The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-09-24

that volcanic belts skirt the seq and occupy its
island, not merely because the lines which
limit the continents are those of geologic frac-
ture and may communicate with the earth g
molten interior. but also because water must
be near enough and in large quantities to
supply the gigantic boiler for the steam
erupted. Were the agitations and commissions
of the earth within a few months reported in
the United States due to volcanic energy we
might justly apprehend some such terrific dis
plays as occurred in 1907, when the roaring of
st. Vincent was heard seven hundred miles
distant, and, as subsequently, when the
Chilean furnace of Antuco sent stones flying
to distance of thirty-six miles, and Cotopaxi
hurled two hundred ton rock nine miles
from its crater.
It has been beautifully said that we live
upon ball that has been ''molten by heat,
chilled to solid and sculptursd by water"
This last apparently weak, easily furrowed
and yielding agent is yet even more potential
than the noisiet Vesuvius. Aqueous action,
in its silent but intense operation, producing
stratiication and accompanied by metamor-
phism, is the great fact of geology. The giant
oak, surviving the storms of ages, owes its vigor
and stability to the ceaseless current of sap
that crculates through its tissues everywhere
and causes that continual charge and replace
ment we call life. So also must the globe itself
preserve its life by that perpetual circulation
of which water is the circulating medium.
Water is the life-blood of the earth. Every
fragment of limestone, sandstone and clay in
our rocks has been water formed, and even
granite, the patriarch of the rocks, as the
microscope reveals, has been formed in con-
tact with water and contains water in fluid
state mixed up with it. Replacing the old
and WORKOUT material by new material, sepa-
rating that which, has done itg work and
enabling it to enter into new combinations and
new spheres of usefulness, water is truly the
divine symbol of life and energy and order;
and If at times it occasions alarm and popu-
lar sensation, as in the instances alluded to in
the outset of this article, we should rather
rejoice than shudder at the evidences Of its
benign activity.
If modern geology has not successfully Crap
pied with many great problems, it has clearly
settled one point-the apparent repose of the
earth's crust the foundation and floor of mans
habtation, is unreal and illusory Observa-
tons for period of twenty years, in the
present century, in which there has been moth
ing TO interrupt the publication of unusual
occurrences, show that in Europe and
its adjacent island, although far re-
moved from the equatorial Cor parent)
belt Of disturbance, at least forty earthquakes
or shocks are felt every year, or one in every
nine days-the sure indicators of vast inter-
nal changes, showing the shalowness of the
promise of His coming, for since the fathers
fell asleep all things continue as they were
from the beginning?"
II Is fortunate thing that modern science
is able to strip these normal, necessary,
ordained changes in nature of the terror in
which ignorance and superstition, and espe-
ciaily charlatanry, love to clothe them. Only
few days ago, ut the meeting Of the British
Association in Edinburg, an important gcolog-
ical paper was read-"Experiments on the
Contor.ion of Rocks"-showing that noun
tain and magnetism limestone is indefinitely
plastic and slate slightly elastic. In the
lagoon and limestone regions Of Pennsylva-
MIA and New York, the scenes of the late re-
ported subsidences, we are not at loss to
apply the principles of geology. The intense
permeating agency of water upon plastic
matter, combining with chemical changes,
evolving heat and terrestrial magnetism-an
important disturbing force-we are at no loss
TO understand, insurcs the instability of New
Orleans, built, as that Southern metropolis is,
upon moving bed Of qucksand.