less pious terms we may call this maintenance of equilibrium.
If surplusages of people upon this earth should reduce, and if then it should, in the organic sense, becomes desirable that people in disaster-zones should live longer, or die more lingeringly, provided for them are phenomena of a study of warnings, a study that is now, or that has been, subject to inhibitions.
August 31st, 1886 -- "Just before the sun dropped behind the horizon, it was eclipsed by a mass of inky, black clouds." People noted this appearance. It was like the "dense, mountain-like cloud" that appeared, at Callao, Peru, before the earthquake of Sept. 4th, 1868. But these people were in a North American city. Meteors were seen. They were like the fire balls that [343/344] have shot from this earth's volcanoes. Luminous clouds, such as have been seen at times of this earth's eruptions, appeared, and people watched them. There was no thought of danger. There was a glare. More meteors. The city of Charleston, South Carolina, was smashed.
People running from their houses -- telegraph poles falling around them -- they were meshed in coils of wire. Street lamps and lights in houses waved above, like lights of a fishing fleet that had cast out nets. It was a catch of bodies, but that was because minds had been meshed in the net of a cult, woven out of the impudence of the De Ballores and the silences of the Davisons, spread to this day upon every school of this earth.
The ground went on quaking. Down from the unknown came, perhaps, a volcanic discharge upon this quaking ground. Whether it was volcanic dust, or not, it is said, in the New York World, Sept. 4, that "volcanic dust" was falling, at Wilmington, North Carolina.(25)
Sept. 5th -- a severe shock, at Charleston, and a few minutes later came a brilliant meteor, which left a long train of fire. At the same time, two brilliant meteors were seen, at Columbia, S.C. See almost any newspaper, of the time. I happen to take from the London Times, Sept. 7.(26)
There was another discharge from the unknown -- or a "strange cloud" appeared, upon the 8th of September, off the coast of South Carolina. The cloud hung, heavy, in the sky, and was thought to be from burning grass on one of the islands. Charleston News and Courier, Sept. 10 -- that such was the explanation, but that no grass was known to be burning.(27)
If a procession starts at Washington Square, New York City, and, if soldiers arrive in Harlem, and then [344/345] keep on arriving in Harlem, I explain that, in spite of all the eccentricities of Harlem, Harlem is neither flying away from the procession, nor turning on 125th Street, for an axis. Meteors kept on coming to Charleston. They kept on arriving at this quaking part of this earth's surface, as if at a point on a stationary body. The most extraordinary display was upon the night of Oct. 22nd. There was a severe quake, at Charleston, while these meteors were falling. About fifty appeared (New York Sun, Nov. 1). About midnight, Oct. 23-24, a meteor exploded over Atlanta, Georgia, casting a light so intense that small objects on the ground were visible (New York Herald, Oct. 25).(28) A large meteor, at Charleston, night of Oct. 24th (Monthly Weather Review, 1886-296).(29) An extraordinary meteor, at Charleston, night of the 28th, is described, in the News and Courier, of the 29th, as "a strange, celestial visitor."(30)
"It was only coincidence."
There is no conventional seismologist, and there is no orthodox astronomer, who says otherwise.
In the Friend of India, June 22, 1897, is another record of some of the meteors that were seen in Charleston: that, at the time of the great quake, Prof. Oswald saw meteor after meteor shoot from an apparent radiant near Leo.(31) Carl McKinley, in his Descriptive Narrative of the Earthquake of August 31, 1886, records a report from Cape Romain Light Station, upon "an unusual fall of meteors during the night."(32)
Again a volcanic discharge came to this point -- or a fall of ashes was reported. In the News and Courier, Nov. 20, it is said that, about ten days be