ior of the
earth. In the ancient Aztec and Toltec mythology of Mexico, this was
the Hell of Masaya.

Nowadays great sulphur mines on the peak bring profit to the owners,
and ice is quarried from the same vicinity to supply the neighboring
city of Puebla.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CHARLESTON, GALVESTON, JOHNSTOWN--OUR AMERICAN DISASTERS.

BY TRUMBULL WHITE.

=Earthquake Shock in South Carolina--Many Lives Lost in the
Riven City--Flames Follow the Convulsion--Galveston Smitten by
Tidal Wave and Hurricane--Thousands Die in Flood and Shattered
Buildings--The Gulf Coast Desolated--Johnstown, Pennsylvania,
Swept by Water from a Bursting Reservoir--Scenes of
Horror--Earthquakes on the California Coast.=

Our own land has experienced very few great convulsions of nature.
True, there have been frequent earthshocks in California, and all
along the Western coast, and occasionally slight tremors have been
felt in other sections, but the damage done to life and property has
been in almost every instance comparatively light. The only really
great disaster of this class that has been recorded in the United
States since the white man first set his foot upon the soil, occurred
in 1886, when the partial destruction of Charleston, South Carolina,
was accomplished by earthquake and fire.

On the morning of August 28, a slight shock was felt throughout North
and South Carolina, and in portions of Georgia. It was evidently a
warning of the calamity to follow, but naturally was not so
recognized, and no particular attention was paid to it. But on the
night of August 31, at about ten o'clock, the city was rent asunder by
a great shock which swept over it, carrying death and destruction in
its path.

During the night there were ten distinct shocks, but they were only
the subsiding of the earth-waves. The disaster was wrought by the
first. Its force may be inferred from the fact that the whole area of
the country between the Atlantic coast and the Mississippi river, and
as far to the north as Milwaukee, felt its power to a greater or
lesser degree.

Charleston, however, was the special victim of this elemental
destruction. The city was in ruins, two-thirds of its houses were
uninhabitable. Railroads and telegraph lines were torn up and
destroyed. Fires burst forth in different sections of the city, adding
to the horror of the panic-stricken people. Forty lives were lost,
over 100 seriously wounded were repor