CHAPTER VI.

Sterility of the soil — The belief in the means which the Thauma- turgists were supposed to possess for causing sterility arose particularly from the language of emblems — Sterility produced naturally — Cultures which injure one another— Substances which are prejudicial to vegetation — The atmosphere rendered pestilential — Deleterious powder and nitrate of arsenic employed as offensive weapons — Earthquakes and rumblings of the earth foreseen and predicted.
The threats of celestial anger were not alone pointed at isolated individuals ; they were not alone confined to the production of transitory diseases : they raised alarms in a whole people that the earth would deny them its fruits; that mortals would only inhale death from the air ; that under their feet the tremhling earth would sink and open in abysses ; or that rocks, shaken from their foundations, would roll upon them, and crush them to atoms.
The habit of observation, assisted by reflection and enlightened by reasoning, imparts to mankind some plausible idea of the results of the different cultures to which he devotes himself, Thaïes, in purchasing before
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hand, a crop of olives, the fecundity of which he had prophesied,* proved to the Milesians that the philosopher depended only upon his scientific skill to obtain wealth. If the Thaumaturgist also could thus predict an abundant harvest, he might be able to predict others less abundant ; being enabled also to foresee a true famine, they have the power of threatening the people with it. Should the event justify his prophesy, he would be regarded not merely as the interpreter, but as the agent of the Gods, who had thus punished guilty mortals by the scourge of famine.
Nevertheless, how distant is this point still from that absolute sterility with which the imprecations of a sacred man, or the maledictions of a perfidious magician, were formerly believed to strike plants, trees, or even the soil ! This remark will scarcely escape a judicious reader, when he reflects that, according to the principle upon which I have constantly reasoned, some positive facts have given birth to the opinion of the possibility of this terrible means of vengeance. In the eloquent menaces that Eschylus ascribes to Eumenides,f I can only perceive the expressions of poetic enthusiasm and the hyperbole which belong to the Oriental style.
In vain I recal to remembrance the inclination which man always has had to ascribe, to the wrath of the Gods, scourges the cause and the remedy of which nature has hidden from him. The edifice which I have attempted to raise is shaken, if the belief in apparent miracles has
* Diogen. Laert. in Thalet.
* Aeschyl. Eumen. vers. 783, 786, 803, 806, &c.
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no other origin than some transient predictions, and the dreams of a terrified imagination.
Let us first retrace the influence of the language of emblems, and then observe how its power has been effectual in misleading writers of veracity, when they have related similar menaces, the accomplishment of which they have themselves witnessed in foreign countries.
For a long period of time, when a conquered city was condemned to eternal desolation, salt was sown among its ruins ; and, in the face of experience to the contrary, the property of rendering the earth unfruitful was for a long time attributed to salt. Let us turn our eyes to- wards those climates where, in immense deserts, salt is seen every where effloresced on the surface of the ground. There one privileged spot may be seen productive. An enemy invades it, disperses its inhabitants, fills up its wells, turns the course of its rivers, destroys the trees, and burns up its vegetation ; and this previously fruitful spot is confounded with the desert which surrounds it ; and almost immediately, under a burning sky, the despoiled soil becomes covered with the saline efflorescence, the forerunner of future sterility. The emblem of salt strewn upon the earth was most expressive, therefore, in those countries where this phenomenon was known : better than an edict, better than the sound of trumpets and the voice of heralds, it proclaimed the will of the destroyer ; it announced that the country should remain unin- habited, without cultivation, and devoted to eternal sterility. The menace was not vain ; even where climate and the effects of time did not hasten the work of violence.
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What a conqueror is to a weak people, so is the wicked man to a defenceless fellow-being. The Roman law punished as a capital offence that which may appear to us as a trivial delinquency, namely, the act of putting stones on the inheritance of another person. But in the country to which this law belonged, in Arabia, Scopelism* such was the name of the crime, was tantamount to the threat that whoever should dare to cultivate an inheritance thus insulted would perish by a violent death. That this mute language was understood, and that the field remained from that time uncultivated and sterile, was a sufficient reason for the seriousness of the punishment carried out against this emblematical threat. Let us transfer, without any explanation, the indication of this fact into a different order of things; the emblem of Scopelism, like that of salt, would soon be regarded as a physical agent capable of destroying the earth by ren- dering it unalterably sterile.
Sterility is known to be the result of natural causes. Agriculturists know that every perennial plant with a tap root, such as the Luzerne,f sown at the foot of young and delicate trees, injures their growth, and frequently destroys them. The Thaumaturgists were able to collect several observations of this kind, and they thus acquired the power of predicting the unfruitfulness of trees, and the barrenness of corn-fields, when the imprudence of the cultivator placed such mischievous neighbours near useful
* " Scopelismus, lapidum positio — lapides ponere indicio futur os quod si quis eum agrum coluisset malo letho periturus esset, &c." Digest, lib. xlvii. tit. xi. § ix.
f Medicago laciniata, a native of Syria. — Ed.
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vegetables; and, as may be supposed, their predictions were frequently fulfilled. The parable of the Gospel, which de- scribes tares being sown, in the night amongst the wheat, by the enemy of the proprietor,* evidently alludes to a known and even a common delinquency. No police, and especially no rural police, existed among the ancient na- tions ; hence every one was the guardian of his own pro- perty. It was then much easier, than it is at this day, to injure a field already sown, by treacherously scattering other seed over it, whether it was expected that the person thus acting would profit by the antipathy existing be- tween divers plants, or that the result would be the choking of the good grain by the excess of a useless plant.
From the judicial avowals of several pretended sor- cerers, it appears that, among the inventions taught in the Sabbat, the composition of powders for injuring every kind of crops, for drying up plants, and blasting fruits,f were included. All that has been related by these wretched beings as to their occupations there, we have considered as dreams ; but as dreams founded upon the recollection of ancient practices. To the tradition of the possibility of the assumed miracle, was attached the idea that it could still be worked.
A Chinese book, j the antiquity of which is undoubted, notices the crime of destroying a tree, by watering it se- cretly with poisoned water. According to ancient tradi- tions, individuals, envious of the fertility of their
* The Gospel of St. Matthew, chap. xin. vers. 24—28. t Llorente. Histoire de l'Inquisition, tome ni. pp. 440 — 447. X Le Livre des Récompenses et des Peines, translated by M. Stanislas Jullien, p. 346.
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neighbours' fields, threw upon them a Stygian water* to destroy their fertility. Theophrastus, quoted by St. Clement of Alexandria, affirms, that if the shells of beans are buried among the roots of a tree recently planted, the tree decays.f To obtain a similar result, even to a great extent, Democritus has directed that the roots of trees should be watered with the juice of the hemlock (Conium maculatum) , in which the flowers of the Lupine have been steeped, j I am ignorant whether experience has ever confirmed these assertions ; but they indicate that some efficacious secret was concealed under a veil, more or less dense, and that the ancients were not igno- rant of the existence of a process capable of destroying plants and trees. Recent experiments have proved that, to succeed in producing such an event, it is only neces- sary to spread upon the soil a combination of sulphur and lime, in the proportion of fifteen parts of the former to one of the latter ; a combination which is found to be formed in the residue of the lixivium, which is used in making curd soap ; and in the residue of the artificial fabrication of soda. It is also proved, by daily observation, that the waters proceeding from coal- pits, and from the workings of metallic mines, first change, and finally destroy vegetation, upon every soil which is wa- tered by them : and is it not natural to connect these waters with that Stygian water, of which the Telchines, a race celebrated in the art of excavating mines, and of working
* See the Scholiaste of Stace. in Thébaid. lib. n. verse 274. verbo. Telchines.
f S. Clement. Alexandr. Stromat. lib. in. X PUn. Hist. Nal. lib. xvm, cap. vi.
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brass and iron, were accused of employing for so guilty a purpose. But it matters little, as we have thus observed, more than once, whether these mischievous properties were formerly known or discovered by the founders of modern sorcery, the possibility of their being known is unques- tionable ; and the belief established among the ancients, and verified by the assertions of Theophrastus and Democritus, is unrefuted, that a natural process was sufficient to realise this possibility.
Let us apply the same reasoning to the terrible art of rendering the air pestilential. Natural phenomena were doubtless, at first, attributed to the vengeance of the Gods. Under the government of Marcus Aurelius, a temple at Seleucia was delivered up to be plundered : the soldiers having discovered a narrow aperture, en- tered it, and broke open a door which had been carefully shut by the Chaldean priests. Suddenly there was ex- haled a lethiferous vapour, the disastrous effects of which extended itself to some distance.* It was, I believe, a gas similar to that which sometimes escapes from mines, and from deep and deserted wells.f From two gulfs,
* Amm. Marcell. lib. xxiii. — Jul. Capitol, in Aelio-Vero.
f The deleterious gas, mentioned in the text, must have been chiefly, if not wholly, carbonic acid gas, which frequently accumu- lates in old cellars that have been long shut up, especially if they have contained any fermentable, vegetable matter. It was not the fire- damp, or gas exhaled in mines, which consists almost solely of light carburetted hydrogen : and which issues from fissures in the beds of coal ; and, being light, collects in the upper part of the mines, owing to deficient ventilation. This gas is very explosive when mingled with atmospheric air, and prior to Sir Humphrey Davy's in- vention of the safety-lamp, frequently proved dangerous to miners, when the atmosphere of it sunk so low down in the pit as to be fired
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one near to the borders of the Tigris, and another si- tuated near Hierapolis of Phrygia, there arises, in the same manner, a vapour mortal to every animal that inhales it.#
According to a tendency which we have already no- ticed, art has attempted to imitate the modes of destruc- tion which nature produces ; and at different periods, certain traces have been found of these means having been employed as offensive weapons. In 1804, the French Government accused the English sailors of having attempted to poison the atmosphere of the coasts of Bretagne and of Normandy, by leaving on shore horns containing burning nitrate of arsenic. Several of these horns being extinguished, they were collected, and their contents having been chemically examined, no doubt re- mained of the nature of the composition with which they
by their candles ; but it is not so poisonous when breathed as car- bonic acid gas, fixed air, which destroys life even when mixed with an equal portion of pure atmospheric air. Carbonic acid gas causes a sensation of giddiness, ringing in the ears, dimness of sight, drowsiness, and hurried respiration ; and the debility, which also attends it, comes on so suddenly, that the person is unable to make his escape, and falls down insensible ; hence the dread and horror which it must have occasioned in the Roman soldiers, when their comrades nearest the door were immersed in the flood of this gas which rolled from the apartment. This gas is also con- siderably heavier than atmospheric air ; and, therefore, when those who fell first were attempted to be raised by their companions, the necessity of stooping would bring them also into the same atmosphere, and thus increase the number of victims. Ignorance would be most likely to deem their deaths a punishment for the sacrilege. — Ed.
* Amm. Marcell. lib. xxur. — The modern Bambuk-Calasi. —Ed.
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were charged.* The enemies of France, in this instance, only renewed and perfected an invention which, in Europe, followed close upon the invention of cannon. At that time, bombs and grenades were filled with a powder pre- pared for the purpose ; and these projectiles, in bursting, diffused, to a great distance, an odour so deleterious, that it proved mortal to all who had the misfortune to inhale it. Paw, who has discovered in an Italian pyrotechnic the composition of this offensive powder, recollects that a trial of it was made in London with a melancholy rë- sult.f A long time before, if we may believeS trabo,| the Soanes, not contented with wounding their enemies with poisoned weapons, endeavoured to suffocate, with poisonous exhalations, those warriors whom they were unable to strike. It is evident that this poisonous odour developed itself only in the enemy's ranks ; for, if such had not been the case, it would have first destroyed the men who carried the weapons which concealed it. It will be necessary to distinguish these weapons from poisoned arrows, and to suppose that they were filled with a composition simi- lar to the exploding powder ; a composition which acted either on the rupture of the vessel containing it, or by the contact of fire. As this secret was known by the barbarians of the Caucasus, it might have been also
* See the Newspapers of 1804.
f Paw. Traité des Flèches empoisonnées (inserted in vol. xu. in 4to. of the translation of Pliny's Natural History), pp. 460 — 470. Paw calls into question the efficacy of this offensive powder. We think, with him, that it was trifling, since the use of it was so speedily abandoned.
t Strabo. lib. xi.
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known amongst more enlightened nations. Its nature might have been understood also by the Thaumaturgists, and have been made the origin of a belief in the appa- rent miracles which rendered the air pestilential.
If the iniquity of man can injure the fertility of the soil, and the salubrity of the air, it is not so easy for him to shake the earth, and to cause mountains to roll upon the people, whom his hatred has devoted to de- struction. But if signs, which escape the observation of the unobserving vulgar, warn him of the approach of some great convulsion of nature, and if he dares to pre- dict it, whether with the intention of. calling his fellow- creatures to prevent the sad consequences of the event, or to induce them to see in it the effects of the vengeance of the Gods, what glory and what power will be his share, when the event shall have confirmed his prediction !
Iamblicus* attributes the possession of this wonderful sagacity to Pythagoras, to Abaris, to Epimenides, and to Empedocles. At a much later period, in the thirteenth century of our era, a monk, wishing to persuade the Emperor Andronicus to recal the Patriarch, Saint Atha- nasius, threatened him with divers scourges, and, amongst others, with that of an earthquake ; and three days had scarcely elapsed, when many shocks, not in- deed dangerous, were felt in Constantinople.!
Is it necessary to reject this recital, and the assertion of Iamblichus : and should we forget that Pherecydes, the first master of Pythagoras, in tasting, or only in looking at the water drawn from a well, announced to the
* Iamblich. Vit. Pythagor. lib. i. cap. xxviii. f Pachymer. lib. x. cap. xxxiv.
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inhabitants of Samos an approaching earthquake?* or ought we, with Cicero, to reply, that the thing is im- possible? Thucydides was enabled to discover the connexion that exists between volcanic fermentations and earthquakes ; and the appearance of water generally pure and clear, becoming suddenly muddy and sul- phurous, was sufficient to enable him to foresee the phe- nomenon which he predicted. In 1693, at Bologna, in Italy, the waters became muddy on the evening of an earthquake.f This observation is not singular : the water of several wells beeame equally muddy, a few days before the earthquake which was felt in Sicily in the month of February 1818. | The symptoms of the ap- proaching disaster might even appear much sooner. There was an eruption of a volcano at the summit of Mount Galoungoun, in the island of Java, on the 8th of October 1822. In the preceding month of July, the waters of the Tji-Kounir, a river which rises in the same mountain, were seen to become troubled ; they had a bitter taste, and exhaled a sulphureous odour; and a whitish scum || settled upon the legs of travellers who forded the river at that time. The prophecy of Phe-
* Diogen. Laert. in Pherecyd. — Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. n. cap. lxxix. — Maxim Tyr. Dissertât, in. § v. — Cicer. de Divinat. lib. i. cap. l. lib. xin. — Iamblique (Vit. Pythag. lib. i. cap. xxvin.) attributes this prediction to Pythagorus.
t Histoire de V Académie des Sciences, année 1696. Buffon. Hist. Nat. — Preuves de la Théorie de la Terre, art", xi.
î Agathino Longo. Mémoire Historique et Physique sur le Tremblement de Terre, &c. Bibliotheca Italiana, September, 1818. - — Bibliothèque Univ. Sciences, tome ix. p. 263.
|| Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, tome xn. p. 204.
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recydes, founded upon observations of a similar descrip- tion, was that of a sage, and not of an impostor.
From the passage quoted from lamblichus, it may be concluded, that the art of foreseeing earthquakes was common among the first masters of the Pythagorean school. It must have been a portion of the secret science among the ancients. Pausanias, who believed these phenomena to be the effect of the wrath of the Gods, enumerated, however, the signs which preceded and announced them.# Pliny adds to the indication of these signs, the number of which he does not omit to reckon, the fœter and the change of colour of the water of the neighbouring wells. He also discusses the proper methods of preventing the return of the scourge, and advances the plausible opinion, that they may some- times succeed, by digging very deep wells, in those countries where it has been felt.f
Let us suppose, that in the Island of Hayti, a strange population were to establish itself. Whilst living under the most beautiful sky, and in the midst of productions of a fruitful and rather prodigal soil, let us imagine that a subterraneous noise, a tremendous sound, should occur to alarm their minds, and that the chief who conducted the colony to this shore, assembles them toge- ther. Let us then suppose that he announces to them that the Gods, irritated with their want of submission to his commands, are going to shake the earth from the depths of the valleys to the summits of the hills. They would, probably, laugh at a prediction that appeared to
* Pausanias. Achaic. cap. xxiv.
f Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. n. cap. lxxxi. — lxxxii.
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belie the universal tranquillity ; and they would give them- selves up to indifference, to pleasure, and to sleep. But suddenly the threat is accomplished in all its horror. The terrified population simultaneously prostrate themselves, and the chief is triumphant. How often will not this phenomenon be renewed before experience teaches what at this day is known by the most ignorant of the blacks, that the noise known by the name of Gouffre, is a pre- sage, as natural as it is certain, of an approaching earth- quake, and not the voice of an angry God, nor the announcement of his inevitable revenge.
It was a subterraneous noise of a particular kind, which announced to a Peruvian observer, the earthquake which desolated Lima in 1828,* and led him to predict it four months before it occurred.
Nine lustres before the above period, a similar predic- tion had proved the perspicuity of a French scholar. In 1 782, M. Cadet, de Metz, observed very thick sulphureous vapours over all the plain which serves as a basis to Calabria. He concluded, from this appearance, that the country was threatened with an earthquake, and publicly predicted the disaster, which took place at the commencement of I785.f
* M. de Vidaurre. This scholar revived the opinion of Pliny regarding the possibility of preventing earthquakes, by digging very deep wells. See the Moniteur Universel, No. for August 27, 1828.
t The notes in which he had consigned his prediction were added to the archives of an Agricultural Society, founded in Corsica by the Intendant, M. de Boucheporn. The latter, writing in April 23, 1783, to M Job de Fleury, then minister, recals the prediction of M. Cadet, with details much anterior to the event.