In Memoriam.

THE REV. REUBEN PARSONS, D. D.

Catholic historical literature has sustained a serious loss by the death of the Rev. Reuben Parsons, a doctor of divinity and general man of letters, well known to the world by his careful writings for many years. Dr. Parsons belonged to the Archdiocese of New York, and for the past dozen years he acted as chaplain to St. Joseph's Hospital, at Yonkers, N. Y. It was there that he found his death on the 13th of April last, after many months of battling with an enfeebled condition brought on originally from that treacherous malady, pleurisy. Despite his feeble health, the deceased priest contrived to put forth an immense body of work in the field of history-especially Catholic history. To our readers it will be unnecessary to indicate the character or value of his work. He was a frequent contributor to this magazine, and whatever he sent forward was marked by solid erudition as well as that painstaking care about dates and details that are as the mortar and cement that give endurance and cohesion to a great architectural creation. There are some who appear to think that these are the only valuable elements in a historian's work, and that the philosophic deductions of the thoughtful and learned commentator are so much redundancy, entailing a waste of valuable time in an age that has no leisure or taste for either serious reflection or the elegance of form that marks the art of belles lettres. Minds so constructed cannot properly distinguish between such works as Haydn's Dictionary of Dates and Carlyle's French Revolution; an almanac compiler is to these more serviceable, in the field of reference, than Gibbon or Macaulay. Dr. Parsons' work was valuable for its general accuracy, considering the immense quantity of it which came from his pen; and his style was conspicuous for its clarity, directness and careful regard to chronological or argumentative sequence in the presentation of a multiplicity of facts more or less related and not seldom bewildering to the mind that tries to unravel the tangled skein of human action in many and diverse regions of the globe. During the past ten or twelve years of his life he produced several ponderous volumes on

Church history and other subjects, the most valuable, perhaps, of these being his "Studies in Church History" and a "Universal History." These are highly esteemed as sources of information for the busy ecclesiastical student. His literary industry attracted the attention of the late great Pontiff, Leo XIII., who forwarded to Dr. Parsons a brief in commendation of his zeal and diligence in defense of the Church and the Holy See.

Dr. Parsons was 65 years old when death came. He was born in New York in 1841, the son of a mixed marriage, his father Protestant, his mother one of the old faith. At Emmitsburg (Mount St. Mary's) he received his early education, and at the American College at Rome he brought his ecclesiastical studies to a close. He was the first prefect of that institution and one of the first batch of thirteen students with which it was opened. He was one of those chosen for the honor of reading addresses to Pope Pius IX. when the inauguration ceremony took place (December 8, 1859). A truly fine tribute was paid to the worth of the deceased as an historian and as a zealous priest by one most competent to judge of the value of his work and character, the Rev. Dr. Henry Brann. R. I. P.

BRYAN J. CLINCH.

Readers of this magazine have long been familiar with the signature "Bryan J. Clinch" to articles on historical and literary subjects interesting to the Catholic world. We deeply regret to say that it will now have to disappear from its pages, for the writer is with us no longer. He died on the 17th of May last at Oakland, California, in a somewhat unexpected way. Mr. Clinch had passed unscathed through the horrors of the earthquake and the resultant conflagration in San Francisco. But he had undoubtedly sustained a shock from these dreadful experiences, for he had, along with several others, been pent up for a couple of hours cooped in by encircling walls of flame and awaiting the moment when the building which gave them temporary shelter would be swallowed up along with the neighboring ones. It was an appalling situation. At last the wind shifted and the advancing flames took a different direction; and for the time Mr. Clinch and his fellow-refugees were safe. He wrote in quite a cheerful spirit about the dreadful affair to one of his fellow-contributors in Philadelphia a couple of days afterward; and the next his friend heard about him was that the buoyant-hearted writer was dead. He had been attacked by footpads on the street and robbed of his watch and money; and this new shock proved too

much for a system never the most robust. This was on the 12th of May, and on the 17th of the same month he was no more. On the morning of the 12th he had been at Santa Clara College, giving directions for repairs needed there in consequence of the earthquake. He was then in the best of spirits, chatting pleasantly about his recent adventures; and the next thing the principal, Rev. Father Gleeson, S. J., heard about him was the news of his untimely end. It was a heavy blow, for Mr. Clinch was a dear friend and a most familiar figure in the Santa Clara institution, which a short time previously had conferred on him, because of his great services in literature, the degree of doctor in philosophy.

A couple of years before his death Mr. Clinch had made a very extensive European tour, some results of which were the papers on the conditions in France, Belgium and Italy, as he found them, which appeared in this REVIEW Soon after his return. He was a good linguist, and was thus enabled to make himself easily at home in the various beautiful regions which he visited during his sojourn in Europe.

Mr. Clinch was by profession an architect and civil engineer. He was intrusted with the erection of many fine churches and colleges in California, and the style in which they were finished under his direction gives proof of rich taste and scientific skill as a builder and designer.

Mr. Clinch was a native of Dublin, Ireland. He was a relative of the Kenrick family that gave to the United States two of its greatest Archbishops, besides to Ireland some beloved and learned priests. He studied at the Catholic University of Dublin-probably for some time under its renowned rector, Dr. Newman, afterwards Cardinal. He had for fellow-students there some notable Irish spirits, like the late Edmund O'Donovan, full of ardor and enthusiasm, as he himself always was, for the liberation of their country from the heavy English yoke. To the last hour of his life Mr. Clinch cherished the hope to behold these youthful dreams realized. He took up the cause of the Gaelic revival with eagerness and zeal, and an admirable article on the subject in the Messenger was almost the last of his literary tasks.

With all his varied talents and accomplishments Mr. Clinch never thrust himself before the world, as it is the general custom in the United States now to do. In all his articles-and they were manyit would be very hard to find the personal pronoun used of himself, unless perhaps by way of quotation. Like all true scholars and students, he was modest as to his own claims or deserts. His range of study was very great, and yet this fact was not easily discoverable in his talk; one would have to go in quest of it by direct methods

in order to ascertain it. He was a charming talker, sprightly and versatile, and this gift was aided by a very retentive memory and a keenly observant habit. No truer Catholic ever breathed, yet his piety was of the same unostentatious kind as his mental conscious

ness.

One magnum opus Mr. Clinch has left, and it is a valuable one. It is a "History of the Californian Missions." It is highly prized for its painstaking character and the purity of its literary style. He left another work in MS.-a "History of Santa Clara College," which may soon be published, it is to be presumed. To write it was to the author a very labor of love, for he and many in Santa Clara were the dearest of friends for many years.

California had been Mr. Clinch's home for about thirty years, and he was warmly attached to it, for its beauties of scene and charms of climate, as well as because of early friendships. He had traveled much of its surface and made many friends among its early settlers. He had many interesting notes of these to regale the conversation. He loved to tell in especial of an old Irish pair on a ranch who kept open house, all the year round, for all who passed that way. Down to the time when Mr. Clinch last met this hospitable pair they had furnished a meal and often a bed to as many as fourteen thousand wayfarers; and they never had to lock a door night or day or refuse a traveler their kindly Irish hospitality. Mr. Clinch was very proud of these humble but sturdy fellow Irish exiles.

To Archbishop Ryan and all the staff of the QUARTERLY Mr. Clinch was a dearly cherished friend. His sad taking off was to them a most painful shock. His eternal happy repose will be to them a heartfelt hope.

Scientific Chronicle

THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE.

Like many another great catastrophe resulting from some sudden convulsion of nature, the calamity in San Francisco has by its suddenness and its magnitude diverted men's minds from its physical cause to its effects in the destruction of life and property. We have heard this earthquake described as one of the greatest of modern times, and the truth of this statement cannot be doubted if we confine our attention to its relations to ourselves. If, however, this phenomenon had occurred in a thinly populated area, we should have heard very little of it. It was an earthquake of the first magnitude, but one that was not unlooked for by students of geology and kindred sciences. Its cause is known with a fair degree of certainty. Perhaps a brief résumé of what has been ascertained in regard to it up to the present will prove acceptable to readers of the Chronicle. It will be necessary as a preliminary to give a synopsis of the conclusions of the new seismology, as that branch of earth physics dealing with earth movements which has had its great development during the last thirty years has been not inappropriately called.

We must realize at the outset that the earth is a very elastic mass, a veritable terra infirma. Its sensitiveness is analogous to that of a living organism, and under the impulse derived from stresses and strains which result from various geologic forces, an elastic vibration is set up within the earth from some point or some locus which may be considered as a point, which vibration propagates itself according to the laws of elastic wave motion in a solid medium. This point from which the earth waves move in all directions is situated somewhere beneath the surface of the ground and is called the centrum. A point vertically above this on the surface is called the epicentrum, and a line joining the two is called the seismic vertical. The epicentrum may be a considerable area, just as the centrum may be, but both are considered as points to avoid complexity and consequent obscurity in description. At the epicentrum the effects of the quake at the surface are most pronounced, and they fade away as the horizontal distance from the epicentrum increases. If we suppose the earth to be perfectly homogeneous, then the intensity of the earthquake, that is, the degree of vigor with which the surface. is shaken, will die out in such a way as to be equal at all points equidistant from the epicentrum. Lines joining points of equal intensity are called isoseismals, and these lines, on the supposition of the earth's homogeneity, would form circles. As a matter of fact, they are any