Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-04-13

ihC tnem UP 10 Inelr present ALTITUDE ABOVE
The sea level required force worth consid
ering. Ablacksmith puts heated tire or
wagon wheel that is quite loose, bat wher
the iron cools, IL contracts sufficiently to
bind the wheel firmly in strong band
The force Of a similar contraction Of min.
ersls In the EARTH on its cooling by the "a
diation of heat into unlimited space, which
rsdistion never ceases night nor day, is the
cause Of earthquakes. A bar of iron, nc
matter how tough or large, that surrounded
mass of granite ten feet in diameter
which was close fit when red hot, would
break open on cooling, like crack in the
ground, or the fracture Of deep rock by
an earthquake. Ice formed in congealing
water by intense cold expands with force
not easily measured. Heat and cold, con-
traction and expansion, a:e phenomena
with which all are familiar; but the quanti-
ty of these forces displayed in the action Of
volcanoes and earthquake is such as to fill
the common mind with fear and terror
rather than knowledge.
In the afternoon Of the first day of June,
1888, eighteen years after thelanding of the
Pilgrims, there occurred the first recorded
earthquake in New England. A catalogue
of New England earthquakes, published in
the Memoirs of the Boston Society of Nat
ursl History, contains the record of % l
events Of this character in 234 years pre-
cediug Oct. 20, 1870. The average is near
ly one earthquake year for 234 years in
New Eogland. Not far vest of us, at New
Madrid in Missouri, a great earthquake
t7ok place in 1Sll-12. The shocks were
vertical, showing that the center Of
energy was directly underneath. The
ground rose in huge waves which burst,
and volumes of water, sand and coal were
thrown high as the top of trees, forests
waved ike tsll rye in wind, and an area
Of some seventy miles in length by thirty
in width was submerged and became a
swampy lake. Our readers are familiar
with the terrible earthquakes in Central
and South America. In one instance a
huge wave, with crest 5000 miles long,
rolled quite across the Pacific 10000 miles
distant, into the harbor of Yokohama, in
Japan.
The aborigines of this continent obtained
fire by rubbing together two dry sticks-a
little friction evolving heat enough to set
wood on fire. Where mountzins Of rock,
and rocks miles in thickness under the sea,
move On one another, either by contraction
or expansion, they not only "grate harsh
thunder" as heard in earthquakes and vol
canoes, but by tremendous friction render
active an unknown quantity of latent heat.
Thus the cooling of the earth, and the
doubling up, bending and distorting of its
strata of rocks, of from five to ten miles in
thickness, and often more, kindles the fires
of volcanoes, without tapping the grand re-
servoir of melted minerals, supposed to
exist fifty miles below sunshine.
It may be asked, when the world
will be cid enough, not to grow
any colder, so that the great disturbance
of refrigeration, earthquakes and volcanoes,
will cease? Astronomers say that our
earth and sun require 229 billion years TO
goonce around their centre of attraction.
Perhaps in that length Of time, our world
viii be permanently crystallized into ice
and granite, that will never be shaken by
external cold, nor melted by internal heat.
1t is something to know by careful observa-
lion that the heat which radistes from our
planet every year, without any known
exclusive of that from the
sun, is sufficient to melt III cubic miles of
ice. In northern ATTITUDES where tropical
plants oDce grew they grow no lorger.
Elephants once fourished in parts fof Russia
where the ground is frozen sixty feet, and
never thaws over three or four feet.
Central and South America have lost so
much heat that the earth there is a mere
'heI, and very shaky, like a suspension
bridge with pillars long distance apart.
Where the rays of the sun fall vertically or
1early 50, on the earth, it checks the radia-
ion CT internal heat, as compared with
northern latitudes. Hence, the de'ay in
he cooling of tropical regions, and their
,reater disturbance by existing earth
luakes. In time, matters and things will
lave cooled eff, and become more settled.
When water descends deep enough into the |
'arth Gas sometimes hsppens) to be changed
nto incandescent steam, folce appears in
more concentrated form.
Mr.. Mallet was able to fix the average |
lepth of the great fssure of the Neapolitan
earthquake of 1857 at FIVE and three quarter |
niles. The filing of the assure with |
water, and its conversion into superheated |
team may have caused the subsequent |
hooks. This author says: off the temper
ture increase one degree Fair. for sixty
Get depth, then at the focal centre of the
ssure the temperature would be 1854
egrees; and the pressure on the walls of
be cavity not less than GAO, SIS, 100000
Ons. But the pressure would be vastly in
reased if the temperature be near that of
Melted rock" Earthquake assures are ap-
rtures formed by nature to facilitate the
seape of internal heat, Where there is no
pening but water in lower strata than ar
esian wells have yet penetrated, steam
Gated by minerals in fusion, like melted
on, would do something to make first
lass fssure. The study of earthquakes
ught to teach the owners of steam boilers
nd engines to manage these forces with
reater safety. #.sls.
THE Cincinnati Enquirer is correct when