Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/96

90 that many people die. The reason for this is that when the vapors have been confined for a long time underground they become fetid and noxious. The same thing happens in wells that have long remained foul and choked up, for when these are again opened for cleansing purposes, the first workmen to descend into them are often asphyxiated.

Many wondrous effects are wrought by earthquakes. Note first that the vapors escaping at such times frequently transform men and beasts into stone, especially into rock-salt, and this is very liable to happen in mountainous regions or in the vicinity of salt-mines. This lapidifying property of the vapors is due to their enormous condensation. So affirm the eminent doctors of science. And I myself have heard it reported that high up in the Alps as many as fifty neatherds with their beeves were turned to stone in this manner; with them also was a dairymaid engaged in drawing milk, and transfixed in that attitude at the selfsame moment when all were petrified. Note secondly that earthquakes are often accompanied by flames and glowing ashes which shoot up from below and ignite houses, villages and towns. Yet a third accompaniment of earthquakes is the belching up from below of vast quantities of sand and dust, sufficient to engulf whole cities.

(From Book VI., Chapter 8, of Ristoro d'Arezzo's "Composizione del Mondo," 1282)

And we have ourselves discovered and excavated near the summit of an exceedingly high mountain remains of numerous species of fish and other creatures, such as various members of the shark tribe, and even shells that had retained traces of their original coloration. And in the same locality are found also different varieties of sand, gravel, water-worn pebbles and boulders scattered about in great profusion, apparently deposited by aqueous agency: and this we consider proof that the mountain in question was formed by the flood.

And we have at another time ascended a lofty mountain whose summit was composed of a thick stratum of very hard rock, of ferruginous color, and whose structure was as clearly the work of design as a vase is evidence of the potter's art. A huge castle, almost a citadel in fact, rested upon cliffs of this formation, and all the strata outcropping at that altitude reposed upon other beds that had plainly been formed by water action. And the proof thereof consists in this, namely that as one examines the strata exposed along the flanks of the mountain, one finds in certain places earth commingled with sand, at others tufa along with stones rounded by water action, and again elsewhere, quantities of fish remains belonging to various species, and also numerous other beds of divers kinds; all of which proves that this particular mountain, and the others already mentioned, near