the concussion of its bottom, by supposing the shaken
place of the bottom of the sea [to be] but as a square whose side is equal to
the distance between Cape St. Vincent and Cape Finisterre, i.e. the length of
the west coasts of Portugal and Spain, and considering the force of the
rising ground [to be] like that of a mine of powder, which in blowing
up69 is able to throw the bodies that are situated upon it 15 feet high, and,
according to the rules by which the motion in a fluid substance70 is
continuous, I found it greater on the coasts of Holstein than the most
rapidly advancing current.71 Let us here contemplate from yet another
point of view the force which it used from72 these causes. By [using] the
plumb-line Count Marsigli found the greatest depth of the Mediterranean
Sea [to be] over 8000 feet,73 and it is certain that the ocean at a proper
distance from the land is yet deeper; but we shall here suppose 6000 feet
only, i.e. 1000 fathoms deep. We know that the weight with which such a
high column of seawater presses upon the bottom of the sea must exceed
almost 200 times the pressure of the atmosphere, and that it still far exceeds
the force of the fire behind a ball which is projected 100 fathoms away74
from the cavity of a cannon in the time of a [heart]beat.75 This prodigious
weight could not hold back76 the force with which the subterraneous fire
quickly ascended upwards, consequently this vix motrix77 was greater.
By what pressure then was the water compressed,78 in order to shoot out79
suddenly towards the sides? and is it quite astonishing, if within a few
minutes it is felt both in Finland and at the same time in the West Indies? It
cannot at all be80 made out, how great the base of the immediate concussion
may in fact have been; it is perhaps incomparably81 greater than we have
assumed it; but among the seas where the agitation of the water was felt
without any earthquake, on the coasts of Holland, England, [and] Norway
and on the east sea, {440} it was certainly not to be met with in the bottom
of the sea. For then the terra firma [too] would have certainly been shaken
in its interior [parts], but which was by no means observed.
Though I ascribe the violent concussion of all the connected82 parts
of the ocean to the single shock which its bottom suffered in a certain dis-
trict,83 I do not mean for this reason84 to deny the actual diffusion of the
subterraneous fire under the terra firma of almost all Europe. In all probabil-
ity they happened at the same time, and both had a part in the phenomena
that came to pass, only that each one in particular is not [to be] considered
as the sole cause of [them] all together. The commotion of the water in the
North Sea, which occasioned [empfinden lie] a sudden shock, was not the
effect of an earthquake raging under the bottom. Such concussions must be
very violent in order to produce the like effect, and must have therefore been
very sensibly felt under the terra firma. But I do not deny for this reason85
that even all terra firma is put into a gentle vacillancy by a weak power of
vapours inflamed under its bottom or [by] other causes. This is seen
with [regard to] Milan, which was threatened on this same day with the
greatest danger of a total overthrow. We shall then lay down [setzen] that
the earth was by a gentle vacillation put into an easy motion, which was so
great that at 100 Rhineland rods86 it shook the earth [das Erdreich]
alternatively backwards and forwards by87 an inch: and this motion
would be so insensible that a building of 4 rods high could not thereby be
put out of the perpendicular position by [more than] half a grain, i.e. by
a half of the back of a knife, which even on the highest towers would be
scarcely perceptible. On the other hand,88 the lakes must have rendered this
insensible motion very perceptible. For if a lake is e.g. but 2 German
miles long, then its water would certainly be very strongly shaken by
this small waver89 of its bottom; for the water then has in 14000 inches
about an inch of fall, and a run-off which is nearly only about the half
smaller than the run-off of a very rapid river, as the levelling of the water
of the Seine near Paris may teach us, which, after a few vibrations hap-
pened now and then90 may have well occasioned an extraordinary shaking
of the water. But we may with good reason assume the motion of the earth
{441} as great again, as we have done, without its consequently91 being
felt on the terra firma, and then the motion of the inland lakes is the more
[obvious and] comprehensible.92
One will therefore no longer be surprised93 if all the inland lakes
in Switzerland, in Sweden, in Norway and in Germany, without feeling a
shake of the bottom, are seen [to be]94 so troubled and boiling up. But it
is found somewhat extraordinary that certain lakes near this disorder en-
tirely95 dried up, as the lake of Neuschatel, that of Como and that of
Meiningen, though some of them have already96 filled up again. This
event, however, is not without example. There are some lakes upon the
earth which at certain times run out quite regularly97 by hidden canals, and
return at a stated period [zur gesetzten Zeit]. The lake of Cirnitzer in the
Duchy of Carniola is a remarkable instance of this. It has in its bottom a few
holes, through which, however, it does not run off sooner than around St.
James' [Day],98 when it then suddenly drains away with all the fishes
and, after having left its bottom for 3 months as dry as a good meadow or
[und] a field, towards November suddenly appears again.99 This event of
nature is very conceivably explained by the comparison with the diabetes of
the hydraulics.100 But in the cases before us it may be easily imagined that,
as many lakes receive an afflux from the springs situated under their bot-
tom, those [springs] which have their head in the neighbouring heights,
after the effect of the subterraneous heat and evaporation has consumed the
air in the cavities, which are their reservoirs, must thereby have been drawn
into these [cavities] and even have furnished a powerful suction to carry in
with [them] the lake which, after a re-established equilibrium of the air,
sought its natural issue again. For that a lake, as was endeavoured [wollen]
to be explained by the public accounts of the [lake] of Meiningen, is main-
tained by a subterraneous connection with the sea, because it has no external
afflux by brooks,101 is exposed to a very palpable absurdity, as well on
account of the laws of equilibrium opposing it, as likewise on account of
the saltiness of the seawater.
The earthquakes have this [das schon] as something common to
themselves, that they put the sources of water102 into disorder. I could here
produce [anfhren], from the history of other earthquakes, a whole register
of springs that stopped and broke out at another place, of spring-water
gushing very high out of the earth and such {442} like, but I [will] stick
to103 my subject. It has been reported to us104 that in several parts of
France [some] springs have stopped and others discharged an immense
quantity of water. The Tplitz well ran out,105 made the poor inhabitants
[Tplitzern] anxious,106 [and] returned first muddy, then red as blood,
[and] at last natural and stronger than before.107 The coloration of the water
in so many countries, even in the Kingdom of Fez and in France, is in my
opinion108 to be ascribed to the mixture of vapours fallen into fermentation
with sulphur and particles of iron, pressed through the layers109 of earth
where the springs have their passage. When this [mixture]110 penetrates
into the interior parts of the cisterns which contain the source of the well-
spring, [the mixture] either drives [the well-spring] out111 with greater
force or, by pressing the water into other passages, it alters their efflux
[Ausflu].
These are the chief curiosities of the history of the 1st November and
of the agitation of the water, which is the rarest of its details.112 It is ex-
tremely credible to me that the concussions of the earth which happened
close to the seashore, or of a [body of] water that has connection with [the
sea], [e.g.] at Cork in Ireland, in Glckstadt, and here and there in
Spain, are for the most part to be attributed just to the pressure of the
compressed seawater, whose force must be incredibly great when the vio-
lence with which it dashes is multiplied by the plane which it strikes, and I
am of the opinion that the misfortune of Lisbon, as well as that of most of
the [other] cities on the west coast of Europe, is to be ascribed to the situa-
tion which it had with regard to the moved part of the ocean, as its whole
force, strengthened still more113 in the mouth of the Tejo114 by the nar-
rowness of a bay, must extraordinarily shake the bottom. Let it be judged
whether the concussions which were not sensible in the interior of the
country could have been distinctly felt only in the cities which lie near the
seashore,115 if the pressure of the water had not had a share in them.
The last phenomenon of this great event is still remarkable, as a
considerable time, namely, from 1 [hour] to 11/2 hours after the
earthquake, a dreadful accumulation of the water in the ocean and a swelling
up of the Tejo, which alternately rose 6 feet higher than the highest flood
and soon after fell almost as much lower than the lowest ebb, were seen.
This motion of the sea, which took place a considerable time after {443} the
earthquake and after the amazing pressure of the water, also completed the
destruction of the city of Setbal by rising above its remains,116 and totally
ruined what the concussion had spared. When one has previously formed a
just conception of the violence of the seawater pushed forward by the
moved bottom of the sea, he may easily represent to himself that it must,
after its pressure has extended itself through all the immense regions
around, return with power. The time of its return depends on the great area
in which it acted around it, and its ebullition, chiefly near the shores, must
according to that have also been just as terrible.*
The Earthquake of the 18th November.
From the 17th to the 18th of this month, the public accounts gave
notice of a considerable earthquake on the coasts as well of Portugal as of
Spain and in Africa. On the 17th at 12 o'clock [Mittags] it was felt at
Gibraltar near the straits of the Mediterranean Sea, and towards the
evening at Whitehaven in Yorkshire in England. [On] the 17th [and] on
the 18th it was already in the [then] English colonies of America. On the
same 18th it was also violently felt in the neighbourhood of
Aquapendente and della Grotta in Italy.**
++++
{443} *In the harbour of Husum this ebullition of the water was also
perceived between 12 and 1, therefore about an hour later than the first
shock of the water in the North Sea.
{443} **As also at Glowson in the county of Hertford, where with a
violent noise it opened an abyss, in which is contained very deep water.
++++
The Earthquake of the 9th December.
According to the testimony of the public accounts, Lisbon suffered
no shocks117 since the 1st November so violent as those of the 9th Decem-
ber. This [earthquake] was felt on the southern coasts of Spain, on those of
France, through the mountains of Switzerland, Schwaben, and Tyrol as far
as Bavaria. It ranged from southwest to northeast about 300 German miles,
and, keeping in the direction of that chain of mountains which runs along
the greatest height of the terra firma {444} of Europe according to its
length, did not extend itself much sidewards. The most careful geographers,
Waren,118 Buffon, [and] Lulof,119 observe that, just as all land which
extends more in length than in breadth is crossed in the direction of its
length by a principal mountain [Hauptgebirge], so [also] the chief tract of
the mountains of Europe from a head stock [Hauptstamme], namely the
Alps, extends towards the west through the southern provinces of France,
through the middle of Spain to the utmost shore of Europe towards the west
[gegen Abend], though it shoots out on the way considerable collateral
branches, and in like manner to the east, through the Tyrolese and other less
considerable mountains, unites [zusammen stt] at last with the Carpathian
[mountains].
The earthquake ran through [these in] this direction on the same
day. If the time of the concussion of every place were accurately noted,
then the velocity might in some measure be estimated and the situation of
the first inflammation in all probability determined, but the accounts agree
so little, that with regard to them nothing can be relied upon.
I have already mentioned elsewhere that the earthquakes, when
they extend themselves, commonly keep the tract of the highest mountains,
and indeed, through their whole extent, even if these [mountains] degrade
themselves the more,120 the more they approach the seashore. The direc-
tion of long rivers denotes very well the direction of the mountains, when
between them rows of the same [i.e. of rivers] run near each other,121 as
they run on into the lowest part of a long valley. This law of the extension
of earthquakes is not an affair of speculation or of judgment, but is some-
thing that is known by the observation of many earthquakes. The testi-
monies of Ray,122 Buffon, Gentil, etc. must therefore be adhered to. But
this law has of itself so much inner probability, that it also must easily
acquire assent from itself. When one reflects that the openings whereby
the subterraneous fire seeks vent [Ausgang] are nowhere else than in the
summits of the mountains, that gulfs casting out flames are never perceived
in the plains, that in the countries where earthquakes are powerful and
frequent, most of the mountains have wide mouths that serve to eject the
fire, and that, as to our European mountains, roomy cavities, which are no
doubt connected, are nowhere else discovered but in them; [and] when the
conception of the generation of all these subterranean vaults {445}, above
spoken of, is applied to these, then no difficulty will be found in the repre-
sentation, how the inflammation, chiefly under the chain of mountains
which run through the length of Europe, can meet with open and free pas-
sages, in order to extend itself quicker therein than towards other regions.
Even the continuation of the earthquake of the 18th November from
Europe to America under the bottom of a wide sea is to be sought in the
connection of the chain of mountains, which [chain], though in the continu-
ation it grows so low as to be covered by the sea, nevertheless also re-
mains the same mountain, for we know that as many mountains are to be
met with in the bottom of the ocean as upon the land; and in this manner the
Azores Islands, that lie half way between Portugal and North America,
must be placed in this connection.
The Earthquake of the 26th December.
After the incension [Erhitzung] of the mineral substances had
penetrated the main trunk [Hauptstamm] of the highest mountains of
Europe, namely the Alps, it also opened for itself the narrower
passage123 under the row124 of mountains which runs rectangularly from
south to north, and extends itself in the direction of the Rhine, which, like
all rivers in general, occupies a long valley between two rows of hills, from
Switzerland to the North Sea. It shook on the west side of the river the
provinces of Alsace, Lorraine, the electorate of Cologne, Brabant, and
Picardy, and on the east side Cleves, a part of Westphalia, and probably
even a few countries lying on this side of the Rhine, of which the accounts
have not mentioned in detail.125 It evidently kept a tract parallel to the
direction of this great river and extended itself not far from it towards the
sides.
It may be asked how it can accord with the above that126 it [the
earthquake] penetrated as far as into the Netherlands, which are without
any remarkable mountains.127 But it is enough that a country is in an
immediate connection with certain rows of mountains and is considered as a
continuation of them, in order to carry on the subterraneous inflammation
under this otherwise low ground, for it is certain that then the chain of
cavities likewise extends itself under it, in the same manner as it
continues even under the bottom of the sea, as aforesaid. {446}
Of the Intervals that pass between some
Earthquakes following one another.
When the succession128 of the concussions that have happened after
one another is contemplated with attention, then, if one dares to be willing
to conjecture,129 a period might be discovered [herausbringen] in which the
inflammation broke out anew after an intervening cessation. We find after
the 1st November a very violent concussion in Portugal on the 9th as also
on the 18th as it extended towards England, Italy, Africa, and even as far
as to America on the 27th [we find] a strong earthquake on the southern
coasts of Spain, chiefly in Malaga. From this time it continued 13 days, till
it on the 9th December ran through [traf] the whole tract from Portugal as
far as to Bavaria from southwest towards northeast, and since this [time],
at the expiration of 18 days, namely, the 26th to the 27th December, it
shook the breadth of Europe from south to north,* so that, when that time
which it took to penetrate into the bowels [Innerste] of the mountains of our
terra firma, and on the 9th December to move the Alps and the whole length
of their chain, is assumed, in general a pretty exact period of 9 or twice 9
days has passed between the repeated inflammations. I do not produce this
with a view [zu dem Ende] of concluding anything from it, because the
accounts are far too little authentic for that [purpose], but in similar cases in
order to give occasion to more accurate observation and reflection.
I shall here adduce but something in general of the concussions
reciprocally remitting and recommencing. Mr. Bouguer, one of the deputies
of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris to Peru, had the inconvenience
of living130 in this country near a fire-spewing mountain, whose thunder-
ing noise allowed him no rest. The observation which he made on this
[occasion] might give him some satisfaction for [enduring] that
[experience],131 as
++++
{446} *On the 21st it was very violent in Lisbon, on the 23rd in the
mountains of Roussillon, and [it] continued there till the 27th. From this it
may be [ist] seen that it began again from the southwest and indeed
required a much longer time to extend. And when the place of incension,
which is clear from the whole course of the earthquake, is placed in the
ocean of Portugal towards the west, then its beginning is tolerably con-
nected with the period in hand.
++++
he remarked that the mountain was always quiet at equal intervals,132 and
its ragings followed one another in an orderly manner with {447} ex-
changed points of rest. The remark Mariotte made on a limekiln which was
kindled and sometimes ejected the air out of an open window, sometimes
drew it back again, whereby it in some measure imitated the respiration of
animals,133 has a great similarity with this, both depending upon the
following causes. When the subterraneous fire inflames [in Entzndung
gerth], it forces [stt] all the air out of the cavities around it. Where this
air, which is filled with the igneous parts, now finds an opening, e.g. in
the mouth of a fire-spewing mountain, there it then rushes [fhrt] out,
and the mountain casts out flames [Feuer]. But as soon as the air is driven
away from the area of the hearth134 of inflammation, the inflammation
remits, for without the access of air all fire extinguishes; afterwards the air
which was driven away [comes] back again to its place and reignites
[weckt] the extinguished fire, since the cause which had expelled it
ceases[.] [I]n like manner the eruptions of a fire-spewing mountain vary
regularly at certain intervals after each other. It is the same [Eben die
Bewandtni hat es] with the subterraneous inflammations, even where the
expanded air can find no issue through the clefts of the mountains. For
when the inflammation begins at a place in the cavities of the earth, it forces
the air with violence in a great area into all the passages of the subter-
ranean vaults that are connected therewith. At this moment the fire chokes
for want of air. And just as soon as this expansive power of the air remits,
that [air], which was diffused through all the cavities, returns with great
force and blows up [facht ... an] the smothered fire into a new earthquake.
It is remarkable that Vesuvio, which, when the fermentations in the bowels
of the earth began well, was put in motion and set on fire by the issue of the
air forced through his throat,135 suddenly remitted a short time there-
after,136 when the earthquake happened at Lisbon; for all the air standing
in any connection with these vaults, and even that which is situated above
the summit of Vesuvio, rushed [drang] through all the channels to the fire-
hearth of the inflammation, where the diminution of the expansive power
of the air allowed it access. What an astonishing object! To represent to
one's self a chimney which, by air holes137 that are 200 [German] miles
distance from it, furnishes itself with a draught!138
It is also the very same cause, which must produce in the vaults of
the earth subterranean gales,139 whose force, {448} if the situation and
connection of the cavities were suitable to their extension, would far exceed
everything we perceive upon the surface of the earth. The noise that in the
progress of an earthquake is heard [versprt] under the feet is probably to
be attributed to no other cause than just this.
From this we may presume with probability that not just all
earthquakes are occasioned by the inflammation's happening directly under
the ground which is shaken; but that the fury of this subterraneous storm
may put in motion140 the vault that is above them, of which will be the less
doubted when one reflects: that a much denser air than that which is found
upon the surface of the earth may by far more sudden causes than these be
put in motion and, strengthened between passages that impede its
extending, exercise an unheard-of power. It may likewise be presumed that
the slight waver of the ground in the greater part of Europe during the
violent inflammation which happened in the earth on the 1st November is
perhaps to be derived from nothing but this violently agitated subterraneous
air, which like a violent gale gently shook the ground that opposed its
diffusion.
Of the Hearth of the subterraneous Inflamma-
tion, and the Places which are subjected to the
most [frequent] and most dangerous Earthquakes.
By the comparison of the time we learn [ersehen] that the place of in-
cension of the earthquake of the 1st November was in the bottom of the sea.
The Tejo that already swelled before the shake, the sulphur which the
mariner with the plumb-line141 brought up from the shaken bottom, and the
violence of the concussion which [the sailors] felt, confirm it. The history
of former earthquakes makes it likewise clearly known142 that the most
frightful concussions have always happened in the bottom of the sea, and
next to this at the places which lie near the seashore or not far removed
from it. As a proof of the former I produce [fhre] the raging fury, with
which the subterraneous inflammation has frequently raised up new islands
from the bottom of the sea and, e.g. in the year 1720, near the island St.
Michael, one of the Azores, from a depth of sixty fathoms threw up, by an
ejection of matter from the bottom of the sea, an island, which is 1 mile long
and elevated some fathoms above the [surface of] the sea. The island {449}
near Santorino in the Mediterranean Sea, which in our century in the
presence of several persons rose [in die Hhe kam] from the bottom of the
sea, and many other examples, which I pass over in order to avoid [wegen]
prolixity, are unexceptionable143 proofs of this.
How often do not seamen suffer[, so to say,] a seaquake; and in
some regions,144 chiefly in the vicinity of certain islands, the sea is
plentifully filled with pumice and other sorts of ejections of a fire broken out
through the bottom of the ocean. The observation of the numerous
concussions of the bottom of the sea is naturally [natrlicher Weise]
connected with the question: Why of all places of the terra firma none are
subjected to more violent and more frequent earthquakes than those that lie
not far from145 the seashore. This latter proposition has an indubitable
correctness:146 let us run over the history of earthquakes, and we shall find
innumerable misfortunes happen through earthquakes to cities or countries
which are near the seashore, but very few and those of little consequence
that are perceived in the middle of the terra firma. Ancient history already
informs us of dreadful devastations, which this evil [Unheil] has
perpetrated147 upon the seacoasts of Asia Minor or Africa. But neither
among them nor among the more modern [neuern] do we find considerable
concussions in the heart of great countries. Italy, which is a peninsula, most
of the islands of all the seas, that part of Peru which lies near the seashore,
suffer the greatest attacks of this evil [bels]. And in our days all the
western and southern coasts of Portugal and Spain have been shaken far
more than the interior [parts] of the terra firma.148 Of both questions I give
the following solution.
Of all the continuous cavities which are now under the uppermost
crust of the earth, without doubt those which run under the bottom of the
sea must be the narrowest, because there the continued bottom of the terra
firma has sunken down to the greatest depth and must rest much lower
upon its undermost basis than the places that lie towards the middle of the
continent [Landes]. But it was known that in narrow cavities a kindled ex-
pansive matter must act more furiously [heftiger] around it than where it can
extend itself. Besides, it is natural to believe that, as is not to be doubted of
the subterraneous incension, the effervescing mineral and inflammable
substances very often fall into fusion [werden ... in Flu gerathen sein], as
the streams of brimstone and lava which are frequently poured from the fire-
spew{450}ing mountains may show, and therefore, on account of the
natural declivity of the bottom of the subterranean vaults, they [must] have
always run towards the lowest cavities of the bottom of the sea, [and also]
on account of the abundant [hufigen] store of inflammable matter, more
frequent and more powerful concussions must have here happened.
Mr. Bouguer conjectures correctly149 that the penetrating of the
seawater by the opening of a few chinks in the bottom [of the sea] must put
the mineral substances, naturally inclined to inflammation, into the most
violent ebullition.150 For we know that nothing can put [fire-]heated
minerals into a more amazing fury than the afflux of water, which the rage
itself constantly augments,151 till its force extending itself on all sides
prevents the further access of [the water] by ejecting all [sorts of] earthy
substances and stopping up its opening.
In my opinion, the extraordinary violence, with which a [stretch
of] ground lying near the seashore is shaken, stems152 in part very
naturally from the weight wherewith the seawater loads its neighbouring
bottom. For everybody easily perspects [sieht] that the force with which the
subterraneous fire endeavours to raise up this vault, upon which such an
astonishing load153 rests, must be very restrained154 and, as it finds for
itself here no space for its extending, must turn its whole force towards the
bottom of the dry land that is bound next to it.
Of the Direction, according to which the Ground
is shaken by an Earthquake.
The direction according to which the earthquake extends into re-
mote155 countries is different from that according to which the ground on
which it exercises its power is shaken. When the uppermost covering of the
hidden vault, wherein the inflamed matter expands itself, has an horizontal
direction, it must be reciprocally elevated and depressed in a perpendicular
posture, because there is nothing that can turn the motion more to one side
than to another. But if [Ist aber] the layer of earth which constitutes the vault
inclines to one side, then the shaking power of the subterranean fire forces
it too upwards in an oblique direction towards the horizon, and the di-
rection according to {451} which the vacillation of the ground must con-
stantly take place might be decreased,156 if that according to which the
stratum of the earth slopes, under which is situated the gulf of fire, were
always certainly known. The declivity of the uppermost surface of the
shaken ground is no sure criterion of the oblique position, which the vault
has in its whole thickness; for the layers of earth that lie above may form
various bendings and hillocks, to which the undermost foundation by no
means accommodates itself. Buffon is of the opinion: that all the different
strata which are found upon the earth have for a base a universal fundamen-
tal rock [Grundfels], which covers from above all the close deep cavities,
and some parts of which upon the summits of high mountains are com-
monly bare, where rain and gales have totally washed away the loose sub-
stance. This opinion acquires great probability by what earthquakes make
known.157 For a power raging in such a manner as earthquakes exer-
cise158 would by the frequently renewed assaults have long ago destroyed
and rubbed away any other than a rocky vault.
Near the seashore the declivity of this vault is without doubt
inclined towards the sea, and therefore it slopes159 in that direction
according to which the sea lies to the place. Near the bank of a great river it
must be sloped in the direction where the flowing off of the stream goes
for when one contemplates the tracts, very long and frequently surpass-
ing160 some hundred miles, through which the rivers run161 on the terra
firma without forming on the way standing pools or lakes: this uniform
declivity cannot well be explained by anything but by that very [beraus]
firm foundation which, as it uniformly inclines to the bottom of the sea
without manifold162 bendings inward, affords the river an oblique plain for
running off. Hence it is to be presumed: that the vacillation of the ground,
[upon which stands] a shaken city that lies near a great river, happens in the
direction of this river, as in the Tejo from west and east [Abend und Mor-
gen];* but of that which lies near the seashore [the vacillation happens]
in the direction according to which this inclines to the sea. I have elsewhere
mentioned163 what the situation of the ground may contribute to it, {452}
when an earthquake happens, totally destroying a city whose principal
streets run in the same direction as the ground slopes. This remark is not a
sally [Einfall] of mere conjecture; it is a matter of experience. Gentil, who
had occasion to collect excellent knowledge of a great many
earthquakes,164 gives notice of this as an observation which is confirmed
by many examples: that when the direction according to which the ground is
shaken runs parallel with the direction according to which the city is built, it
is quite overthrown, whereas when that [former direction] intersects this
[latter direction] rectangularly, less damage happens.
++++
{451} *Just as a river has a gradual descent [abhngende Schiefe]
towards the sea, so have the countries on the sides a declivity to its bed. If
the latter is valid even of the stratum of the whole earth, and this in the
greatest depths has just such a slope, so also the direction of the
concussion of the earth is determined by these.
++++
The history of the Royal Academy of Paris gives an account: that
when Smyrna, which lies near the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea,
was shaken in the year 1688, all the walls which had the direction from
east to west were thrown down, but those that were built from north to
south remained standing.165
The shaken ground makes, that is, a few vacillations, and moves
by the greatest [degree]166 everything that is erected upon it according
to the length in the direction of the vacillation. All bodies which have a great
mobility, e.g. girandoles167 in churches, during earthquakes [usually]
point out [pflegen ... anzuzeigen] the direction according to which the
shocks happen, and are far surer criteria for a city to determine from them
the position at168 which it must be built, than the somewhat more dubious
characteristics169 already mentioned.
Of the Connection of Earthquakes with the Seasons.
The French academist Mr. Bouguer, [whom we have] already fre-
quently quoted, mentions in his voyage to Peru that, though earthquakes
happen often enough in that country at all seasons, nevertheless the most
dreadful and the most frequent are felt in the autumnal months towards the
end of the year.170 This observation is abundantly confirmed not only in
America, as, besides the destruction of the city Lima 10 years ago and the
sinking of another [city] equally populous in the preceding century, many
instances of it have been noticed, but also in our part of the world, besides
the last earthquake [(of 1755)] we find many examples in history of
concussions and ejections of fire-spewing mountains, which have taken
place more frequently in the autumnal months than in any other season.
Does not a common cause {453} occasion this agreement[?] And on
which [cause] can one cast a more suitable conjecture171 than on the
rains which continue in Peru in the long valley between the Cordillera
mountains from September up to April, and which are likewise the most
frequent with us during autumn?172 We know that, in order to occasion a
subterraneous conflagration [Brand], nothing is necessary except173 to put
in fermentation the mineral substances in the cavities of the earth. But this is
done by water, when it has penetrated into the clefts of the mountains and
run into the deep passages. The rains first stimulated the fermentation,
which in the middle of October forced out of the bowels [Inwendigen] of
the earth so many strange174 vapours. But these drew from the atmosphere
still more humid influxes, and the water, which penetrated through the
chinks of the rocks into the most profound [tiefsten] vaults, finished the
inflammation that was begun.
Of the Influence of Earthquakes on the Atmosphere.
We have above seen an example of the effects which the convulsions
of the earth have on our air.175 It is to be believed that more phenomena of
nature depend upon the eruptions of subterraneous heated vapours than one
quite commonly imagines. It would scarcely be possible that such an ir-
regularity and so little harmony would be met with in the weather condi-
tions176 if extraneous causes did not sometimes step into our atmosphere
and put its proper alterations into disorder. Can indeed a probable
ground be conceived, why, though the course of the sun and of the moon is
always fixed [gebunden] by the self-same laws, [and] though177 water
and earth, if taken in the gross, always remain the same [berein], yet
the course of the weather conditions, even in a procession [lasting]178
many years, almost always turns out179 different? Since the unfortunate
concussion and a little before it we have had, through[out]180 all our part of
the world, so variable a weather condition that one can be excused if one
casts a conjecture on181 the earthquakes on that account. It is true, there has
formerly been182 quite warm weather in winter, without any preced-
ing183 earthquake; but is one then sure that a fermentation in the bowels
of the earth has not very often forced vapours through the clefts of the
rocks, the slits of the layers of earth, and even through their loose sub-
stance, which may have then drawn after them considerable alterations in
the atmosphere {454}? Musschenbrk, after having observed that only in
this century and indeed, since 1716, a very clear aurora borealis [Nord-
lichter] has been seen in Europe and as far as in its southern countries,
holds the probable cause of these alterations in the atmosphere to be that
the fire-spewing mountains and the earthquakes, which some years before
had raged violently, threw out inflammable and volatile fumes which, by
the natural deflux [Abflu] of the highest air, accumulated towards the
north, and produced the fiery phenomena of the air which have since been
so frequently seen, and that in all probability [such phenomena] must
consume [these fumes] by degrees, till new exhalations replace the defi-
ciency again.184
According to these principles let us investigate whether it be not con-
formable to nature that an altered weather condition, like what we have had,
may be a consequence of that catastrophe. The clear weather condition of
winter, and the cold that accompanies it, are not merely a consequence of
the great distance of the sun from our vertex at this season; for we fre-
quently feel that, notwithstanding [that distance], the air may be very
temperate; but the draught of air from the north, which at times is also
deflected185 into an east wind, brings us a chilled186 air from the frigid
zone [Eiszone] that covers our waters with ice and lets us feel a part of the
winter of the North Pole. This draught of air from the north to the south is
so natural in the autumnal and winter187 months, unless foreign causes
interrupt it, that in the ocean at a sufficient distance from all terra firma, this
north- or northeast wind is uninterruptedly met with the whole time
throughout [these months]. It also stems188 quite naturally from the ef-
fect of the sun, which then rarefies the air above the southern hemisphere,
and thereby occasions the draught from the northern: so that this must be
considered as a constant law, which by the nature of the countries may
well in some measure be altered, but not annulled. Now if189 subterra-
neous fermentations eject heated vapours somewhere in the countries that lie
towards our south: then these [vapours] in the beginning will thereby
diminish the height of the atmosphere in the region where they rise, [so]
that they weaken190 its expansive power, and occasion downpours,191
hurricanes, etc. But afterwards [in der Folge] this part of the atmosphere, as
it is loaded with so many fumes, moves the neighbouring [part] by its
weight and occasions a draught of air from south to north. However, as the
effort of the atmosphere in our {455} climate [to move the air]192 at
this season from north to south is natural, both these motions opposing
one another will stop themselves, and there will follow, first, on
account of the fumes [being] forced together, a gloomy, humid air, yet
a high state of the barometer* will follow from it as well,193 because the
air compressed by the conflict of two winds must occasion a high [baro-
metric] column; and one thereby understands [finden lernen] the apparent
irregularity of the barometer, when, notwithstanding the high position194
of the [mercury], there is rainy weather, for then this humidity of the air is
just an effect of two currents of air opposing one another, which collect
the fumes and yet can render the air considerably denser and heavier.
++++
{455} *As has been, during this humid winter weather condition, almost
constantly noticed.
++++
I cannot pass over in silence: that on the frightful day of All Saints
the magnets in Augsburgh threw off their load, and the magnetic needles
were thrown into disorder. Boyle already related that the like once hap-
pened in Naples after an earthquake. We know too little of the hidden nature
of the magnet to be able to specify195 a reason [Grund] for this
phenomenon.
Of the Use of Earthquakes.
One startles to see a rod of correction of men so frightful
commended on the score of utility. I am certain that, in order to be delivered
but of the fear and danger which are combined with it, [men] would
willingly give it up. Of such a nature are we men. After we have laid an
unjust claim to all the agrmens196 of life, we are not disposed [wollen] to
purchase any advantages with charges.197 We desire that the earth might be
so made:198 that one could wish to live upon it forever. Beyond this199
we imagine that, if Providence had asked us [to cast] our vote on the
matter,200 we would have better governed201 everything for our advan-
tage. Thus we wish, e.g. to have the rain in our power, in order that we
might divide it throughout the [whole] year according to our convenience,
and always enjoy agreeable days between the cloudy ones. But we forget
the springs, which we nevertheless cannot do without, and which could
not at all be maintained202 in such a manner. Likewise, we are ignorant of
the {456} benefit that even the causes which frighten us in the earthquakes
may procure for us, and yet would willingly banish knowledge of them.203
As men who were born in order to die, [why] can we not bear that
a few should die in an earthquake, and as [men]204 who are strangers
here [below] and possess no property, [why] are we inconsolable when
goods are lost, which would have shortly been abandoned by the univer-
sal way of nature of itself[?]
It may be easily divined [rathen]: that when men build upon a
ground which is filled with inflammable substances, sooner or later the
whole magnificence of their building may fall to pieces205 by concussions;
but must they then on that account be impatient over206 the ways of
Providence? Were it not better to judge thus: It was necessary that
earthquakes [should] sometimes happen upon the earth, but it was not
necessary that we [should] build207 upon it gorgeous habitations? The
inhabitants of Peru dwell in houses which are walled up only in lower alti-
tudes,208 and the rest consist of reeds. Man must learn to accommodate
himself to nature, but he would have [nature] to accommodate herself to
him.
Whatever damage the cause of earthquakes [may] have ever occa-
sioned [erweckt] men on the one side, it can easily make it up with
profit209 on the other side. We know that the warm baths, which in the
process of time may perhaps have been serviceable to a considerable part of
mankind for promoting210 health, owe their mineral property and heat211
to the very same causes from which happen in the bowels of the earth the
inflammations that shake [in Bewegung setzen] it.
It has already been long presumed: that the ores in the mountains
are a slow effect of the subterraneous heat which, by forming and boiling
the metals in the heart [Mitte] of the rock by penetrating vapours, brings
them to maturity212 by gradual effects.
Our atmosphere, besides the coarse and inert [todten] substances
which it contains in itself, also requires a certain active [wirksames]
principle, volatile salts and parts that may enter into the composition of
plants, in order to move and extricate them [from the former].213 Is it not
to be believed that the formations of nature, which constantly use a great
part of them [i.e. of the salts], and the alterations that all matter ultimately
suffers by dissolution and composition, would in time totally consume the
most active particles, unless from time to time a new afflux took place? At
least {457} the earth grows always weaker [unkrftiger] when it nourishes
vigorous [krftige] plants, but rest and rain restore it.214 But whence at last
would come the corroborative [krftige] matter, which is without an allied
restoration,215 if a spring in another place did not supply its afflux?
And this is probably the store of the most active and most volatile
substances which the subterranean vaults contain, a part of which they dif-
fuse from time to time upon the surface of the earth. I have still to observe:
that Hales by the fumigation of sulphur purified [befreiet] the prisons, and
in general all places whose air was infected by animal exhalations, with
very good results.216 The fire-spewing mountains throw out into the at-
mosphere an immense quantity of sulphureous vapours, [so] who knows
[whether] the animal exhalations with which [the atmosphere] is loaded
would not in [progress of] time become noxious, if those [mountains] did
not furnish a powerful [krftiges] remedy against it.
Finally,217 the warmth in the bowels of the earth seems to me to af-
ford a stronger proof of the efficacy and of the great use of the inflamma-
tions that happen in profound [tiefen] vaults. By daily experiences it is made
out: that in great, yes, in the greatest depths, at which men have just
arrived in the internal parts [dem Innern] of the mountains, there is a con-
tinual218 warmth, which cannot possibly be attributed to the effect of the
sun. Boyle cites a considerable number of testimonies, from which it is
evident that in all deep shafts, first of all, the upper part is much colder
than the external air, when it is in the summertime,219 but the deeper
one goes down, the warmer one finds the region,220 so that in the great-
est depths the workmen are forced221 during their work to pull off [their]
clothes. Everybody easily comprehends[, secondly,] that, as the heat of
the sun penetrates but to a very small depth in the earth, it cannot have
more [than] the smallest effect in the lowest of all vaults; and that the
warmth situated there depends on a cause which prevails only in the
greatest depths, [and] is besides to be perceived from the diminished
warmth, the higher one ascends [von unten hinauf kommt], even in the
summertime. Boyle, after having carefully compared and examined222 the
experiences that were made [available], concludes very rationally: that in
the undermost cavities, at which we cannot arrive, there must be constant
inflammations to be met with, and an inextinguishable fire that com-
municates its223 warmth to the upper crust is thereby kept up.
If this [fire] conducts itself thus, as one cannot abstain from
granting, will we not have to expect224 {458} the most advantageous
effects from this subterranean fire, which always furnishes the earth with a
mild warmth225 at the time when the sun withdraws his [influence] from
us, [and] which is in the position to promote226 the vegetation [Trieb] of
plants and the economy of the kingdom of nature? And with the appearance
of so much usefulness, can the disadvantage which arises to the human
species from a few eruptions of this [fire] eclipse227 the gratitude we owe
Providence for all his institutions?228
The grounds I have adduced for encouraging [such gratitude] are
indeed not of the nature of those which afford the greatest conviction and
certainty. But even conjectures deserve to be assumed, when their object
is to move men to the desire of being grateful to the Supreme [hchste]
Being who, even when he chastises, is worthy of reverence229 and love.
Observation.
I have mentioned above that earthquakes force out sulphurous
evaporations through the vault of the earth. The last accounts of the shafts in
the mountains of Saxony confirm this by a new example. At present they
are found so full of sulphurous vapours that the workmen must leave them.
The event at Tuam in Ireland, where a luminous atmospheric phenomenon
appeared upon the sea in the form of pendants and flags, which altered their
colours by degrees and at last diffused a clear light, on which followed a
violent shock of an earthquake, is a new confirmation of this. The alteration
of the colours from the darkest blue to red and ultimately to a clear white ap-
pearance is to be ascribed to the broken-out, at first very rarefied, evapo-
ration that is gradually augmented by a more frequent230 afflux of more
fumes which, as is known in natural philosophy [Naturwissenschaft], must
pass through the degrees of light from the blue colour to the red, and finally
to a white appearance. All these preceded the shock. It is also proof: that
the hearth of inflammation was in the bottom of the sea, as the earthquake
was chiefly felt near the seacoast.231
If one chose to extend farther the observations on the places of the
earth where the most frequent and the heaviest shakes have ever been felt
{459}, then it might still be added: that the western coasts have always
suffered many more attacks of [earthquakes] than the eastern. In Italy, in
Portugal, in South America, yes, lately even in Ireland, experience has
confirmed this agreement. Peru, which lies along [an] the western
seashore of the new world, has almost daily concussions, whereas Brazil,
that has the ocean towards the east,232 feels nothing of them. If one had a
mind [will] to conjecture a few causes of this strange analogy, then a Gau-
tier,233 a painter, might well be forgiven when he looked for the cause of
all earthquakes in the rays of the sun, the source [Quelle] of his colours and
of his art, and imagined that these, by striking234 stronger on the western
coast, also turn even our great globe round from west to east, and
thereby just these coasts would be235 troubled with so many shakes. But
in a sound natural philosophy such a thought [Einfall] scarcely merits a
refutation. The ground of this law seems to me to be in conjunction with
another, of which at the time no sufficient explanation has yet been
given: namely, that the western and southern coasts of almost all countries
are more steeply sloped than the eastern and northern, which is confirmed
as well by looking at236 the map as by the accounts of Dampier,237
who found them almost universally [so] in all his voyages. When the
bendings of the terra firma are derived from the sinkings-in, deeper and
more [numerous] cavities must be to be met with in the countries
[Gegenden] of the greatest slope, than238 where the crust of the earth has
but a gentle declivity. But, as we have seen above, this has a natural con-
nection with the concussions of the earth.
Concluding Contemplation.
The sight of so many miseries,239 as the last catastrophe has made
among our fellow-citizens, ought to excite philanthropy and make us feel a
part of the misfortune which has happened to them with such severity.240
But it is a gross mistake241 when such fates are always considered as
destined judgments which the desolated cities meet with on account of
their crimes [belthaten], and when we contemplate as the aim of God's
vengeance these unfortunate persons,242 upon whom his justice pours
out all its punishments of wrath [Zornschalen]. This mode of judgment is
a blameable audacity, which presumes to perspect [einzusehen] the
designs of the Divine decrees and to interpret according to its insights
[Einsichten].
{460} Man is infatuated243 so much with himself that he considers
only himself as the sole object of the institutions of God,244 just as if
these had no other aim than him alone, in order to regulate accordingly
the245 measures in the government of the world. We know that the whole
complex [Inbegriff] of nature is a worthy object of the Divine Wisdom and
of its institutions. We are a part of them, and [yet we] want to be246 the
whole. The rules of the perfection of nature in the gross [supposedly]
must be taken into no contemplation, and everything must be set up merely
in a proper relation247 to us. What is conducive248 to convenience and to
pleasure in the world exists, as [man] figures to himself, merely on our ac-
count, and nature makes [beginne] no alterations which [may] be any cause
of inconvenience to men, except249 to chastise, to menace, or to wreak
vengeance on them.
We see, however, that innumerable villains die in peace, that earth-
quakes, without distinction of ancient or modern inhabitants, have ever
shaken certain countries, that the Christian Peru as well as the pagan is
moved [by earthquakes],250 and that many cities which can pretend to no
preference in point of being irreprehensible remain free from this
devastation from the beginning.251
Thus is man in the dark when he attempts to guess at the aims God
has before [his] eyes252 in the government of the world. But we are in no
uncertainty when it comes to253 the application, how we ought to use
these ways of Providence conformably to his ends. Man was not born to
build everlasting cottages upon this stage of vanity. Because his whole life
has a far nobler aim, how beautifully attuned to it [are] all the devasta-
tions, which the inconstancy of the world shows even in those things that
appear to us to be the greatest and the most important, in order to remind
us:254 that the goods of the earth can furnish no satisfaction to our
inclination255 for happiness!
Far be it from me to insinuate herewith that man is left to an im-
mutable fate of the laws of nature without regard to his peculiar advantages.
Just the same Supreme Wisdom, from whom the course of nature derives
that accuracy which requires no amendment, has subordinated the inferior
ends to the superior, and in the very designs in which he has often made
the most weighty exceptions to the universal rules of nature, in order to at-
tain the infinitely superior ends which are far elevated above all the means of
nature, the {461} leadership256 of the human species in the government of
the world likewise prescribes laws even to the course of the things of
nature. When a city or a country perceives the mischief wherewith the
divine Providence alarms them or their neighbours: Is it then still doubtful
what part they have to act in order to prevent the ruin that threatens them,
and are the signs still ambiguous, which render comprehensible the de-
signs to whose accomplishment all the ways of Providence concordantly257
either invite or instigate man?
A prince who, prompted by a noble heart, is moved by these
calamities of the human race to avert the miseries of war from those whom
great [schwere] misfortunes threaten as well258 on all sides, is a beneficent
instrument in the kind hand of God,259 and a gift which he bestows on the
nations of the earth, whose value they never can estimate according to its
greatness.260