Chapter LXVII: Section CCIX: Consumption Which Is the Work of Nature

The least enjoyable of all consumption (_loss-consumption_) is that which is the work of nature; and nature is certainly most consuming in the tropics. During the rainy season, in the region of the upper Ganges, mushrooms shoot up in every corner of the houses; books on shelves swell to such an extent that three occupy the place previously occupied by four; those left on the table get covered over with a coat of moss one-eighth of an inch in thickness. The saltpetre that gathers on the walls has to be removed every week in baskets, to keep it from eating into the bricks. Numberless moths devour the clothing. Schomburgk found that, in Guiana, iron instruments which lay on the ground during the rainy season became entirely useless within a few days, that silver coins oxydized, etc.; evidently a great obstacle in the way of the employment of machinery. In summer, the soil of this same region, so rich in roots, is so parched by the heat, that subterranean fires sometimes cause the most frightful destruction.

In Spanish America, there are so many termites and other destructive insects that paper more than sixty years old is very seldom to be found there.[209-1]

The warmer portions of the temperate zone are naturally most favorable to the preservation of stone monuments. Thus, for instance, in Persepolis, where there has been no intentional destruction, the stones lie so accurately superimposed the one on the other that the lines of junction can frequently be not even seen. The amphitheatre of Pola has lost in two thousand years only two lines from the angles of the stones.[209-2] The Elgin marble statues would certainly have lasted longer in Greece than they will in England. On the other hand, warm and dry climates have a very peculiar and exceedingly frightful species of nature-consumption in the locust plagues. The principal countries affected by such consumption are Asiatic and African Arabistan, the land of the Jordan and Euphrates, Asia Minor, parts of Northern India. On Sinai, locust plagues occur, on an average, every four or five years; but from 1811 to 1816, for instance, they destroyed everything each year. Their course is in its effects like an advancing conflagration. It turns the green country, frequently in a single day, into a brown desert; and famine and pestilence follow in its path.[209-3]

The colder regions of the temperate zone are exposed to danger and damage from land-slides in their long series of mountains, and from avalanches, from quicksands in many of their plains, from floods and the total destruction of land along their coasts;[209-4] but, on the other hand, they are, relatively speaking, freest from hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanoes, the ravages of which no human art or foresight is competent to cope with. From the point of view of civilization and of politics there is here a great advantage. See § 36. The former maritime power of Venice and of Holland is closely allied to the dangers with which the sea continually threatened them, and which was a continual spur to both. But, on the other hand, the danger from earthquakes which always impends over South America and Farther India, must produce consequences similar to those of anarchy or of despotism, because of the uncertainty with which they surround all relations. See § 39.[209-5]

[Footnote 209-1: _Ritter_, Erdkunde VI, 180 ff; _Schomburgk_
in the Ausland, 1843, Nr. 274; _Humboldt_, Relation hist.,
I, 306; Neuspanein, IV, 379; _Pöpping_, Reise, II, 197 ff.,
237 ff. The ant, even in Marcgrav's time, was called the
_rey do Brazil_.]

[Footnote 209-2: _Ritter_, Erdkunde VIII, 895; _Burger_,
Reise in Oberitalien, I, 7. The monuments of Nubia have
suffered much less from the hand of time than those of Upper
Egypt, because the air of the plateau is drier. The effects
of climate have been most severely felt in Lower Egypt,
where the air is most moist. (_Ritter_, I, 336, 701.) In the
case of wood, on the other hand, dryness may be a great
agent of destruction. Thus, in Thibet, wooden pillars,
balconies, etc., have to be protected with woolen coverings
to keep them from splitting. (_Turner_, Gesandtsreise,
German translation, 393 ff.)]

[Footnote 209-3: Compare _Ritter_, Erdkunde, VIII, 789-815,
especially the beautiful collection of passages from the
Bible bearing on the locust plague, 812 ff. _Pliny_, H. N.,
XI, 85. _Volney_, Voyages en _Syrie_, I, 305. For account of
an invasion of locusts, which, in 1835, covered half a
square mile, four inches in thickness, see _v. Wrede_, R. in
Hadhrammaut, 202. It is estimated that, in England, the
destruction caused by rats, mice, insects, etc., amounts to
ten shillings an acre per year; i. e., to £10,000,000 per
annum. (_Dingler_, Polyt. Journal, XXX, 237.)]

[Footnote 209-4: Origin of the gulf of Dollart in Friesland,
2-1/2 square miles in area between 1177 and 1287; and of
Biesboch of 2 square miles in 1421. On the repeated
destruction of lands in Schleswig by inundations, see
_Thaarup_, Dänische Statistik, I, 180 seq. It is a
remarkable fact that in relation to the Mediterranean,
_Strabo_, VII, 293, considers all such accounts fables.]

[Footnote 209-5: As to how the grandeur and
irresistibleness, etc. of this nature-consumption in the
tropics leads men to superstition and the indulgence of wild
fancies, see _Buckle_, History of Civilization in England,
1859, I, 102 ff. Since the conquest of Chili, sixteen
earthquakes, which have destroyed large cities totally or in
part, have been recorded.]