Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/135

Rh the direct and inevitable result of certain interactions of force.

The man who talks of luck, meaning anything by it, simply throws dust in his own eyes, and blinds himself to the natural and ascertainable causes on which many results of more or less importance to himself depend. He blames his luck, when he should blame some specific short-coming in his own conduct. He attributes another man's success to luck when he should attribute it to prudence, ability, or character. There is a vast amount of "luck" in being always ready to take advantage of opportunities. It is a happy thing to have one's lamp trimmed and burning; and a most unhappy thing to have to go off in quest of oil when the hour of the festivity arrives. Some would call the first a case of good luck, and the latter a case of bad luck; but we fail to see why such outlandish terms should be applied to preparedness on the one hand and unpreparedness on the other. As we have already said, we must make allowance in life for the unforeseen and uncontrollable; but the general law holds good that he who wisely calculates what admits of calculation, and wisely controls what admits of being controlled, will place his life and happiness on sound foundations. Such a man will have little reason to complain of luck and little disposition to praise it. We suggested, last month, a theme for teachers in our public schools; we suggest, this month, another—the folly of trusting to luck, and the almost equal folly, on the part of those who do not believe in luck, of talking as if they did.

The earthquake of the night of the 31st of August, by which the city of Charleston, South Carolina, suffered severely, was generally felt throughout the States east of the Mississippi River, extending along the Atlantic coast from the Gulf of Mexico to Northern New England, and being perceptibly felt in several towns on the Mississippi. It was more strongly felt in the South than in the North, and the center of most violent manifestation was at Charleston, or near it. In other parts of the country the strength of the shock varied without any obvious rule, spots at a very short distance from one another feeling it in very different degrees. The time of the shock was fixed at about 9*54 Eastern standard time, while the gradual retardation in going west showed that the propagation of the movement was generally in that direction. At Charleston, the earthquake was extraordinarily severe. Many buildings were destroyed, the historic churches of St.Michael and St.Philip were ruined, between fifty and one hundred persons were killed, telegraphic communication was interrupted, and the streets were so filled with rubbish, or so dangerous in consequence of the imminence of tottering walls, that business was suspended for several days. Hardly a house in the city, it was said, escaped injury, and many were so shaken and cracked that a hard blow would bring them to the ground. The shock was equally severe at Summerville, where the whole business part of the town was wrecked, and several lives were lost. At Tybee Island, at the mouth of the Savannah River, the lenses in the lighthouse were broken, and the machinery of the lamps was disarranged, while the water was so agitated that the approach of a tidal wave was for a time apprehended. At Cleveland, Ohio, clocks whose pendulums swung east and west stopped at half-past nine, local time. The most coherent observations of the phenomenon were made at Washington in the Signal-Service Office, and by Mr.McGee, of the Geological Survey, and Professor Simon Newcomb, At the Signal-Service Office four shocks were noticed, of which the first lasted forty seconds and was most severe. The first of the three or four shocks mentioned at Charleston was also the