FABRE Jean-Henri (1823-1915) entomologiste.

Autograph MANUSCRIT, Les Tremblings de Terre; 3 1/2 pages in-fol. paginated 164-167 (printer's smudges). A popular science text for children, included in his collection Aurore. One hundred stories on various subjects. Lectures courantes à l'usage des écoles et des institutions de demoiselles (Paris, Delagrave, 1874, "récit" n° LXII [here XL]). Presentation written in the form of a lesson given by a woman (Aurore) to her nieces. She evokes the earthquake which ravaged Lisbon in 1755, whose tremors were felt throughout the world; then the convulsions which shook southern Italy for four years since 1783... "Earthquakes are often preceded by underground noises. It is at first the dull rumbling of a distant thunder, which swells, calms down, swells again, as if some storm was starting to burst in the depths of the ground. At this rumour full of threatening mysteries, everything falls silent, mute with horror; every face turns pale. Warned by instinct, the animals themselves are struck with stupor: the dog howls with fright, the ox stops on the half-traced furrow. But the noise increases: one would think one could hear a long line of wagons heavily laden with scrap metal rolling on some brazen vault, and a whole battery of cannons detonating. And here is that the ground shudders, swells and deflates, turns, cracks, abysses. In front of such scenes, even the strongest heart is shattered with terror. This is followed by a short questionnaire designed to check the student's knowledge of this lesson.