1 DECEMBER 1894, Page 11

Swallowed Up by an Earthquake. By E. D. Fawcett. (Edward

Arnold.)—It requires a very peculiar power to make such extrava- gances as form the staple of Mr. Fawcett's tale attractive. The hero and his party are swallowed up by an earthquake in Italy, and find themselves in a region tenanted by creatures supposed to be extinct, pterodactyls and the like, and prehistoric tribes of men. They emerge not very far from the place where they were engulfed, little the worse for their travels, and enormously en- riched by a find of diamonds. This kind of thing wants the genius of a Poe or a Jules Verne to set it off.