When one is reading some of Mr. Stockton’s ingenious and serious stories, 1 The Great Stone of Sardis, for examples, or The Water-Devil, or The Great War Syndicate, one is tempted to speculate ...

It was a dangerous year for the inhabitants of Sardis. In A.D. 17 an earthquake, which the ancient historian Pliny called “the greatest earthquake in human memory,” destroyed the great city ...