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Read Ebook: Great Disasters and Horrors in the World's History by Godbey Allen Howard
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Ebook has 1440 lines and 158710 words, and 29 pages
MYTHS OF THE WINDS.
PAGE.
Old Greek fancies--Their modern traces--Man seeking mysteries--Personifications--The "air-mothers" 17
CONSTANT WINDS.
PERIODIC WINDS.
Modified trade winds--The monsoons--Local winds--Sea and land breezes--The simoom: its terrible effects--The khamsin, and similar winds--Moisture in the air: its effects--Rain and hail--Clouds: their varieties--Mountain winds 34
TORNADOES AND CYCLONES.
THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO.
Perspective of news--Amusing conceits--Distress at the door--The tornado--Warning of the Signal Service--The storm strikes Louisville--Its course--Wreck of Falls City Hall--Rescuing the victims--Fire breaks out--Personal narratives--At the Union Depot 65
INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO.
The poor to be remembered--Peddlers, publicans and sinners--The freaks of "Providence"--Deaths in the storm remarkably few--Wonderful escapes--Explosive effects of confined air--Strange pranks of the wind--The storm at Parkland--At Jeffersonville--The mammon worshiper--Generosity and independence 87
OTHER TORNADOES.
The tornado in East Kansas--In Southeast Missouri--Great damage in Illinois--Water-spout at Metropolis--Many distinct whirlwinds--Effect of forest and prairie fires--Tornado of Charleston, 1761--Tornadoes at Natchez, 1840 and 1842--The Marshfield storm, 1880--Remarkably small loss of life in tornadoes--Tornadoes in foreign lands 114
TROPICAL CYCLONES.
Cyclones on our eastern borders--The Nova Scotia cyclone--St. Thomas cyclone and earthquake, 1837--Cyclone of 1867--Barbadoes storm, 1831--Great storm of 1780--Terrible cyclones and storm waves of India--Typhoons in the China seas 141
PERILS OF THE SEA.
LIFE-SAVING MEASURES.
Great storm of 1703--Humaneness and inhumanity--Diabolical wreckers--Hovellers--Desperate struggles without a life-boat illustrated by Dickens--The life-boat invented--Its usefulness--Lighthouses and fog-bells 179
GREAT SAMOAN HURRICANE.
ELECTRIC STORMS.
Byron's fire--Myths of the lightning--Causes of thunder storms--Strange freaks of the lightning--Numerous fatalities--Some curious cases--A lightning stroke a Divine favor--Thunder--Peculiar incidents--Lightning little to be feared--Foolish precautions--A "dysentery conductor" wanted--St. Elmo's fire--Electric halos--Their part in history--The aurora--Popular myths--Aurora described 220
RAIN, HAIL AND SNOW.
Clouds and cloud shapes--The storm changes national destinies--Cloud halos--Specter of the Brocken--The "beautiful rain"--Amount of rainfall--Snow--Its ravages--Remarkable showers of hail--Prodigies 246
FLOODS IN THE SOUTH.
Rivers a universal problem--Character of the Mississippi--Failure of the levee system--The building of levees--Three great sections--Damage of overflows--Fighting for the levee--Storm on the river--Scene at a crevasse--The flood in the rural districts--In the city--Closing a crevasse--Refugees on the levee--Crooked streams 261
THE FLOOD OF 1890.
Floods of other years--Warning of the Signal Service--The water rising--At Greenville, Mississippi--The fight for the Morganza line--The waters win--Other crevasses--Extent of the damage--Objections to levees--Levees versus outlets--Terrible floods in China--A proposed outlet--Reflection on present policy 296
THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD.
The dam system of India--American "cheap goods and haste"--The Little Conemaugh Valley--Heavy rains--Johnstown flooded--The artificial lake--A poor dam--No uneasiness--How the water would move--The dam breaks--Terrible rush of the flood--An engine chased--A warning whistle--Locomotives hurled about like toys--Flying for life--Escapes and losses 324
INCIDENTS AT JOHNSTOWN.
Suddenness of the flood--It divides--A chaotic scene--Fire breaks out--Faith of the perishing--Narratives: the Hulbert House; Rev. D. M. Miller's story; Mr. Calliver's escape; Dr. Beale and family--Morning: the stricken multitude; Mr. Rose's narrative; Talmage's letter; the grief of the survivors 343
RELIEF MEASURES.
The people in want--Johnstown after the flood--Human ghouls--Relic hunters--Temporary government--A dictatorship--Hospitals and morgues--Prompt response of the public--Aid from various cities--Losses by the flood 367
FAMINE AND PESTILENCE.
Signs and omens--Natural causes--Bengal famine of 1866--Relief Measures--Results--Pestilence and contagion--Black death--Its frequent ravages--Fright--A romance of Florence 384
THE VOLCANO.
Erroneous views--Myths--Active principle in volcanoes--Atmospheric pressure--Rain at eruptions--Lava, pumice, ashes and tufa--Different phases of action--Stromboli, the "lighthouse"--Lava bubbles--Thrilling adventure--Lost!--Theory of a molten earth--Objections to it--The earth cools slowly--Subsidence and chemical action--Distribution of volcanoes--Their work and forms 394
GREAT ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS.
Pompeii long buried--Excavations begun--A hermetically sealed city--Scenes in the town--Pliny's story--Hundreds stifled--Finding the bodies--Subsequent eruptions--Notable convulsion of 1538--The eruption of 1531, 1737 and 1793--Recent observations 421
OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS.
Destruction of Sodom--Arguments--The pitch lake of Trinidad--AEtna: eruption of 1669--Thousands perish--Catania destroyed--Other outbreaks--Iceland: Mt. Hecla--Tremendous eruption of Skaptar Jokul--One-fifth of the people perish--Millions of cubic yards of lava--Disturbances in the sea--Jorullo: a mountain made in a night--Fearful outburst of Sumbawa--Twenty-six people out of twelve thousand escape--Explosions heard nine hundred miles--Other Malaysian volcanoes--Geysers--Terrible eruption of Cosequina--Heard one thousand miles--Eruptions in South America--Force required to send out lava--In the Sandwich Islands--Krakatoa: the greatest eruption in history--A chorus of volcanoes--Awful destruction--Perceived around the world--Unparalleled sea wave 440
EARTHQUAKES.
Myths of the earthquake--Ancient theories--Modern research--Earthquakes and volcanic agency--Speed of a shock--The atmospheric theory--Earthquakes at particular seasons--The "planetary influence" theory--Character of motions 481
EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES.
Legends of the flood--Sparta Destroyed--Bura and Helice engulfed--Numerous convulsions in Asia Minor--Antioch repeatedly destroyed--North Africa suffers--Calabrian earthquake of 1693--A tremendous convulsion in 1783--Immense chasms--People swallowed up--Great landslides--Terrible catastrophe at Scylla--Ruffians amid the wreck--The great Lisbon earthquake--Its vast extent--Awful destruction--Earthquake at Chio--In Switzerland--In Ischia--Distressing scenes in the ruins--Disastrous shocks in Spain 496
EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES AND ENGLAND.
All nature uneasy--The terrifying character of an earthquake--Signs and wonders--"El Gran Ruido," of Guanajuato--Frequency of earthquakes--Earthquake in New England, 1638--A second in 1663--Shock of 1727--Great convulsions of 1755--Damage and great alarm at Boston--"The end of the world!"--Great disturbance in the Mississippi Valley, 1811--Strange feats--The Charleston earthquake--Numerous English earthquakes--Comparatively small loss of life 535
EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA.
Shocks in Asia: lack of reliable information--The Andes region--Great earthquake of Riobamba--Humboldt's description--Numerous shocks in Venezuela--Catastrophe of Caracas--Effect on the survivors--Frequent convulsions at San Salvador--Total destruction in 1854--Ruffians on the scene--Sudden disaster of Mendoza--Touching incidents--Faithful dogs--Shocks in Peru and gigantic sea wave--Numerous great shocks--The end of all things--The last man 563
PREDICTION AND PREVENTION.
Futile efforts to control the future--Law neglected for superstition--Pretentious prophets--Humbugs--Laws of weather changes--Actions of animals--Methods for producing rain suggested--Earthquake indicators--A force beyond control--Possibilities 589
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