Francisco, but others were inclined to view certain facts in regard to
recent seismic and volcanic activity as, to say the least, suggestive.

As to the actual cause of the California earthquake, the wisest
confession we can make is that of ignorance, there being almost as
little known as to the origin, period and coming of earthquakes as when
Pliny wrote 1,800 years ago. The Roman observer knew that the tremor
passed like a wave through the surface of the earth; he knew that it
had a given direction, and he knew that certain regions were rife with
seismic disturbance. More he could not say, and when this is said all
has been said that is known to-day.

Setting aside these general considerations, let us return to the
question of the disaster at San Francisco on that fatal morning of April
18th. The shock did not come unexpectedly. A month previous there had
been a severe earthquake in the Island of Formosa, and many lives were
lost there, while an enormous amount of damage was done. Only a few days
before the event in San Francisco there was another earthquake in the
same island. Still greater havoc was caused by it than by the earthquake
in March, but fewer lives were lost, the reason being that the people
were warned in time. Early in April the eruption of Mount Vesuvius
reached its height and devastated the country around the volcano,
covering an enormous territory with ashes, and caused the loss of
hundreds of lives.

On Tuesday night, April 17th, word was received from Piatigorsk,
Circassia, that there had been two severe earthquake shocks the previous
day in Northern Caucasia. The same night a telegram from Madrid said
that the newspapers there reported that the long-dormant volcano on
Palma, the largest of the Canary Islands, was showing signs of eruption,
columns of smoke issuing from the crater.

WIDESPREAD EARTH TREMORS.

While scientists as a rule doubt that there was any connection between
these volcanic phenomena and the earthquake at San Francisco, yet
reports from the Mount Weather observation station in Virginia, a few
miles from Washington, show that the eruptions of Vesuvius acted on
the magnetic instruments by electro-magnetic waves in such a way as
to disturb the electrical potentials at that place. Be this as it may,
there is one remarkable circumstance in regard to all this activity. All
the places mentioned--Formosa, Southern Italy, Caucasia, and the Canary
Islands--lie within a belt bou