Persia is as a whole less liable than Europe, but more than most Asiatic countries, to catastrophic earthquakes, but the references thereto in printed literature are few and peculiarly difficult to discover as few, if any, indexes to books on Persia so much as mention the word.Watson (p. 190) remarks that earthquakes are “ very frequent in most parts of Persia ”. Allemagne (i. 3) classes them, with plagues and famines, as Acts of God to which the country is specially liable.Khurasan.—Hamdallah Mustawfi refers to a cypress at the village of Kishmar near Turshiz (100 miles south of Nishapur): “ such was its power that earthquakes which frequently devastated all the surrounding districts never did any harm in Kishmar.’ This was in A.H. 247 (A.D. 861).Nassiri Khusrau (A.D. 1340) states that Nishapur was completely destroyed by an earthquake in the reign of Abaqa Khan (A.D. 1267). Wajid ud Din Zangi Fariwandi rebuilt it in A.H. 669 (A.D. 1270). A similar catastrophe overwhelmed the town in A.H. 808 (A.D. 1405), when most of the inhabitants were buried in the ruins.