It could be worse. Scientists say this eruption looks unlikely to impact agriculture outside Iceland itself, in contrast to the much larger 1783 Laki eruption, also on Iceland," thus read Sunday's, April 18 Reuters News headline. Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, wildfires, and horrendous storms unite with never-before-seen viruses, widespread famines, and indiscriminate terrorist bombings - are we now experiencing firsthand the prophesied "Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse?"

Events of nature have long been the province of politicians, church men, and philosophers. "Man proposes, but God disposes," says 15th century ecclesiastic, Thomas 'a Kempis in Chapter 19 of his devotional Of The Imitation of Christ. A Web site that chronicles global disasters reveals that, though this year is but a third past, we've witnessed avalanches and mudslides in British Columbia, Madeira, Rio de Janeiro, Uganda, and Kabal. The U.S., Canada, the U.K., and all of northwest Europe have recorded the worst winter storms in decades. Earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, China, California, and Japan claim a death toll of 230, 500 souls.

Are we headed toward a cataclysm of cosmic proportions?

Geologists and meterologists have taught us that this planet is alive -- writhing and contorting in all sorts of ways that force us humans to hang on in what for us is a wild ride at times.

Recent volcanic eruptions in Iceland remind us that our United States became a nation during a time of natural disasters very similar to the times we experience today.

On Sunday morning of June 8, 1783, Pentecost Sunday in the Christian observance, a gigantic fissure slowly opened revealing 130 craters brimming with molten lava.

Near the base of one crater was a small village church and a minister, Reverend J¢n Steingrímsson, who prayed that the lava stream would turn away from the church and his congregation. Miraculously, the red hot basalt pooled a hundred yards from the praying priest. Icelanders still recall Steingrímsson's "Mass of Fire."

Geological phenomena such as this has occurred in Iceland since time immemorial, however, this eruption of 1783 happened at a momentous time -- a time when world leaders were gathered in Paris to grant the new American nation legitimacy in the international realm.

Unlike our instant news, it took eight weeks for the report of the 1783 volcanic eruption to reach Charleston. That was about the time that George Washington was disbanding the army and bidding farewell to his officers at Princeton.

The dirty fog that blew across Ireland and Britain turned day into night, it kept ships in port for weeks, and suffocated the elderly. In Paris for the peace negotiations, Benjamin Franklin recorded, "During several of the summer months of the year 1783, when the effect of the sun's rays to heat the earth in these northern regions should have been greater, there existed a constant fog over all Europe, and a great part of North America. This fog was of a permanent nature; it was dry, and the rays of the sun seemed to have little effect towards dissipating it, as they easily do a moist fog, arising from water. They were indeed rendered so faint in passing through it, that when collected in the focus of a burning glass they would scarce kindle brown paper. Of course, their summer effect in heating the Earth was exceedingly diminished. Hence the surface was early frozen. Hence the first snows remained on it unmelted, and received continual additions. Hence the air was more chilled, and the winds more severely cold. Hence perhaps the winter of 1783-4 was more severe than any that had happened for many years."

Within days of the volcano's eruption the weather across Europe and North America began to alter drastically. Temperatures soared. Gilbert White, an Oxford-educated priest in Selborne, England, wrote in his journal that, "The summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous one, and full of horrible phaenomena [sic]; for besides the alarming meteors and tremendous thunder-storms that affrighted and distressed the different counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze, or smokey fog, that prevailed for many weeks in this island, and in every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary appearance, unlike anything known within the memory of man."

Nature's catastrophic events have been viewed as omens, signs that the heavens are displeased with the inhabitants of earth. Gotthold Lessing lost no time in attacking the free-thinking writers of the Enlightenment - especially the wicked Voltaire. William Cowper, noted poet and hymn-writer concurred, "Some fear to go to bed, expecting an Earthquake; some declare that [the sun] neither rises nor sets where he did, and assert with great confidence that the day of judgment is at hand."

Against a backdrop of abnormally hot temperatures and violent thunderstorms the American peace negotiators in Paris collaborated with British, French, and Dutch counterparts on the words "In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, duke of Brunswick and Lunebourg, arch-treasurer and prince elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc., and of the United States of America, to forget all past misunderstandings and differences that have unhappily interrupted the good correspondence . . . etc., etc."

On September 3, 1783, David Hartley, John Adams, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin signed for the United States. Henry Laurens of Charleston and William Temple Franklin, illegitimate grandson on Benjamin Franklin were also in Paris. The signing which proclaimed American independence took place at No. 44 rue Jacob, the hotel where American negotiator David Hartley resided. Adams wasn't about to walk to the British Embassy to sign the document. He made them walk to his hotel instead.

Back in New York during one of the hottest summers on record, the Philadelphia merchant Robert Morris labored against petty political bickering and a total lack of central authority to establish the Bank of North America, our first attempt at a central banking institution. The weather was stifling due to atmospheric conditions caused by the volcanic ash.

The fog of ash was so dense that ships at sea lost their way, some never to be heard from again. Weather became unpredictable and parts of Europe experienced floods while other parts had droughts. Some historians blame the famine that resulted as a cause of the French Revolution in 1789. The River Nile all but dried up and a sixth of Egypt's population starved because of drought. Perhaps most frightening of all to Europeans and Americans was the blood-red sun and moon that resulted from atmospheric discoloration.

In the U.S., our first winter as an independent nation was one of the most frigid ever recorded. The Chesapeake froze and heavy snowfalls occurred as far south as Savannah.

Many despaired of the cataclysms of 1783. The divine order of kings that had been turned upside down by the American Revolution. Earthquakes, famines, and mysterious daytime darkness seemed to bode ill for society. Americans , meanwhile, let their imaginations run with optimism about the notion that "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

(Dr. Thomas B. Horton is a history teacher at Porter-Gaud School. He lives in the Old Village of Mount Pleasant).

Visit his Web site at www.historyslostmoments.com.