Litchfield enquirer., 1874-09-03
Whole No. 25To
Bald Mountain.

Prof. Frank H. Bradley, of the East Tennessee University gives the following explanation of the Bald Mountain disturb ances in the Knoxville Chronicle:
 EDITORS CHRONICLE: According to your request, l subjoin brief account of the results of the trip to Bald Mountain, re- gently made by the graduating class of the East Tennessee University. Since there is so many Bald" mountains in Western North Carolina, let me say at the start that the Bald Mountain is in Ruther- ford county, about A miles eest of Ashe- vile. "
 So far as direct. observation upon the disturbances there in progress was con- cerned, the trip was failure, for there was not the least disturbance during our visit. But from an examination of tho present condition of the mountain, on both sides and on top, we were able to 1 come to an understanding of the phenom- ena reported to us by the residents of the region. And here would remark that the reports heretofore published have grown rapidly in proportion to their dis tance from home, there having been ap- parently mo foundation for the stories of yawning crevices and smoking pits. The phenomena actually observed seem to have consisted simply of noises within the mountains, more or less loud, and shak- lngs of the surface. .--.a. The sounds are variously described as resembling continuous musket-firing, or heavy cannonading, to ''the rumble of Q heavy lron-axled wagon rolling rapidly | over rocky road" The shakings are voUn.1iko xy;lro okio,,o oR kl,a ~.1.. l ing laterally from the center of disturb ance, and causing cracks in walls and | chlmneys, and occasinally throwing down loose articles.
 These are the common phenomena of earthquakes, but are here much more local and violent than usual. There is nothing properly volanic about them; and the region shows no volcanic rock. Bald mountain forms one of the southeastern spurs of the easternmost range of the Blue Ridge proper, and consists of mica | ceous and hornblendic schists and gneis- ses, having the variable southeasterly dip characteristic of the whole range. "Joints," | or parallel cracks, are we'll developed | throughout the mass; and, on the east ern slope of Bald mountain, the inter- venlng portions of rock have been, in many cases, isolated by the deep disin- tegration common throughout the south ern part of the Appalachians, doubtless aidedlin this case by the earthquake vi- brations. "The Pinnacles," commonly visited, offer good examples of such isola- tion.
 The upturned positions of the rocks of all this region give abundant evidence that it has been..a region of disturbance through many ages past, and at the same time furnish the means of understanding the new phenomena.
 Drying and cooling are both accompan- jed by contraction. As an apple dries, its pulp contracts; and the skin remaining at tached in part to the pulp, but not con- tracting, proportionally wrinkles; as an orange dries, on the contrary, the stiff rind refuses to yield and remains smooth, l the pulp being pulled apart. When the l earth was hotter than now-and their is good reason for for believing tEat it was once melted-it was much larger and it's crust was originally smooth. As the globe cooled, it's consequent contraction caused great pressure in the stiffening crust, and yielding to the pressure, the crust SCrin- kled.
 The same process of cooling and con- traction is still going on, but the crust long since got too thick and stiff to bend readily, so that it's modern yielding has been very largely by breaks. Very exten- sive and sudden fractures are naturally &C., companied by sudden displacements of the surface (and often by loud noises) forming great earthquakes, whose effects are felt for hundreds or thousands of miles. But, if the breaks are small, the disturbance will be heard and felt at but small distances; and such have been all the earthquakes that have originated in the Apalachians since the country has been known to white men; and such are the disturbances in question.
 Bald Mountain is not the only locality of such local action, along the range. The village of Moodus, in town of East Hamp- ton, Middlesex Co.,, Connecticut, has been the center of such disturbances. locally known as the "Moodus noises," ever since the settlement by whites. As the Indians attributed the sounds to the "anger of their God, it has been suppoS- ed that they were first heard about the time of the first settlement. The noises and shakings are not uncommon at the present day, but are so much of an "old story" that no notice is taken of them. In the case of Bald Mountain, the present residents have no memory of form CT disturbances, though these have doubt less occurred. Prof Nicholson has men, toned to me remark, in one of Jeffer- sons letters, concerning "a volcano ill North Carolina" which may, not impro- bably, have referred to disturbances in this very region.