During the past few years, there have been recorded, unhappily, an
unusual number of earthquakes in various parts of the world; and many
thousands of lives have been lost by those terrible convulsions of
nature. Inhabitants of Britain, although constant in their complaints
of fog, inclement seasons, and other meteorological inconveniences,
have hitherto congratulated themselves upon living in a country which
is exempt from volcanic phenomena, and in which earthquakes seemed to
be things of a past era. These comfortable reflections were suddenly
dispelled on the morning of the 22d of April, when over a large tract
of country in Southern England a shock of great severity occurred.
In the town of Colchester, and many villages eastward of it, the
destruction of houses was very great. Many were entirely unroofed; and
in some villages, as the writer can testify from personal observation,
it was the exception to note a dwelling in which the chimney-stacks
had not been demolished. Providentially, no lives were lost, although
several narrow escapes have been recorded. The damage is estimated to
amount to several thousand pounds, and unfortunately the sufferers are
as a rule very poor cottagers, who are unable to bear the expense of
the necessary repairs. For their relief, a subscription has been set on
foot under the auspices of the Lord Mayor, and there is little doubt
that sufficient money will be readily forthcoming for their needs.
The occurrence of such a rare phenomenon in the British Isles—not
quite so rare, by the way, as some people imagine, for nearly three
hundred shocks have been actually recorded—has caused an immense
amount of earthquake lore to be unearthed and published in the various
newspapers. From _Iron_ we have an interesting account of the way in
which luminous paint is utilised in connection with earthquake alarms
in countries where such visitations are prevalent. We are informed that
large consignments of the paint are sent to such places, and that the
material is employed in the following manner. Small metallic plates
covered with the paint are fixed on the doorposts of the different
rooms, so that at the first alarm—and happily there is often a
premonitory warning of something more serious to follow—the inmates of
the houses can readily find their way outside. In Manila, the paint is
laid in patches about the staircases, door-handles, and various points
of egress. A light which gives off neither fire nor heat is of the
greatest value in such situations, where any other form of light would
be apt to add its quota of disaster to the dangers to life, already too
prominent.