on says was joined to the sea by the breaking of a sand-spit by
the sea waves accompanying an earthquake in 1498, we rose from the
rice fields and passed over a country of hill and rock. Further along
the line signs of violent movement became more numerous. Huge stone
lanterns at the entrances of temples had been rotated or overturned,
roofs had lost their tiles, especially along the ridge, sinkages in
the line became numerous, and although there was yet another rock
barrier between us and the plain of great destruction, it was evident
that we were in an area where earth movements had been violent."

The theatre of maximum destruction was a plain, dotted with villages
and homesteads, supporting, under the garden-like culture of Japan,
500 and 800 inhabitants to the square mile, and containing two cities,
Nagoya and Gifu, with populations respectively of 162,000 and 30,000,
giving probably a round total of half a million human beings. Within
about twelve miles of Gifu, a subsidence on a vast scale took place,
engulfing a whole range of hills, while over lesser areas the soil in
many places slipped down, carrying with it dwellings and their
inmates. Gifu was a total wreck, devastated by ruin and conflagration,
causing the destruction of half its houses. Ogaki, nine miles to the
west, fared even worse, for here only 113 out of 4,434 houses
remained standing, and one-tenth of the population were killed or
wounded. In one temple, where service was being held, only two out of
the entire congregation escaped.

Nagoya, too, suffered heavily, and thousands of houses collapsed. The
damage at this place was produced by three violent shocks in quick
succession, preceded by a deep, booming sound. During the succeeding
206 hours, 6,600 earth spasms of greater or less intensity were felt
at increasing intervals, occurring in the beginning probably at the
rate of one a minute. The inhabitants were driven to bivouac in rude
shelters in the streets, and there was great suffering among the
injured, to whom it was impossible to give proper care for many days
after the disaster. Some estimates placed the figure of the killed and
wounded as high as 24,000, whilst not less than 300,000 were rendered
homeless.

Owing to the frequency of earthquake shocks in Japan, the study of
their causes and effects has had a great deal of attention there since
the introduction of modern science into the island empire. The
Japanese have proved as energeti