The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-17 00:00:00

711 E INTERIOR OF OUR EARTH.

The recent earthquakes have attracted much at-
tention to their cause, and it seems generally to be
admitted that they are the result of mechanical ac-
tion in the earth's crust, while adjusting itself to
the ever-shrinking molten mass it contains. There
is also another force arising from the slight annual
tidal motion of the molten interior, due to the com-
bined attraction of the sun and moon, which to
some extent controls the mechanical action. If this
annual oscillation of the earth's crust is referred to
the annual motion of the molten interior, it follows
that the greatest volcanic disturbance would be at
the ebb and flow of such tide. Humboldt says,
" Numerical inquiries of the distribution of earth-
quakes throughout the course of the year, such as
those of Von Hoff, Peter Merian, and Friedrich
Hoffman, bear testimony to their frequency at the
periods of the equinoxes." They should be most
frequent in the daytime, within a few hours after
the sun passes the meridian, and this seems to be the
fact. The frequent annual earthquakes are due
to the tidal motion of the molten interior, while
the destructive earthquakes are due to the gradual
sinking of the molten mass, and occur after length-
ened periods, when the earth's crust is incapable of
resisting the immense lateral pressure. It is pro-
bable that when the laws which govern volcanic
action are better understood destructive earthquakes
may be foretold, and thus disarmed of their terrors.
Humboldt says :—" Lima .is frequently visited by
earthquakes, and several times the city has been
reduced to a mass of ruins. At an average forty-
five shocks may be counted on in a year, most of
which occur iu the latter part of October, iu Novein-
ber, December, January, May, and June.- Long
habit and the very prevalent opinion that dangerous
shocks are to be apprehended only two or three
times in the course of a , century, cause the
faint oscillations of the soil to be regarded in
Lima with scarcely more attention than a hail-
storm in the temperate zone. Experience gives rea-
son to expect the visitation of two desolating earth-
quakes in a century. The period between the two
is from 40 to 60 years. The most considerable
catastrophes experienced in Lima since Europeans
have visited the west coast of South America hap-
pened iu the years 1586, 1630, 1687, 1713, 1746,
1806," and afterwards in 1868. Now that the
period of destructive earthquakes has again arrived,
the inhabitants residing along the line of disturbance
should adopt all known means of safety. In early
geological periods when the earth's crust was
thinner, and had less power of resistance, it is
supposed that there was a gaily tidal motion of li
the mass within which gave a longitudinal direction
to the corrugation and folding of the rocks, as is ex-
hibited in the early formed States and the existing
mountain ranges. Such are the theories embodied
in a letter from F. A. Herring to the San Francisco
Mining and Scientific Press. In Denton's lectures
,on Geology, entitled "Our Planet: its Past and
Future," there are some interesting remarks on the
nature and source of petroleum. After dismissing
the popular conjectures, more especially that which
supposes it to be a bituminous product, he arrives
at the conclusion that it is a coral oil and not a coal
oil. Mr. Denton had some specimens of fossil coral,
obtained from Devonian and Silurian rocks belong-
ing to the family of favosites, or honeycomb stone,
the cells of which were filled with oil as a honeycomb
is filled With honey. He says :—" I have found oil
in some specimens nearly as limpid as water ; and
by heating the coral, oil runs oat readily. I have
seen these oil-bearing corals at Smokes Creek,
where there are coral reefs full of it ; in the Silu-
rian limestone of Middle Tennessee ; at Williams-
ville, near Buffalo ; and in rocks near Penn Yan,
in New York. In the State Collection of Fossils,
at Albany, and in the Montreal Geological Cabinet,
there are numerous specimens. Professor Dana in-
forms us that it flows in drops trom a fossil coral at
Nlontmorenci, Canada, and at Watertown, New
York. It might be supposed that this oil filled the
cavities of the corals, as it might any other cavity
in the rock ; but I have found it repeatedly in these
corals, and in no other part of the rock, invariably
accompanying the corals, and never connected with
any other fossil. Corals occur frequently in the centre
of solid limestone blocks. These reefs would furnish
quantities sufficient to account for the immense de-
posits that have been discovered. Preserved by them
in compact bodies, the oil taking up at least half the
space of the coral reef, we can readily suppose that
when the cells were crushed by the superincumbent
weight of rock, or during upheavals and subsidences,
cavities and crevices in the earth's interior would
be filled by it. It is, then, an animal production,
and not a vegetable one. It is a product of the
ocean, and not of the land, being almost invariably
associated with salt water, from the bottoms of seas
that then covered a large portion of Western New
York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Eastern Ohio, Ken-
tucky, and Tennessee. It is not formed from the
bodies of the coral polyps, as some have supposed—
for, when dry, they are a mere film that could be
blown away by a child's breath—but secreted from
the impure waters, principally, though not ex-
clusively, of the Devonian times, the coral polpys
performing the same office for the water that the
carboniferous plants did for the air."

Among the many modes of swindling in New
York, " the last thing out" is about the coolest.
For a long time people in the country have been
sending to the merchants in the city bitter com-
plaints of the way in which their orders were exe-
cuted, and we can well understand that a man
who expected a brand new suit of clothes made to
order would not be satisfied when an old pair of
boots were sent instead. The police have been
closely inquiring into the mode in which these
transformations occurred, for it was well ascer-
tained that the package left the store all right, and
arrived at its destination all wrong. How it did
occur might have suggested itself to the mind of
any one, though it appears to have been a real puzzle
in New York for two years. Between the
store and the railway depot it is necessary to
send the parcel iu a cart; and although it would be
absurd to suppose that men who occupy a position
something similar to the Messrs. Pickford or Chap-
lin would plunder the goods entrusted to their care,
this is no guarantee against their subordinates
doing so. One of these carriers was watched on
the 28th Oct., and a package of clothing being put
into the cart for a Savannah steamer it was taken
instead, in the first instance, to 143, Lawrence-
street, where it was opened, a portion abstracted,
and inferior things substituted. 11 he carttnan, on
finding himself fixed with the crime, confessed that
he had carried on these operations for two years,
and $20,000 of plunder was the result. Mr. Jack-
son, the master carrier, was wholly ignorant of what
his men were about.

DUN-VILLE and Co., Belfast, are the largest
holders of Whisky in the world. Their Old Irish Whisky is re
commended by the medical profession in preference to French
Brandy. Supplied in casks and cases for house use or exporta
tion. Quotations on application to Messrs. Dunville and Co.
Belfast; or 4, Beaufort-buildings, Strand, London, W.O —[Ad
Tertisement.]