held in more affectionate remembrance. and modern progress to the Second and The father of Napoleon had been secre- not to the First Empire. Napoleon was tary to Paoli while the latter was dictator always desirous, from motives of policy, of Corsica, and he appears to have trained to keep his Corsican origin in the backhis son to a personal admiration of his ground, as he proved, on his accession to great countryman. In the last days of power in France, by deliberately misspellNapoleon at St. Helena, the memory of ing his family name of Buonaparte, writing his native isle and of her hero appears to it in the more French form - Bonaparte. have risen vividly before his failing eyes, But he did not thus escape the keen and when the gorgeous halls of the Tuileries sarcastic wit of an Italian princess of and the smoke of his hundred battle-fields Milan, who, when he remarked to her, had faded away. "Paoli," he once re- "GI' Italiani sono tutti ladri," replied, marked, "combattait et gouvernait avec "Non tutti, ma Buona Parte!" And he une sagacité un tact, que je n'ai vu qu'à refused, in accordance with the traditional lui." Paoli was indeed the Washington policy of France, to create a united Italy, of Corsica. He has been described by a when he could have done so, while at the thoughtful writer as "one of the ablest height of his power, almost with a stroke and most virtuous of men of his own or of of his pen. A very curious but characterany time; a hero and patriot in the truest istic incident in his career is his issuing a acceptation of both words; one who needed proclamation to the Greeks during his but a larger stage, and more propitious for- expedition to Egypt in 1798, calling upon tune, to rank in sober reality with the ideal them to rally round him as "a descendant great of classical renown." We have seen, of the ancient Spartans." He referred to above, that he retired to England after the the fact that there is a Greek colony at annexation of Corsica to France in 1769. Carghese, in Corsica, still preserving its He was invited to return home at the be- creed and language, and that his beautiful ginning of the first French Revolution; mother, Letizia Ramolino, is said to have but, disgusted with its excesses, and above been related to a Greek family of the name all with the execution of Louis XVI., he of Kalomeros (Kahoμépos), of which name persuaded the Consulta or general assem- Buonaparte has been alleged to be a literal bly of his countrymen to place the island Italian translation. Colonel Leake (Travunder the protection of the English crown.els in the Morea, vol. i., page 340) refers After the collapse from causes already to this tradition, which he found prevalent adverted to of that short-lived protec- in a district of the ancient Laconia. He torate, Paoli again sought refuge in En- lends his high authority to the undoubted gland for his honored old age. Here he fact that a number of Greek families did closed his chequered career, dying in emigrate towards the end of the sevenLondon in 1807. He was buried in the teenth century from that part of the old churchyard of St. Pancras, and "his Spartan dominion to Corsica, but adds friends raised to him a monument in West-“that Buonaparte was certainly an Italian minster Abbey, among the memorials of the great men of the island which had adopted him, and which he loved best after his own." The grateful recollection of his countrymen has, however, of recent years caused his remains to be transferred to his native soil, where they were reinterred amid universal marks of respect and honor. "The remembrance of Paoli," says the German historian Gregorovius, "is sacred among the people. Napoleon fills the heart of the Corsican with pride, for he was his brother; but if you mention Paoli to him, his eye lights up like that of a son to whom one names an honored departed father."

The fact is that Corsica was neglected by the greatest and most celebrated of her sons, and that she owes her public works

The late Mr. Herman Merivale, C. B., under secretary of state for the colonies and fo India.

name older than the date of the colony." Anyhow, Napoleon's proclamation to the Greeks is an illustration of the well-known fact that his early ambition was to rival the exploits of Alexander and, like him, to found a new Eastern Empire. At St. Helena, he once said that Sir Sydney Smith, by his defence of Acre, had "made him miss his destiny," remarking also that he regretted that he had ever re-crossed the Mediterranean.

But we must return from this digression. Ever since its final annexation, Corsica has always been treated as an integral part of France, just as the Isle of Wight is an integral part of England. It has always sent its representatives to the national legislature at Paris, and formed a depart. ment administered by a préfet appointed by the central executive. As in all the other departments of France, there is also a freely elected conseil général, analogous

to the new county councils in England, and with similar powers and duties. During my recent visit I was received with much courtesy by the present préfet, who took me to the opening of the annual session at Ajaccio. The proceedings are conducted with order and dignity.

Nothing in the nature of "Home Rule," in the Irish sense of the phrase, exists in Corsica, nor is it desired by any section of the inhabitants. Being master of Italian, the general language of the country, I conversed freely with all classes, and ascertained that there is no wish even for such local legislative privileges as are enjoyed by Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man. The general tranquillity of the island, and its loyality to France, are sufficiently proved by the fact that the French garrison consists of little more than one thousand regular troops a strong contrast to the army of nearly thirty thousand soldiers maintained by the English government in Ireland. Corsica, like all other Italian-speaking provinces that are not already united to the modern kingdom of Italy, is claimed by the more advanced Italian patriots as a portion of Italia Irre denta; but there is no response to this feeling in Corsica itself in consequence, probably, of the traditions of the long struggle which the islanders maintained for four centuries against the hated rule of Genoa, and also in consequence of the fair treatment which they receive from France.

more accurately than Scott's "Legend of Montrose " describes the actual condition of Scotland at the present day.

The most conspicuous example of the old Corsican vendetta may, perhaps, be said to have been shown in the deadly lifelong grapple between Napoleon and his Corsican contemporary the famous Pozzo di Borgo. In youth they had been personal enemies in their native isle. It has been truly written of Pozzo di Borgo: "In the service of England, Austria, ard Russia, alike in exile and in power, he made the downfall of Napoleon the one constant aim of his existence; he meddled in every intrigue and in every coalition, patiently took up the threads of one negotiation after another, as they were cut by the sword, and carried into the great struggle of European politics the untiring inveteracy of his native vendetta. Napoleon once demanded his extradition, and Alexander assented; but the diplomatist remembered the fate of Patkul, and escaped to London. He stood opposed to his great enemy at Waterloo, and witnessed that unequalled rout with all the satisfaction of a gratified hatred. It was not I that killed him,' he said, after Napoleon's embarkation for St. Helena; but I have thrown the last shovelful of earth on his head.""

As all roads lead to Rome, so all discussions and papers on Corsica should lead up to the emperor Napoleon, who so long threw his shadow across Europe. The vendetta of Corsica — about which His effigy in bronze now stands on the so much has been written - was analogous public place of his native city, surrounded to the vendetta which formerly prevailed by the statues of his brothers whom he in Maina (the ancient Laconia) and in had made kings. His mother lies in a other parts of Greece; in Albania; and memorial chapel, with the inscription among other wild mountaineers divided" MATER REGUM" on her tomb. The into jealous and often hostile clans. It existed in full force in the Highlands of Scotland down to a comparatively recent period. Macaulay (History of England, chap. xviii.) gives several instances of the savage ferocity of the vendetta among the Highlanders; and elsewhere observes that the English tourist, visiting the scenes of some of Montrose's battles, relates that "Here the Royalists fought the Rebels;" while the Highland peasant on the spot states, with more true appreciation, "Here the Grahams fought their hereditary foes the Campbells." The ancient vendetta between rival clans and families is now almost as extinct in Corsica as in Scotland. A mediæval state of society nowhere survives the introduction of roads and railways. Merimée's "Colomba" scarcely describes the actual condition of Corsica

town hall of Ajaccio is full of portraits of his family. The stranger is still shown a grotto on the shore in which Napoleon is believed to have been fond of meditating in his youth. From which grotto he looked forth on the sea which he was never destined to rule the sea whose sudden tempests (to quote the image used long afterwards by his nephew Jerome) were emblematic of his stormy life.

Still more interesting is the house in which he was born, now the property of the widowed Empress Eugénie. It is a moderately sized mansion, resembling the houses of the local nobility in the provincial cities of Italy. The family of Buona. parte, originally sprung from a good stock in Tuscany, was reckoned among the noblesse of Corsica. We have the high authority of De Tocqueville that Napo

leon, though subject, like most men of Italian race, to rude and violent bursts of passion, never forgot that he was a gentilhomme by birth. He told his father-inlaw, the emperor of Austria, that he was the Rudolph of Hapsburg of his family; and Rudolph had been a chief among the local noblesse of Switzerland.

I shall indeed be content if this imperfect sketch should be the means of inducing some one of my countrymen to study and narrate in English the history of Corsica. I am, gentlemen,

Yours faithfully,

G. F. BOWEN.

AT 6.38 A.M. on October 28, I was awakened at my house in Tokio by the long, swinging motion of an earthquake. There was no noise of creaking timbers and there were no shocks such as usually accompany earthquakes. It was an easy swing, which produced dizziness and nausea. As recorded by bracket seismographs this continued for ten or twelve minutes. During the interval there was ample time to study the movements of these instruments, and the conclusion that could not be avoided was that rather than acting as steady points these heavy masses were simply being swung from side to side horizontal displacement was not being measured, but angles of tip were being recorded. That many of our seis. mographs are useless as recorders of horizontal motion whenever a vertical component of motion is recorded, is a view that I have held for many years, and therefore when these two have been recorded in conjunction I have been inclined to receive the records with caution.

sixty feet long, and thirty feet broad, rose quickly, first on one side and then on the other, to a height of three or four feetmuch in the same way that water would rise and fall in a basin that was being tipped from side to side.

Assuming what is said to be correct, it must not be concluded that modern seismographs are useless. For earthquakes where the motion is horizontal, they give records which practically are absolutely correct. When vertical motion occurs, in many cases if not in all, the records must be interpreted in a new light. The socalled horizontal displacements may be employed in determining the maximum slope of a wave, and if from an instrument recording vertical motion we are assured that we have measured the vertical height of a wave, we can at least approximate to the length of the same. The period of the waves being recorded, it follows that the velocity of propagation may be calculated.

Although it seems possible to use our present bracket seismographs as angle measures, it is evident that there are other types of instruments, where swing due to inertia is minimized, which will act more satisfactorily. To obtain a true measure of vertical displacement, the most evident solution would be to use a number of lever arrangements in different azimuths. Other methods may, however, suggest themselves.

For the present our time is too much occupied with outside observations to at tend to instruments or to reduce their records. Up to date it is known that nearly eight thousand people have been killed, many having been consumed in the burning ruins where they were entombed. At least forty-one thousand houses are level with the plain, and engineering struc tures which have stood both typhoon and flood have been reduced to ruin. In the middle of the stricken district, which is near Gifu and Okazaki, it is doubtful whether any ordinary building could have Further, the measurement of vertical resisted the violence of the movement; but motion as recorded by a horizontal lever outside this, much destruction might have arrangement can only be trusted if we can been obviated had attention been given to assure ourselves that the advance of the the ordinary rules of construction, and to waves has been at right angles to the the special rules formulated by those who direction of the lever. If this condition have considered the question of building is not fulfilled, then the seismograph for in earthquake countries. In many places vertical motion may also become a tip- so-called “foreign " buildings of brick and recording instrument. As another indica- stone- undoubtedly put up in the flimsition that during this particular earthquake est manner- - lie as heaps of ruin between earth tips occurred, I may mention that Japanese buildings yet standing. Cotton the water in a tank with perpendicular mills have fallen in, whilst their tall brick sides which is about twenty-five feet deep, | chimneys have been whipped off at about

more movement on the alluvium than on the rocks.

Earthquakes yet continue, and in the Gifu plain each one is preceded by a boom as if a heavy gun had been fired in some subterranean chamber. Although the survivors, who may number, perhaps, two millions, are, for the most part, destitute, have witnessed the most terrible scenes, and are yet surrounded by the dead and the dying, yet there is no panic. They hear a "boomb," and run laughing to the middle of the street to escape the shock which the unaccountable noises herald. The Japanese have their feelings, but on occasions of this sort there is no helplessness in consequence of hysteria or mental prostration. As to what happens with Europeans under like circumstances, I must leave readers to consult history.

Tokio, November 7.

JOHN MILNE.

half their height. Huge cast-iron columns, which, unlike chimneys, are uniform in section, acting as piers for railway bridges, have been cut in two near their base. In some instances these have been snapped into pieces much as we might snap a carrot, and the fragments thrown down upon the shingle beaches of the rivers. The greatest efforts appear to have been exerted where masonry piers carrying two-hundred-feet girders over lengths of eighteen hundred feet have been cut in two, and then danced and twisted over their solid foundations considerable distances from their true positions. These piers have a sectional area of 26 X 10 feet, and are from thirty to fifty feet in height. Embankments have been spread outwards or shot away, brick arches have fallen between their abutments, whilst the railway line itself has been sent into a series of snake-like folds and hummocked into waves. The greatest destruction has taken place on the Okazaki-Gifu plain, where we have all the phenomena - like the opening of crevasses, the spurting up of mud and water, the destruction of river banks, etc. which usually accompany large earthquakes. At Okazaki and Nagoya the castles have survived. The reason for this may be partly attributable to the better class of timber employed in their construction, but principally to their pyramidal form and to the fact that they are surrounded by moats. Here and there a temple has escaped destruction, partly, perhaps, on account of the quality of materials employed in its construction, but while twice that number were injured, also in consequence of the multiplicity of and nearly half a million of people were joints which come between the roof and made homeless and desolate. A scientific the supporting columns. At these joints observer at the very centre of the ruin there has been a basket-like yielding, and declares that some years ago he reported the interstice of the roof has not, therefore, the existence of enormous holes underacted with its whole force in tending to neath the soil of the region round Gifu to rupture its supports. On the hills which which no bottom could be found, and in surround the plain, although the motion his opinion the earthquake has shaken has been severe, the destruction is not so down the mountain into these enormous great. These hills are granites, palæozoic cavities. From October 28th up to Noschists, and other rocks. There is noth-vember 9th the shocks had continued, ing volcanic. In the small cuttings where the railroad passes from the hills out into the plain, no effects of disturbance are observable, the surface motion probably having been discharged at the faces of the inclosing embankments. The general appearance outside the cuttings, however, is as if some giant hand had taken rails and sleepers and rubbed them back and forth until the ballast lying between them was formed into huge, bolster-like ridges. Crossing the hills and proceeding to other plains, it is noticeable that there has been

From The Spectator. THE JAPANESE ON EARTHQUAKES. THE long letters in the Times from the scene of the Japanese earthquake of October 28th, which continued for many successive days, give a very remarkable account of the earthquake itself, and a still more remarkable account of the bearing of the Japanese population under that terrible calamity, by which many thousands of lives were lost-eight thousand at least

though not in their first violence; and in the twenty hours preceding the despatch of the mail of November 9th, there had been no less than seven hundred and thirty earthquake shocks, or about thirtysix in the hour, more than one in every two minutes. The whole surface of a district which one report calls five hundred square miles, and another calls twelve hundred square miles, had been broken into earthquake waves, the buildings being mostly ruined, a great host of fires having broken out, and the population being very