In 1843 a bishop of Ischia forewarned his people of a conning earthquake, and thus was instrumental in the saving of many lives. Naturally, in an age of superstition, the bishop would be regarded as a prophet, but Favaro considers that the prognostication was probably due to a knowledge of premonitory signs as exhibited in changes in the characters of mineral waters.
The shock of 1851, at Melfi, was in this way predicted by the Capuchin fathers, who observed that a lake near their door became frothy and turbulent.
Underground noises have led persons to the belief that an earthquake was at hand. It was in this way that Viduari, a prisoner at Lima, predicted the destruction of that city.
Before the earthquake of 1868, so severely felt at Iquique, the inhabitants were terrified by loud subterranean noises.
That underground noises have preceded earthquakes by considerable intervals appears to be a fact, but, at the same time, it must be remembered that similar noises have often occurred without an earthquake having taken place.
Farmers predicted the earthquake of St. Remo, in 1831, by underground noises.
On the day before the earthquake which, in 1873, shook Mount Baldo, the inhabitants of Puos, a village north of Lake Santa Croce, heard underground noises.
Before the earthquakes which, in 1783, shook Calabria and Sicily, fish are said to have appeared in great numbers on the coast of Sicily, and the whirlpool of Charybdis assumed an unusual excited state.
It is said that Pherecydes predicted the earthquakes of Lacedemon and Helm out, by the taste of the water in the very deep well at the castle of Lovain.[134]
The writer of an article on the Lisbon earthquake says that ‘after the 24th I felt apprehensive, as I observed the same prognostics as on the afternoon of October 31, that is, the weather was severe, the wind northerly, a fog came from the sea, the water in a fountain ran of a yellow clay colour, and’ he adds, ‘from midnight to the morning of the 25th I felt five shocks.’[135]
At the present time Rudolf Falb, following a theory based upon the attractive influences of the sun and moon, tells us the time at which we are to expect earthquakes.
That occasionally there are signs attendant on earthquakes, although we cannot give them a physical explanation, we cannot doubt. Also we know that in certain areas earthquakes are more likely to occur at one season than at another. Should earthquakes be foretold with the assistance of knowledge of this description, the predictions at once become the result of the application of certain natural laws, and are not to be regarded as predictions in the popularly accepted sense of that term, any more than the arrival of a friend is predicted by the previous receipt of a telegram announcing his coming.