Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1855-06-21

UNFAIRLY bless those who planted them, but
cannot conscienciously bless those who paint
them; and it is in hope that they will reform
it altogether y that have written you this long
letter.
POSSIBLE DANaERs OF OUR PLAsET.
Occupied as most of us are, with our respec-
tive worldly concerns, accustomed to see the rou.
tine of common events going on smoothly from
age to age, we are little apt to reflect on natural
events of tremendous character, which modern
science shows might possibly happen, and that
on any year. We think of the land as firm
and solid thing-as terra .jfrma, in short-not
recolecting that geology shows how it may rise
or sink, so as to pass into new relations to the
enveloping sea; how it may be raised, for in
stance, to such an extent as to throw every port
inland, or so far lowered as to submerge the
richest and most populous regions. No doubt,
the relations of sea and land have been much
as they are during historical time but it is at
the same time past oil doubt, that the last great
geological event, in respect of most countries
known, was submergence which produced the
marine alluvial deposits; and when we find that
Scandinavia is slowly but steadily rising in some
parts at this moment, and that thousand miles
of the west coast of South America rose fou r
feet in single night only thirty years ago, we
cannot feel quite assured that the agencies which
produced that submergence, and tho subsequent
re-emergence are atan end. We likewise forget,
in these cool districts of the earth that we are
not quite beyond the hazard of subterranean fire.
There are numberless volcanoes in both Britain
and France there are some on the banks ST the
Rhine; indeed, they are thick-sown everywhere.
Now an ex met volcano is not quite SO safe a
neighbor as many may suppose. Vesuvius
was an extinct volcano frem time immemorial
till the year '63, when it suddenly broke out
again, and soon after destroyed pompeii and
Herculaneum since which time it has never
again subsidized into entire inactivity.
Suppose Arthur's Seat, which is within mil
of Edinburgh town, were to recommence busnes
in the same way we should like to know at hov
many years purchase house property in that
beautiful New Town would be selling next day
Yet what is there about an old volcano there,
more than an old volcano in Italy, to give assur
ance that its means of annoyance and destruc
tion are extinguished!
There is, however, in the showings of science
more serious danger than any of these. Com
cts were once regarded as most terrific objects
but only in superstitious way, perplexing ma
tions with fear of change, and shaking pestilcnc
from their..horrid hair. During an intermediate
enlightened time, these notions passed away
and we have even come to think that such a Wis
liant of our skies may exercise beneficial in
huence. We at least recollect when old gentle
men, after dinner, frightened up at the mention
of " claret, lSll," merrily attributing the ex
traordinary merits of the liquor to the comet o
that year. But comets, in the true eye of mod
ern science, are not without their terrors.-
Crossing, as they often do, the planets in thei
progress to and from their perihelia, it canno
be but that they should now and then come ii
contact with one of these spheres. One, callet
Lexell's, did come athwart the SATELLITES Of Ju
piter, in 1869, and once again in l779, 80 as tt
be deranged in its own course. 1t made, indeed
no observable change in the movements Of tn
Joyian train, being of too light constitution
for that but, can we doubt that it might nev
ertheless seriously affect the condition of thei
surfaces, and especially any animal life existing
thereon! This very comet, on the 2Sth of June
ITO, passed the earth at distance only sil
times that of the moon. There is another cal
led Biela's, which revisits the sun every 81,
years, or little more and this busy travele
actually crossed our orbit in 1899, only montl
before we passed through the same point in space
Another which made grand appearance in tn
western sky in March, l843, would have involv
ed US in its tail, if we had been only q tortnigh
earlier at particular place Now, if we con
slider that as many as eight comets have beel
oberved, telescopically, in single year. (lS46,
we must see that the chance Of collision O
this kind is not so small as to be unworthy o
regard. If it be true that there are thousand
of comets, all of which make periodical visit
TO the near neighborhood Of the sun, it must b
evident that tho earth, being itself not far, CON
paratively speaking, from that luminary, mus
be rather liable than otherwise to brush fror
one Of these wanderers and, indeed, the won
der is. that several thousand years should hav
passed without, so far as we know, any one sue
collision having taken place.
Seeing what highly organized system is form
ed by the physical and organic arrangement
upon our planet, one is apt to think that tn
scheme Of Providence must have been frame
with a provision for the complete exclusion {
such accidents. To allow of the sudden und'
ing of oil this fair scene, which it has take
thousands of years to bring out in its full pr
; portions, seems like wanton destruction Of va
liable property, and we are not disposed to thin
that such thing could be permitted. But "
must at the same time remember, that our SEM
Of what is important and consequential has a r.
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