Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1872-02-15
THE NEXT DELUGE.

however imperfect it may be, is sure of
welcome. And theory that helps us to-
ward an explanation, though confessedly
not the best or the final one, is held to be
of value TO science, and is dignifed by
scientific men with the name of ''provis-
ional hypothesis"
Doubtless there is too much, especially
in this country, of this greedy acceptance
of hypstheses. But it is not our purpose
at present to challenge too severely the
theory that we have on hand. We are
content to present it, in outline, as an in
teresting piece of geological speculation
>.How cen we account, men have asked,
with wonder, "for the buried elephants
in the extreme north, or for the striation
of the rocks that every college-boy has
noticed in New England? What power
scattered the ponderous stones known as
<erratic boulders' all over the Northern
Hemisphere, urging them far up on the
sides Of mountain-ranges that have a
wholly different formation from their
own? What slow or sudden mysterious
power submerged, without mixture of
earth, orrock, or rubbish, the vast antedi-
luvians forests that make the seams of our
coal-bedss In what balance were the seas
weighed when their mass was poured upon
the Southern Hemisphere. and the land
arose in the north?" To these questions
geology has given, as yet, no full or def
mite answer. But French mathemati-
clan, M. Alphonse Adhemar propounds
what he believes to be the full explana
ton of these and of other great mysteries
in the present condition of the globe.
His view is based upon astronomical
facts, as follows; and, without entering
into his subtle processes of demonstra-
tion, we may easily understand the argu-
,ny,f, EIxoa apfl, hoe slao
ming motion upon its axis, an oscillatory
movement of the same axis, that is pre-
cisely similar to that of top which 'wab-
bles' while its point spins upon the same
spot of ground. Thetop 'wabbles' through
single circuit in a second or less; the
ponderous earth-top requires no less than
twenty-one thousand years for this swing
of its axis. This period is that of the
procession of the equinoXe5. During
One-haf of this period the north pole is
more inclined toward the sun; during the
other half the south-pole. At present our
vn hemisphere, the northern, has the
advantage, being more turned toward the
sum- so that the sum of our spring and
summer seasons exceeds by six days that
of our autumn and winter The reverse
is the case in the Southern Hemisphere,
where the cold has six days longer sway
this advantage rests alternately with either
hemisphere for the vast period of ten
thousand five hundred and ten years"
The sum of six days cold per year may
seem to be small thing but this factor,
when repeated through a hundred cen
turies, NJ. Adhemar believes to produce a
force sufficient to change the whole face
of the globe. Let us go back in imagina-
tion 4, 900 years, when the average heat of
the Northern Hemisphere, then most in
cfinea toward the sun, was approaching
its highest degree.
" During a vast preceding period, :"
says M. Adhemar, /" the ice around the
north-pole had slowly increased until an
immense cap, or polar glacier, had been
formed, extending as far toward the south
as Coz north latitude, while the south
poleswass comparatively free from ice
With the slow increase of the summer
heat in the Northern Hemisphere, a grad
dual melting of the northern ice-cap took
place. Year after year. century after cen
tury, the sun gained slowly upon these
fEOZen mountains; the waters, released
from them by the gradual thaw, ran down
to rejoin the ocean. AS the vast cap of
ice was reduced in size, the melting
waters moved southwark, a gradual change
in the earth's centre of gravity occurred;
1t moved slowly toward the south, draw
ing after it the mass of the waters,
and laying bare a part of the
continent of the Northern Hemisphere.
The seas gradually retreated from one
hemisphere, and gradually took possession
OF another. In this slow movement there
was nothing of the nature of a catastrophe
or grand convulsion. Each of the earth's
poles was loaded with vast serried noun
talns OF ice, but of unequal dimensions !;
and the slow current of the melting mass,
howlng southwark, produced only gentle
changes in the physical condition of the
earth. After the lapse of seven thousand
years, however, the SUMS heat had suffi
GENTLY softened the north-polar ice to per-
NIT of its entire disruption. A grand
breakup occurred. The northern seas
and the fragments of the ice-mountains,
obeying the attraction of gravity, rushed
in body toward the SOUTH Torn from
his bed, the Ocean carried with him his
mud, with which the diluvium of the
Northern Hemisphere was formed. Gil
gantic torrents, mingled with earth, sand,
and pebbles, deposited the alluviums of
the great valleys. The cratic powders,
floating upon the fragments of the ice, or
hurled southwark by the main force of
the deluge, were strewed over the
plains or heaped up on the mountain
sides of Northern Europe and
America. The animals that the growing
heat of the north had permitted to wan
der into regions near the pole were over
whelmed by the waters. With all animal
life, the forests were simultaneously over
whelmed. The roaring waters of the del
uge-drift stripped the shores of Asiatic
Russia, Nova Zembla, Lapland, Norway,
and Denmark, pouring the floral spoils
into the North Sea, and distributing ii
into the great coal-basins of Scotland
there to be transformed by heat and pres
sure into the coal that is mined to-day or
the Firth of Forth in Durham, south o.
the Cheviots, and elsewhere in Western
Europe. Norway, Sweden and Denmark
being without deposit-basins at the Goa
period, failed to receive an ounce of tht
vegetable fuel When the southwark rusI
of the seas was finished, the continents O.
the Northern Hemisphere had assumed
their present outlines, emerging from tht
seas under which the attraction of th,
great polar mountain of ice had buried
them; while the Southern Hemisphere
receiving the mass of the released seas
became, as it is to-day, the so-calle(
oceanic hemisphere, containing but
third as much land-surface as the north
ern or terresti ial hemisphere.
history and tradition, as WeH as SCI
ence, point to the actual occurrence O.
such a deluge as the one that we have de
scribed. This great catastrophe, that oc
CURED Tour thousand years ago. and tt
which the traditions of many religions
point, was, according to NJ. Adhemar, nc
other than the deluge of Noah
a word may here be required to explai1
the possibility of so sudden and irresisti
bic rushing OF the waters to the soutl
upon the disruption of the northern ice
mountain. To comprehend the mechanism
of this gigantic process, it should be born