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Earthquake   /ˈərθkwˌeɪk/   Listen
Earthquake

noun
1.
Shaking and vibration at the surface of the earth resulting from underground movement along a fault plane of from volcanic activity.  Synonyms: quake, seism, temblor.
2.
A disturbance that is extremely disruptive.



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"Earthquake" Quotes from Famous Books



... said. "Now we shall all be able to settle down. How did it happen? Earthquake in Dublin? But that would hardly do it. Cabinet ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... first to explain the eclipse of the moon as caused by the shadow of the earth cast by the sun. But he was as one born out of due time. We are all familiar with the use made by students of unfulfilled prophecy of every extraordinary occurrence in nature, such as the sudden appearance of a comet, an earthquake, an eclipse, etc. We know how mysteriously they interpret those simple passages in the Bible about the sun being darkened and the moon being turned into blood. If they were not wilfully blind, such facts as are established by the following quotations would open their eyes to the errors in their ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... of his confidence, and suggested that the stream, which was probably only a measly mud hole, could have dropped to purgatory in an earthquake tremor since those first old mission days, or filled up ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... explosion of this second bomb. Scarcely a brick was left standing upright. What houses escaped demolition around the edge of the convulsion had their doors and windows splintered into rubbish. The concussion of this chemical frenzy was felt, like an earthquake, in a ten-mile circle. Wherever the scorching breath of the bombs breathed on stone or metal it left a sulphurous, yellow-white veneer, acrid in odor and smooth to the touch. Whole street-lengths of twisted iron railings were coated ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... tumultuous. He had a feeling that an earthquake had opened the ground at his feet. With all his might he sought to save himself from the yawning chasm. But the sudden jolt of his great weight was more than his muscles could withstand. His hands relaxed their grip upon the ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... subjected for a period, extending to ages, to the washings of moisture, the contact of its containing bed (its later matrix), the action of the changes in the temperature of the earth in its vicinity, it emerges by volcanic eruption, earthquake, landslip and the like, or is discovered as a rare and valuable specimen of some simple compound of earth-crust and water, as simple as Glauber's Salt, or ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin

... entertaining" at first, but gradually a note of uneasiness crept into his replies after I had told him that Joedy had fallen out of the machine and had just escaped our rear wheels, and that the previous night we had had three earthquakes. I had never felt an earthquake before, and it will be some time before I develop the nonchalance of a seasoned Californian, whose way of referring to one is like saying, "Oh, yes, we did have a few drops of rain last night." One more little tremble and ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... make room for his illuminating prospects, and his wings continued to grow towards maturity. He struggled and freed himself from the cocoon. He went to Vancouver a caterpillar and returned a butterfly, and the earthquake which accompanied his debut was equal to that which destroyed San Francisco. He had sold his farm, which included the creek, and the trail, and the dug-out, and his salt pork barrel, for a song, and ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)

... direction of the sound and saw a company of Moslems who believed in one God, pushing towards them, whereat their hearts were heartened and Sharrkan charged upon the Infidels crying out, "There is no god but the God! God is most great! he and those with him, so that earth quaked as with an earthquake and the Unbeliever host brake asunder and fled into the mountains and the Moslems followed them with lunge and blow; and Zau al-Makan and his comrades of the Moslems ceased not to smite the hosts of the Infidel foe, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... some town where I was to hold a night meeting. Miss Mary and Miss Lucy Anthony confined themselves to office-work in the Portland headquarters, where they gave us very valuable assistance. I have always believed that we would have carried Oregon that year if the disaster of the California earthquake had not occurred to divert the minds of Western men from interest in anything save ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... without mercy on the First Consul, the police had never lost sight of him. It was known that he was staying in England, and he was under surveillance there; but if it was true that he had escaped this espionage, the danger was imminent, and the predicted "earthquake" ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... discover any new state-religion fitted to take the place of the old. So the besom of revolution swept doubtless at times very roughly through the cobwebs of the augural bird-lore;(1) nevertheless the rotten machine creaking at every joint survived the earthquake which swallowed up the republic itself, and preserved its insipidity and its arrogance without diminution for transference to the new monarchy. As a matter of course, it fell more and more into disfavour with all ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... venture, then, to say that there are some wars which are not all evil. They are terrible, but terrible like the hurricane, which sweeps away the pestilence; terrible like the earthquake, on whose night of terror God builds a thousand years of blooming plenty; terrible like the volcano, whose ashes are clothed by the purple vintages and yellow harvests of a hundred generations. The strong powers of nature are as beneficent as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... my right sat in grim silence, quizzing each talker in turn with puckered eyes. The only comment he made was a sort of internal rumbling, suggestive of the preliminary notice of an earthquake. ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... apprenticeship in the art of ruling, but he possessed great natural tact and a sound judgment ripened by the trials of exile. Benevolent and sympathetic in disposition, he won the affection of his people by fearlessly visiting the districts ravaged by cholera or devastated by earthquake in 1885. His capacity for dealing with men was considerable, and he never allowed himself to become the instrument of any particular party. In his short reign, peace was established both at home and abroad, the finances were well regulated, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... surrounded by a zone of violent volcanic and earthquake activity sometimes referred to as the "Pacific Ring of Fire"; subject to tropical cyclones (typhoons) in southeast and east Asia from May to December (most frequent from July to October); tropical cyclones (hurricanes) may form south of ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... the Dragon, with a sigh like a weary earthquake. His blood spouted upon Siegfried and burnt his hand like fire. As the blood soused him, a little ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... frue. Early (adj.) frua. Earn perlabori. Earnest diligenta. Earnestly forte, fervore. Earnestness seriozeco. Earring orelringo. Earth tero. Earthenware fajenco. Earthly monda, tera. Earthquake tertremo. Ease komforto. Ease, at sengxene. East oriento. Easter Pasko. Easterly orienta. Easy facila. Eat mangxi. Eatable mangxebla. Eaves defluilo. Ebb (and flow) forfluo (kaj alfluo). Ebony ebono. Ebriety ebrieco. Ebullition bolado. Eccentric ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... journalist's metaphor of the 'throbbing heart' as applied to London. 'The phrase,' Drake had said, 'to me is significant of something more than cheap phraseology. I know that half a throb could create an earthquake in Matanga.' What if the man's established interest in this direction were to suppress his nascent interest in Clarice! Fielding immediately asked Drake what he ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... afternoon by the old arched gateway at the foot of Panecillo, and crossing a spur of the mountain, we stopped for the night at the Jesuit hacienda, situated in the beautiful valley of Lloa, but nearly ruined by the earthquake of 1859. On the damp walls of this monastery, perched 10,268 feet above the ocean, we found several old paintings, among them a copy of the Visitation by Rubens. The sunset views in this heart of the Andes were surpassingly beautiful. Mounting our horses at break of day, and ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... We hated the name, but the christening "just happened" with the suddenness of influenza or an earthquake. Percy was the culprit, for he knocked all our pre-arranged plans for a name on the head by his passion for what he calls "apt quotation." When he (Daisy) emerged from his basket we saw that, like NELSON, he was blind of an eye. Percy, immediately inspired, quoted from WORDSWORTH'S Ode to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various

... composed to form the literary character of a son, that he experienced the most terrible affliction in the domestic life of genius—the successive deaths of his wife and his only child. It was a moral earthquake with a single survivor amidst the ruins. An awful burst of parental and literary affliction breaks forth in Quintilian's lamentation,—"My wealth, and my writings, the fruits of a long and painful ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... in the Johnstown flood, that Lloyd heard the description of Clara Barton's five months' labor there. A doctor's wife who had been in the Mt. Vernon cyclone, and a newspaper man who had visited the South Carolina islands after the tidal wave, and Charleston after the earthquake, piled up their accounts of those scenes of suffering, some of them even greater than the horrors of war, so that Lloyd dreamed of fires and floods that night. But the horror of the scenes was less, because a baby voice called cheerfully through them, "Here, daddy, give ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston

... Georgius Secundus was then alive— Stuffy old drone from the German hive. That was the year when Lisbon-town Saw the earth open and gulp her down, And Braddock's army was done so brown, Left without a scalp to its crown. It was on the terrible earthquake-day That the Deacon finished his ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... to the neighbors, who were in the habit of supplying him with food. During the fall of the year, when the weather was growing cold, there occurred an eclipse of the sun, at the same time a severe earthquake gave the inhabitants great alarm. The ground moved and rolled like the ocean waves, while large crevices opened in many places allowing smoke and ...
— Short Sketches from Oldest America • John Driggs

... was not new to me, a remembered fear, had me fast; a remembered voice seemed to speak clearly incomprehensible words that had moved me before. The sheer faces of the enormous buildings near at hand seemed to topple forwards like cliffs in an earthquake, and for an instant I saw beyond them into unknown depths that I had seen into before. It was as if the shadow of annihilation had passed over them beneath the sunshine. Then they returned to rest; motionless, ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... Chilterns. Most of the flocks over a very large area took a panic and burst from their folds, and next morning thousands of sheep were wandering all over the hills. I feel certain that there must have been an earthquake shock that night. Nothing else could have accounted for such a wide and general stampede. The last authenticated earthquake shock in the South Midlands took place hereabouts in 1775, and was noted at Lord Macclesfield's Castle ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... rock which had been blown up, there existed a mighty abyss. The explosion had caused a kind of earthquake in this soil, broken by fissures and rents. The gulf, thus suddenly thrown open, was about to swallow the inland seal which, transformed into a mighty torrent, ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... rush was made, the earth seemed to tremble as the horses started, but when the animals fled, it was like the shock of an earthquake. The air was darkened, the rapid firing, at first, soon became more and more faint, and at last died away in ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce

... its hundred brazen feet towered superbly above port and town, and then it was partly destroyed by an earthquake. For nearly a thousand years the sacred image remained unmolested where it had fallen, by Greek and Roman, Pagan and Christian; but at last the Saracen owners of Rhodes, caring as little for its religious association as for its classic antiquity, sold the brass of it for the great ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous

... root and flourish, and grow up into a rank and poisonous crop, choking the good grain utterly, and corrupting the very soil of which they have taken hold. There is but one hope—but one! To tear them from the root forcibly, though the heart-strings crack, and the soul trembles, as with a spiritual earthquake. To nerve the mind firmly and resolutely, yet humbly withal, and contritely, and with prayer against temptation, prayer for support from on high—to resist the Evil One with the whole force of the intellect, the whole truth of the heart, and to stop the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... to be physicked like particular persons, I should venture to prescribe to it after the same manner. I remember when our whole island was shaken with an earthquake some years ago, there was an impudent mountebank who sold pills, which, as he told the country people, were "very good against an earthquake." It may, perhaps, be thought as absurd to prescribe a diet for ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele

... shows itself in an immense new theatre—Teatro Garibaldi—just being finished. The old one, which stands ruinous close by, struck me as, if anything, too large for the town; possibly it had been damaged by an earthquake, the commonest sort of disaster at Cosenza. On the front of the new edifice I found two inscriptions, both exulting over the fall of the papal power; one was ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... ascent, in 1876, seems to think that there is no sufficient reason why craters could not have previously existed, and been filled up by their own irruptions. There is no record of any irruption in historical times. The only thing approaching it was the earthquake which shook the mountain in 1840, accompanied by subterranean rumblings, and destructive blasts of wind. The Tatar village of Arghuri and a Kurdish encampment on the northeast slope were entirely destroyed by the precipitated rocks. Not a man was left to tell the story. Mr. Bryce and others have ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... chose to do it you could half ruin me. You could shake some of the biggest houses in New York; you could drive the Forty-fourth National Bank into the hands of a receiver. You could start a financial earthquake.' ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne

... Doctor's wall. Like gregarious beasts, its companions went with it; the front of the van was wrenched round and the off fore-wheel ascended the path, while at the same moment, as the furious trumpeting continued, there was a crash, one side of the van was heaved up as if by an internal earthquake, and the next moment, amidst the noise of splintering wood, the plunging of horses, and the elephant's deafening roar, the great yellow vehicle lay over on its side, and the monstrous beast, fully ten feet high, stood panting and trumpeting with uplifted trunk by the side ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... thou show in this; And great affections wrestling in thy bosom Doth make an earthquake of nobility. O, what a noble combat hast thou fought Between compulsion and a brave respect! Let me wipe off this honourable dew That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks: My heart hath melted at a lady's tears, Being an ordinary inundation; But this effusion ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... genteel person was visible, the beau held back with his bucket; after various reconnaissances, the coast would appear clear, and the beau would dash out to the pump, agitate "the iron-tailed cow" with the force and speed of an infantile earthquake—snatch up the bucket, and with one dart hit the doorway, and glide up stairs, thanking his stars that nobody "seen him ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... find her safe and well," thought Sir Norman, emphatically, "nothing short of an earthquake or dying of the plague will ever induce me to leave her again, until she is Lady Kingsley, and in the old manor of Devonshire. What a fool, idiot, and ninny I must have been, to have left her as I did, knowing those two sleuth-hounds ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... vision of these wild-stretching purposes in which she felt herself reduced to a mere speck. There comes a terrible moment to many souls when the great movements of the world, the larger destinies of mankind, which have lain aloof in newspapers and other neglected reading, enter like an earthquake into their own lives—where the slow urgency of growing generations turns into the tread of an invading army or the dire clash of civil war, and gray fathers know nothing to seek for but the corpses of their blooming sons, and girls forget all vanity to make lint and bandages which may serve for ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... India is identical with that of Europe, most naturalists being now agreed that it originally came from the East. It was supposed by Pallas that the brown rat crossed over into Russia about the year 1727. When frightened by an earthquake, numbers swam over the Volga from countries bordering on the Caspian Sea. It seems to have driven out the black rat before it wherever it made its appearance. In England it was introduced by shipping about the middle of ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... clergyman, deserted the Established Church and ran into all the excesses of Antinomianism, Webster was a great admirer, and has in a preface, hitherto unnoticed, prefixed to a scarce tract of Erbury's, entitled "The great Earthquake, or Fall of all the Churches," published in 1654, 4to, left a sketch of his opinions and character, in which his defence is undertaken with great zeal and no small ingenuity. One of his apologist's conclusions most of Erbury's readers ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... indefectible worth and honor of selfhood that our race has fronted a universe in arms, and pitting its soul against nature has cried, "God is my refuge: underneath me, at the very moment when I am engulfed in earthquake shock or shattered in the battle's roar, there are everlasting arms!" There is something which is too deep for tears in the unconquerable idealism, the utter magnanimity of the faith of the human spirit in that which will answer to itself, as ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... limited progress. Relatively high oil prices in recent years have enabled Iran to amass some $22 billion in foreign exchange reserves, but have not eased economic hardships such as high unemployment and inflation. In December 2003 a major earthquake devastated the city of Bam in southeastern Iran, killing ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... earthquake of 1812, the writer has followed the commonly received assumption, derived from Bancroft, that it occurred December 8, and that this date fell on a Sunday. From later research, it is now believed to have occurred October 8, which was a Thursday. This seems more likely than the date given ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... rooted for a minute, looking as dumfounded as if an earthquake had rolled under him. Then with a quick turn he picked up her wrap, folded it round her, and took her into his arms. But it was a moment too late. He had hesitated, had not been there at the instant of her greatest need. Her midnight fears were ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... the breeze freshened, and I heard the distant and muffled noise which in the West announces either an earthquake or an "estampede," of herds of wild cattle and other animals. Our horses, too, were aware of some danger, for now they were positively mad, struggling to break the ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... men are not compelled to face the scorching furnaces; we do not have to forge the iron that resists the invading cyclone and the leveling earthquake. We could quit cold and let wild nature kick us about at will. We could have cities of wood to be wiped out by conflagrations; we could build houses of mud and sticks for the gales to unroof like a Hottentot village. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... rising from the fair sea {24} into the firmament of heaven to shed light on mortals and immortals, they reached Pylos the city of Neleus. Now the people of Pylos were gathered on the sea shore to offer sacrifice of black bulls to Neptune lord of the Earthquake. There were nine guilds with five hundred men in each, and there were nine bulls to each guild. As they were eating the inward meats {25} and burning the thigh bones [on the embers] in the name of Neptune, Telemachus and his crew arrived, ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... inadequate infrastructure, endemic corruption, a fragile banking sector, a poor investment climate, and unequal resource distribution among regions. The country continues the slow work of rebuilding from the devastating December 2004 tsunami and from an earthquake in central Java in May 2006 that caused over $3 billion in damage and losses. Declining oil production and lack of new exploration investment turned Indonesia into a net oil importer in 2004. The cost of subsidizing domestic fuel placed increasing strain on the budget ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... clamour outbellows the thunder, its lightning outlightens the sun. 1340 From the springs of the morning it thunders and lightens across and afar To the wave where the moonset ends and the fall of the last low star. With a trampling of drenched red hoofs and an earthquake of men that meet, Strong war sets hand to the scythe, and the furrows take fire from his feet. Earth groans from her great rent heart, and the hollows of rocks are afraid, And the mountains are moved, and ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... checked by a mind that sees the end in the act, and provides to-day against the future. Mr. Taylor's inclinations are for scenes of grandeur. Sublime human actions, nature in her awful revolutionary states, the wild desolation of a mountain peak or a limitless desert, the storm, the earthquake, the cataract, the moaning forest—these are the chief inspirations of his powers. Whatever is suggestive of high emotions, that act upon his moral nature, and in turn are acted upon by it, forms an unconquerable incentive to his poetical exertions. Mere word-painting he has no ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... is allegorically expressed in the Buddhist sutra,[FN177] which details the advent of a merciful Buddha named Maitreya in the remote future. At that time, it says, there will be no steep hills, no filthy places, no epidemic, no famine, no earthquake, no storm, no war, no revolution, no bloodshed, no cruelty, and no suffering; the roads will be paved smoothly, grass and trees always blooming, birds ever singing, men contented and happy; all sentient beings will worship ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... thus surprise A soul with questions, and demand replies: 'How dropp'd you first,' I ask, 'the legal Yoke? What the first word the living Witness spoke? Perceived you thunders roar and lightnings shine, And tempests gathering ere the Birth divine? Did fire, and storm, and earthquake all appear Before that still small voice, What dost thou here? Hast thou by day and night, and soon and late, Waited and watch'd before Admission-gate; And so a pilgrim and a soldier pass'd To Sion's ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... and the horses and the poor peasant and set them down in the middle. Then, taking the corners of the handkerchief in her hand, she ran up the mountain-side, skipping and jumping for pleasure. It was like the coming of an earthquake. ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

... slept for some time, until suddenly a noise like thunder that seemed to cause the earth to tremble awakened me, and together with the rest of our party I sprang to my feet, fancying that some terrible earthquake had occurred. ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... had a well of sensuousness which might one day become sensuality; she had a richness of feeling and a contour in harmony with it, which might expand into voluptuousness, if given too much sun, or if untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married life. There was an earthquake zone in her being which might shake down the whole structure of her existence. She was unsafe, not because she was deceiving Jean Jacques now as to her origin and as to her feelings for him; she was unsafe because of the natural strain of the light of love in her, joined to a passion for comfort ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... we were off at daybreak, our way lying up a narrow ravine for a short distance, and then between a couple of masses of rock, which seemed to have been split apart by some earthquake; and directly we were through here the dull humming buzz that we had heard more or less for days suddenly fell upon our ears with a deep majestic boom that rose at times, as the wind set our way, into ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... Shut your mouth, and hear the genuine creed; The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed; The force that wheels the planets round delights in spinning tops, And that young earthquake t' other day ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... natural history, such as: that the ostrich is the mother of birds, and that she lives, feeds, and rears her young on the blue sea, drowning mariners and sinking ships. Whenever she (or the whale on which the earth rests) moves, an earthquake ensues. There are several versions of this ballad. The following abridged extracts, from one version, will show its style. Among the questions put to "the Most Wise Tzar David" by Prince Vladimir are some touching "the works of God, and ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... the vaults, the floor, were of solid granite. Three huge cylindrical pillars, carved out of the native rock, rough as the stems of gnarled oak-trees, lent support to the ceiling. Support, however, was unneeded; an earthquake would scarce have shaken down those solid rafters. Only in one corner, where the water welled through a crevice of the rock, in drops that fell like tears, was decay manifest. Here the stone, worn by the constant dripping, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... neighboring country was noted for its flocks of sheep, which produced the finest of wool. Rugs were made at Shiraz for the reigning Shahs, who had palaces there, and the workmanship displayed in them was most beautiful. The city was visited by an earthquake in 1853, and since that catastrophe the manufacture of rugs has not regained its former prosperity; yet great improvement has been shown in recent years, and the same vegetable dyes are still in use. The Shiraz is often called the Mecca rug, as it is the one frequently selected by pilgrims to that ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt

... motion of the earth. And this calculated counteracting of the movements of the world, this holding of the mirror exactly opposite to the Mirrored, this steadying of the faculties unerringly through cloud and earthquake, fire and sword, is the stupendous co-operating labor of the Will. It is all man's work. It is all Christ's work. In practice it is both; in theory it is both. But the wise man will say in practice, "It ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond

... prepare for its transport to the Tigris, at the point where that stream quits the mountains and enters on the open country. Meanwhile, in the month of December, the magnificent Syrian capital, where Trajan had his headquarters, was visited by a calamity of a most appalling character. An earthquake, of a violence and duration unexampled in ancient times, destroyed the greater part of its edifices, and buried in their ruins vast multitudes of the inhabitants and of the strangers that had flocked into the town in consequence of the Imperial presence. Many Romans of the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... that deepest he had no developed relation. There were worlds of thought and feeling already in motion in Hester's universe, while the vaporous mass in him had hardly yet begun to stir. To use another simile, he was living on the surface of his being, the more exposed to earthquake and volcanic eruption that he had never yet suspected the existence of the depths profound whence they rise, while she was already a discoverer in the abysses of the nature gradually yet swiftly unfolding in her—every discovery attended with fresh light for the will, and a new sense of power ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... it seems as if the heavens, the sun and moon, were all about to be annihilated; one would think that the earth could not support their presence. On the appearance of an archangel, there is an earthquake in every part of the world; it is preceded by a stronger light than that which accompanies the apparition of the angels; at the appearance of a demon it is less strong, and diminishes still more when it is ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... first rumbling of the political earthquake that was to shake the country made itself audible beyond denial on that morning of March 27th, when the news spread through England that, in view of the disorganized state of the Persian army and the Shah's consequent inability to suppress the open insurrection of the border tribes in the ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... interesting social aspect at this time. It was as if the precursive tremor of a moral earthquake had been felt, and people, only half awake, did not know whether to seek safety in the house, or outside of it. Women especially were perplexed and inquiring, and it was observed that those in favor of asking ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... conceivably so, my dear: as also earthquakes and pestilences; but of such ultimate purposes we can have no sight. The practical, immediate office of the earthquake and pestilence is to slay us, like moths; and, as moths, we shall be wise to live out of their way. So, the practical, immediate office of gold and diamonds is the multiplied destruction of souls (in whatever sense you have been taught to understand that phrase); and the paralysis ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin

... solemnly, and with such intense conviction, that she was awed and appalled. She felt as one who, having alone escaped destruction in an earthquake, stands afar off and contemplates the silent, corpse- strewn ruin of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... mental tyranny was broken from its ancient pedestal, as if an earthquake had shivered the Roman dominions, leaving sacerdotal precedents and papal bulls in the back-alley of bigotry ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... when burst this frightful war, a terrific earthquake occurred, so that mountains were cleft asunder and showers of great stones poured down from heaven. But they, fighting vigorously, perceived none of these things. At last so great a multitude of Roman ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... he went till he came to the nether cliffs that stand by the inner mountains in the soul and heart of the earth where the Earthquake dwelleth alone, asleep but astir as he sleeps, breathing and moving his legs, and grunting aloud in the dark. Then in the ear of the Earthquake Limpang Tung said a word that only the gods may say, and the Earthquake started to his feet and flung the cave away, the cave wherein he slept between ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... the book on South America were devoted to formations of recent date and to the evidence collected on the east and west coasts of the continent in regard to those grand earth-movements, some of which could be shown to have been accompanied by earthquake-shocks. The fossil bones, which had given him the first hint concerning the mutability of species, had by this time been studied and described by comparative anatomists, and Darwin was able to elaborate much more fully the important conclusion that the existing fauna of South America has a close ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... most docile. Catholic emancipation he regarded with horror—the Reform bill with indignation; and the onward movement of the present day he looks at with the feelings of an individual waiting for an earthquake. He is sure that the world is going round the other way, or is turned topsy-turvy, or is coming to an end. He is the quietest and best disposed man in his parish—his moral character is without a flaw—his honesty without a blemish, yet is his mind filled with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... remain, but two of them still maintain their positions on each side of the entrance, with their faces towards the east. They are each formed of a single block of red breccia from Syene,* and are fifty-three feet high, but the more northerly one was shattered in the earthquake which completed the ruin of Thebes in the year 27 B.C. The upper part toppled over with the shock, and was dashed to pieces on the floor of the court, while the lower half remained in its place. Soon after the disaster it ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the last midnight to the next midnight. But the mere thought of it gave him pleasure, and the sight of it, from the very first instant. He was proud of knowing just what it was at once, with the sort of pride which one has in knowing an earthquake, though one has never felt one before. He saw the double file of men stretching up one street, and stretching down the other from the corner of the bakery where the loaves were to be given out on the stroke of twelve, and he hugged himself in a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Duke of Buckingham's house fell down last night with an earthquake, and is half swallowed up; won't you go and see it?—An April fool, an April fool, oh ho, young women. Well, don't be angry. I will make you an April fool no more till the next time; we had no sport here, because it is Sunday, and Easter Sunday. I dined ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... how many times she had left her dreaded house; but the oldest recounted all the times that they knew, and the way she had gone each time, and the doom that had followed her going; and two could remember the earthquake that there was in the street of ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany

... the saucerlike basin between Barren Butte and the foothills of Starvation. In the soft light of the afterglow it seemed to smile at him with a glint of malice, like the treacherous thing it was. For Furnace Lake is treacherous. The Big Earthquake (America knows only one Big Earthquake, that which rocked San Francisco so disastrously) had split Furnace Lake halfway across, leaving an ugly crevice ten feet wide at the narrowest point and eighty feet deep, ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: Where the smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning tho' ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... as though a great geyser and an earthquake had met. Columns like waterspouts hurled themselves across and over the reeling destroyer. Even when the "Grigsby's" nose came out and up once more the destroyer rocked in the near tidal wave that the swift series of ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock

... which they came as paupers and crowded into buildings which were never planned for domestic purposes, has been far from enviable. In September, 1917, the American Red Cross handed over the solving of this problem to one of its experts who had organised the aid given to San Francisco after the earthquake, and who had also had charge of the relief-work necessitated by the Ohio floods at Dayton. Co-operating with the French, houses partially constructed at the outbreak of war were now completed and furnished, and approximately ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... especially during the popular government of Rienzi, held weekly meetings in each of the thirteen quarters of the city. And in the most democratic of these, Cecco del Vecchio was an oracle and leader. It was at that assembly, over which the smith presided, that the murmurs that preceded the earthquake were heard. ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Many-Eyed One sees," replied Ten-teh, with unmoved determination. "This person has long desired a son, and those who walk into an earthquake while imploring heaven for a sign are unworthy of consideration. Take this fish and depart until the morrow. Also, unless you would have the villagers regard you as not only deficient but profane, reveal nothing of this happening to those whom you encounter." With these words Ten-teh dismissed ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... Then out darted Heavenly Wisdom, his beautiful daughter Pallas Athene or Minerva, fully armed, with piercing, shining eyes, and by her counsels he cast down the Titans, and heaped their own mountains, Etna and Ossa and Pelion, on them to keep them down; and whenever there was an earthquake, it was thought to be caused by one of these giants struggling to get free, though perhaps there was some remembrance of the tower of Babel in the story. Pallas, this glorious daughter of Jupiter, was wise, brave, and strong, and she was also ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... watchers had their reward. The great, green, mossy wall, with all its luxuriance of orange-tinted bracken and golden fern, seemed to shiver as if touched by a passing wind. Then the quivering motion ceased, the whole centre crumbled softly down, and it was as if some huge, hoary monster, a living earthquake, had leaped from the prison in which it was bound, to spring upon its prey—the great mill ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn

... persons, three thousand of whom were supported out of the public oblations. [159] The splendor and dignity of the queen of the East, the acknowledged populousness of Caesarea, Seleucia, and Alexandria, and the destruction of two hundred and fifty thousand souls in the earthquake which afflicted Antioch under the elder Justin, [160] are so many convincing proofs that the whole number of its inhabitants was not less than half a million, and that the Christians, however multiplied by zeal and power, did not exceed a fifth ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... administration fell back into its old condition. The tribunes ceased to agitate. The consulships and the praetorships fell to the candidates whom the Senate supported. Whether the oligarchy had learnt any lessons of caution from the brief political earthquake which had shaken but not overthrown them remained to be seen. Six years after the murder of Caius Gracchus an opportunity was afforded to this distinguished body of showing on a conspicuous scale the material of which ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... here in the West, have been measuring the tide of human progress in biological terms. We have almost forgotten the days of our great calamity, and still speak of them in that typical expression of apprehension of the "earthquake babies." Let us think now of the future and its bright prospects, inaugurated so auspiciously for the ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... cause of magnetism, galvanism, light, heat, gravity, of the aurora, the lightning, the zodiacal light, of the tails and nebulosities of comets, of the great currents of our atmosphere, of the samiel, the hurricane, and the earthquake. It will be perceived that we treat it as any other fluid, in relation to its law of motion and condensation. But we have no right to base our calculations on its resistance, by the analogies presented by ponderable or atomic matter. Atomic fluids,—even pure air, may be ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... the mountains When an earthquake passes by, And the terror of the people Struck dumb ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... arrived," and then darted out of the room. During this interval, the marquise, having arrived behind the rampart, as it were, of her door, felt that her strength was failing her; for a moment she remained rigid, pale and motionless as a statue, and then, like a statue shaken on its base by an earthquake, tottered and fell inanimate on the carpet. The noise of the fall resounded at the same moment as the rolling of Marguerite's carriage ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... door is locked,' answered Conyngham in a muffled voice. And the carriage began to rock and crack upon its springs, as if an earthquake ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... valley, in the centre of the view, appears from this point to be choked up with an almost impenetrable labyrinth of houses. This is, however, now the most regular portion of the capital. Having been that part which suffered most severely from the great earthquake of 1755, it has since been rebuilt upon a uniform plan, with its streets intersecting each other at right angles. In this quarter also are the two principal pracas, or squares, in the city. The largest of these is the Praca do Commercio, opening to the south upon the broad expanse of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various

... strange atmosphere thus engendered, in the dimming and distorting of architectural lines, in the muffling of familiar sounds. The unseasonable conditions resembled in some way what in other climates is called earthquake weather, when Nature seems to be throwing a veil over the world to hide the monstrous deed she is about ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... Duke, as the mountain, which is fixed in its stateliness, short of the power of some earthquake, which shall be grander and more terrible than any earthquake yet known. Here we are at the house again. I will go in and sit down for ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... depressing meal to which they sat down that evening, long after the accustomed hour, a fact which Mr. Baron would not forget, even in the throes of an earthquake. He groaned over it; he groaned over everything, and especially over his niece, who had suddenly developed into the most unmanageable element in the whole vexed problem of the future. He felt that they owed her very much, and that she ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... the present St. David townsite was laid out. John Smith Merrill built the first house. The following year an adobe schoolhouse was built, this used for public gatherings until shaken down by an earthquake, May 3, 1887, happily while the children were at recess. Much damage ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... course. She never loses her head,—I don't believe she would in an earthquake. Whenever we were at work with our microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her mind was the only achromatic one I ever looked into,—I did n't say looked through.—-But I did n't come to talk about that. I read in one of your books that when ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... a vast desert moorland, and came, after three days, into the barren hill country and among the rugged mountains of the South. There an earthquake had split the rocks asunder, and opened dark and bottomless gorges, and hollowed out many a low-walled cavern, where the light of day was never seen. Along deep, winding ways, Loki went, squeezing through narrow crevices, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... danger of too much money—a danger at which most of us can in these days afford to smile. The Mortimers were, one would have supposed, a clan unlikely to be moved from their native soil by anything less convulsive than an earthquake. But money did it. One of them was a miser, and when he died—after a terrific gorge at his brother's expense—he left trouble behind him. Some of his relations wanted more of his money than was good for their souls, and one of them (actually) fought shy of receiving her proper share. Altogether ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various

... remarked, Jack," MacFarlane began again, "there is nothing but an earthquake will make your property of any use. It is a low-grade ore, I should say, and tunnelling and shoring would eat it up. Wipe it off the books. There are thousands of acres of this kind of land lying around loose from here to the Cumberland Valley. ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the boom that was strange; it was the loud, unearthly chord it seemed to strike; the dread whiz which followed; which blanched faces, and sent the timid housemaid diving beneath the bed out of harm's way. Was it an earthquake?—the buildings shook. A fearful crash dissipated the notion. A fearful crash, indeed; but a material sound—a relief from its weird, unnerving prelude. Individuals living miles apart asserted that the missile had seemed to shoot past their ears. Yet one shell ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... world, its follies, its lies, its hatreds, its vanities, its miseries, inhabits the blue of heaven, and no longer feels anything but profound and subterranean shocks of destiny, as the crests of mountains feel the shocks of earthquake. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... destitute of inhabitants? But I am inclined to think that neither this or any other monastery was erected in South Britain till the seventh century, after Austin the monk came into England. As to the tradition of its having been built upon the ruins of the temple of Apollo, destroyed by an earthquake, I do not doubt but the monks were very ready to propagate a fable of this kind, who formed so many others to show the triumphs of Christianity over paganism, and to induce their proselytes to believe that heaven ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... grey and grand in its onsweeping wrath, its huge billows rose and fell like moving mountains convulsed by an earthquake,—light and shadow combated against each other in its dark abysmal depths and among its toppling crests of foam—I could hear the savage hiss and boom of breakers dashing themselves to pieces on some unseen rocky coast far away,—and my heart grew cold with dread ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... We concluded we had struck in passing over some hidden rock. The lead was thrown, but no ground was found; the pumps were set a-going, but we were free of water. The captain attributed the shock to an earthquake, and on our arrival at Chile, his conjecture was confirmed. In Valdivia, in the latitude of which place we were at the time, a severe shock of ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... to do with strange appearances in the heavens; that it was impossible for him to be bad enough to cause a whirlwind, or good enough to stop one. After many centuries of thought, he about half concluded that making mouths at a priest would not necessarily cause an earthquake. He noticed, and no doubt with considerable astonishment, that very good men were occasionally struck by lightning, while very bad ones escaped. He was frequently forced to the painful conclusion (and it is the most painful to which any human being ever was forced) ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... east towards the west; at which end is seen the town of Port Royal standing a few feet above the water, and looking complacently down on its predecessor, buried eight fathoms below the surface by the earthquake of 1692. Here, too, is the Royal Naval Yard, hospital, barracks, and the works of Fort Charles defending the entrance, which is rendered still more difficult of access to an enemy by the Apostles' Battery ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... some rain falling, covered white paper with dark drops, like sulphur or dirt, which burnt like wet gunpowder, and the air had a very sulphureous smell. He supposes this to have been emitted from some distant earthquake or volcano. Philos. Trans. V. ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... Bright Sky with a Breeze at Awadzu, Bain by Night at Karasaki, and the Wild Geese alighting at Katada. All the places mentioned are points about the lake. All sorts of legends and romantic stories are associated with the waters of Lake Biwa. Its origin is said to be due to an earthquake that took place several centuries before the Christian era; the legend states that Fuji rose to its majestic height from the plain of Suruga at the same moment the lake was formed. Temples and shrines abound, and pilgrims galore come from far-off places to worship ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... trampling and rustling, and at last he got the push that she promised. He spread out his arms, and there was his wife's waist within them, and he could see her plain; but such a hullabulloo rose as if there was an earthquake, and he found himself surrounded by horrible-looking things, roaring at him and striving to pull his wife away. But he made the sign of the cross and bid them begone in God's name, and held his wife as if it was iron his arms were made of. Bedad, in one moment everything was as silent as the ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... as the swift wave of sympathy that surged over the earth. A famine in India, a devastating earthquake in Mexico, a bid for freedom on the part of an oppressed population, a deed of heroism at sea—each was felt within practically a few moments, emotionally, in an English, French or German village. Our hearts were throbbing continuously at the ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... was a sight that the men say they will never forget. It looked as if an earthquake had struck it. The published photographs do not give any idea of the indescribable mass of ruins to which our guns reduced it. The chaos is so utter that the very line of the streets is ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... murmured to the ceiling, pausing for God to comment. Then, "No, Fay, even if I could afford it—and stand it—I'm such a bad-luck Harry that just when I got us all safely stowed at the N minus 1 sublevel, the Soviets would discover an earthquake bomb that struck from below, and I'd have to follow everybody back to the treetops. Hey! How about bubble homes in orbit around earth? Micro Systems could subdivide the world's most spacious suburb and all you moles could go ellipsing. Space is ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... representation of the burning city. And what are those fearful forms that feed the flames? Fiends, in our likeness—fiends! And see how wide and far the conflagration spreads. The whole city is swallowed up by an earthquake. It ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the citizens of London were alarmed by two shocks of an earthquake, and the prophecy of a third, which was to destroy them altogether. The first shock was felt on the 8th of February, and threw down several chimneys in the neighbourhood of Limehouse and Poplar; the second ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... November, 1711, at about eight o'clock in the evening, the shock of an earthquake was felt in Paris and at Versailles; but it was so slight that few people perceived it. In several places towards Touraine and Poitou, in Saxony, and in some of the German towns near, it was very perceptible at the same day and hour. At this date a new tontine ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... is sent to the islands as official visitor of the Jesuit missions there, and he at once reorganizes and systematizes their plan and conduct. Soon after his arrival there is a violent earthquake at Manila, which injures two of the churches. The Jesuits receive much aid for restoring their building—contributions from the Spaniards, and services from the Indians. In an epidemic of disease among them much good is done by the confraternity established among the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... secrets had been inhumed by the earthquake and fire of San Francisco and wondered if his wife's had been one of them. After all, she had been born in this city of odd and whispered pasts, and there were moments when his silent mother-in-law suggested a ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... in the glass of the North Loch, reflected from behind the shadow of the city, a tremendous eruption of burning beams and rafters burst into the sky, while a horrible crash, as if the chariots of destruction were themselves breaking down, shook the town like an earthquake. ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... were the walls that no impression was made upon them, and a cabman who was driving past at the time heard nothing of the sound of the explosion, though he felt a trembling of the ground, and thought for a moment there had been a shock of earthquake." ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... leaves he stood, More than a mile immersed within the wood, At once the wind was laid; the whispering sound Was dumb; a rising earthquake rocked the ground; With deeper brown the grove was overspread, A sudden horror seized his giddy head, And his ears tingled, and his colour fled, Nature was in alarm; some danger nigh Seemed threatened, though ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... attentions, were occupied with making themselves a stronghold in the system of instruction, the Brothers Minor were more than anywhere else tempted to forsake the way of simplicity and poverty. Francis's warnings had put on such dark and threatening colors that after the famous earthquake of December 23, 1222, which spread terror over all northern Italy, there was no hesitation in believing that he had predicted the catastrophe.[9] He had indeed predicted a catastrophe which was none the less horrible for being ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... earthquake, having lasted fully ten minutes, began to lull, and soon ceased. I found her an hour later standing among the ruins of ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... was running the board. Hetty had decided that one earthquake a day was enough and had gone to bed. Barney bewildered but happily pleased at so much company, sat on the edge of a chair and avidly watched and listened, not understanding a thing he saw or heard. At the ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael

... It occupied—that dismal thing!— The path that he was following. Before he'd time to stop and fly, An earthquake trifled with the eye That saw a ghost. He fell as fall the early good; Unmoved that awful vision stood. The stars that danced before his ken He wildly brushed away, and then ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... visible at certain times. The most famous tradition is that of the ancient town of Vineta,—once, it is said, the greatest emporium in the north of Europe,—several times destroyed and built up again, till, in 1183, it was upheaved by an earthquake and swallowed by a flood. The ruins of Vineta are believed to be visible between the coast of Pomerania and the island of Ruegen. This tradition has suggested one of Wilhelm Mueller's—my father's—lyrical songs, published in his "Stones and Shells from the Island of Ruegen," ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... I heard a man start in from the back. Next I heard Pike say, "We'll soon fix that fire," then came an explosion and a crash, like an earthquake, and the wall came down upon me, and the counter came over and I was half under it. I heard the cries of the men, and, wriggling about, I got out from under the counter and found my hands free from the brace, and the snowflakes coming in my face through where half the side of the building ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth

... forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives? I know there is not a man here who would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself, having twelve months ago, in this place, moved you, that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... Benjamin Franklin flew his famous kite on the banks of the Schuylkill River, and captured the first CANNED LIGHTNING, was there any definite knowledge of electrical energy. His lightning-rod was regarded as an insult to the deity of Heaven. It was blamed for the earthquake of 1755. And not until the telegraph of Morse came into general use, did men dare to think of the thunder-bolt of Jove as a possible ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... fitful; the air was thick with rumours from abroad; the sleep of the Continent was breaking up, and Europe lay in the anxious and strange expectancy in which some great city might see the signs of a coming earthquake, without the power of ascertaining at what moment, or from what quarter, its foundations were to be flung up in sight of the sun.—We were then in the first stage of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... still on hand, having issued an extra edition. Scarcely had the people of Metropolisville laid these two charming and much-lamented young ladies in their last, long resting-place, the quiet grave, when there comes like an earthquake out of a clear sky, the frightful and somewhat surprising and stunning intelligence that the postmaster of the village, a young man of a hitherto unexceptionable and blameless reputation, has been arrested for robbing the mails. It ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... don't know that there's much comfort in reflecting that a thunder-storm might have been accompanied by an earthquake." ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... hyphen) to each line to indicate who is typing (some conferencing facilities do this automatically). The login name is often shortened to a unique prefix (possibly a single letter) during a very long conversation. /// A giggle or chuckle. On a MUD, this usually means 'earthquake fault'. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0



Words linked to "Earthquake" :   kerfuffle, shock, earth tremor, quake, hurly burly, submarine earthquake, tremor, disruption, seism, seaquake, hoo-ha, geological phenomenon, seismic disturbance, to-do, commotion, microseism, disturbance, flutter, hoo-hah



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