several other parts of the island
were similarly flooded. The tide was also suddenly raised on the
southern coast of Ireland; the

CHAPTER XXVIII.

JAPAN AND ITS DISASTROUS EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES.

BY TRUMBULL WHITE.

=The Island Empire Subject to Convulsions of Nature--Legends
of Ancient Disturbances--Famous Volcano of Fuji-yama Formed
in One Night--More Than One Hundred Volcanoes in Japan--Two
Hundred and Thirty-two Eruptions Recorded--Devastation of
Thriving Towns and Busy Cities--The Capital a Sufferer--Scenes
of Desolation after the Most Recent Great Earthquakes.=

Japan may be considered the home of the volcano and the earthquake.
Few months pass there without one or more earth shocks of considerable
force, besides numerous lighter ones of too slight a nature to be
worthy of remark. Japanese histories furnish many records of these
phenomena.

There is an ancient legend of a great earthquake in 286 B.C., when
Mount Fuji rose from the bottom of the sea in a single night. This is
the highest and most famous mountain of the country. It rises more
than 12,000 feet above the water level, and is in shape like a cone;
the crater is 500 feet deep. It is regarded by the natives as a sacred
mountain, and large numbers of pilgrims make the ascent to the summit
at the commencement of the summer. The apex is shaped somewhat like an
eight-petaled lotus flower, and offers from three to five peaks to
view from different directions. Though now apparently extinct, it was
in former times an active volcano, and the histories of the country
mention several very disastrous eruptions. Japanese poets never weary
in celebrating the praises of Fuji-san, or Fuji-yama, as it is
variously called, and its conical form is one of the most familiar in
Japanese painting and decorative art.

As Japan has not yet been scientifically explored throughout, and,
moreover, as there is considerable difficulty in defining the kind of
mountain to be regarded as a volcano, it is impossible to give an
absolute statement as to the number of volcanoes in the country. If
under the term volcano be included all mountains which have been in a
state of eruption within the historical period, those which have a
true volcanic form, together with those that still exhibit on their
flanks matter ejected from a crater, we may conclude that there are at
least 100 such mountains in the Japanese empire. Of this number about
forty-ei