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Show THE CENTRAL AMERICAN CATACLYSM. The Seismic disturbances in Guatemala and southern Mexico indicates that upheavals which began in Martinique several months ago are still on their march. They give fresh coloring to the gloomy picture of the sunken continent of Ala-lantls. Ala-lantls. Those who believe that the world's events and the lives of nations are subject to certain cer-tain cycles which the stars indicate will watch with keen interest the actions of volcanoes and earthquakes in the islands of the Caribbean sea and on the adjacent mainland. Before they are over the Isthmus canal question may be definitely settled, for a power is on the march there which overwhelms islands, tears asunder continents and changes in an hour the face of nature. The description of the falling ashes and scoria, the awful detonations, the furious lava flow which was sent out from Martinique seems to cover the Guatemala cataclysm; the story of the working of forces awful in their destructiveness; the underworld under-world surcharged with super-heated steam, a generated force that rends the rock foundations of islands and continents, filling the land with wreck and death and the sea with debris. Before it man stands helpless and confused, and if reflection is left him, it but emphasizes his ' VH knowledge, that mortals at best but stand upon a t'l' , !fl crust and that all around them are forces which f Vl f!9 if y ti 'iifH need but combining in the right way to bring J r illfl annihilation in a moment to all animal and vege- jt ' ifl table life on earth and leave it but a corpse of a fa t $H world floating in the deep seas of space. bH " fjSM It is peculiar that these late disturbances jty &. jlfl have occurred in places among the most beautiful ft w 'JffH of the earth. Martinique was famed for its love- 'I MH liness, while the coffee region of Guatemala, for jj X ''fM years has been held as one of the world's charmed " $j tyfjM spots. Clear to the mountain tops the land Is de- $ 'JlffH scribed as covered with luxuriant orange groves, t 3 f$JH wild groves, but bearing delicious fruit, where h Vf flfl the blooms of a new crop shine out beside the $jd W jjgf9 golden, unpicked previous crop. Then there are jjjj ilH pineapples that melt in the mouth, mangos, J$'iVllH spices, bananas, plantains, in endless profusion, fflfjf $4 JW while the spaces are filled with marvelous flow- C?- v iH ers which are not content with a home near the 3 ; (JM ground, but, rather, seizing upon pendant vines J! '"49 climb to the tops of the trees and fill all the space if t$ i'W there with their blooms, offsetting the splendors iJifl1pB of the gayly plumaged birds that make their Jg , 19 homes there. Sffl'LCJIfB A lady who was there eight months of last H1 4M year passed through this city last week. Speak- fllrdlfl Ing of the country she said: "It is so overwhelm- ifi J jflH ingly beautiful that it does not seem to be real. H 'ftfiH One cannot shake off the impression that it is but W J H a fairy scene gotten up In most extravagant form i J'VI for some great festival." ,yA fS Think of an overcharged volcano pouring out j! '" ,fjH its molten fires upon such a spot. To those who jJ J v&jB look on and can keep sqlf-contained enough to w' MIS think, it must look as though the mountains had W "j fflH been converted into a drop curtain to reveal-In jE'llliH splendor and terror the dissolving view of the 5r $, vfM universe in the closing act of the great world's iwift .iH final tragedy. Si ! |