Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1874-03-27
THE TERRIFIC SOUNDS INCREASING.
Have we IL Volcano Amongst Is


The electric wires have, perhaps.
never flashed more startling tidings of
physical CONFUSION than the announce
ment of yesterday evening, that a vol
canic eruption was imminent in the
mountains of North Carolina. No
geologist of the present century has
that the Appalachian ch ain, at our
turbed by those throes with which, in
the so.called prehistoric epoch, they
were supposed to have been convuls-
ed. The Intelligence as now conveyed
to lis reveals a terrestrial disturbance
which, so far as we know, has no
parallel on this Continent during the
historic period. The historic accounts
of American volcanoes are confined to
the Western coast of tie Continent
lying in that belt of fire which stretches
from the Patagonian and CHILEAN
Andes, through the isthmian noun
along the fog-shrouded shores of
Hayden that, in a remote geologic
the Yellowstone and Columbia rivers
was the scene Of volcanic activity as
fierce as that of any portion Of the
globe, and that it formed one vast
crater made up Of thousand smaller
volcanic vents and assures, cut of
which the tiui.l rock was hurled III lln-
limited quantities. We know that
Mounts Doane, Langford Steven
son and more than a hundred others
were the nuclei of cyclopean fires that
III II, !
Mediterranean. Humboldt has re-
corded the almost inccnceivable up
heaval in Mexico, III 1859, when on
the setting and the rising of the sun,
fiery splendor sixteen hundred and
eighty-three feet above the plain. In
the middle Of August, 1868, when the
Pacific Ocean came rushing into the
port of Valparaiso, many Of us remem-
Der how its shock, responsive to the
deep upheavals Of the Pacific coast,
spread terror and dismay in the streets
of San Francisco
At that time the shaking of the
earth extended far inland in California.
The ground opened; jets of water were
elected from It; many buildings were
inhabitants of the land of gold have
lived in constant uneasiness.
All these BOOKINGS Of the continent
have occurred on the western slopes.
The conclusions which have been
transmitted from the West Iudian and
Atlantic earthquakes to the Mississippi
pi Valley have been scarcely percepti-
be and made but little or no impress
ion on the popular mind. The nearest
approaches to volcanic action in the
Mississippi Valley have been the oc-
casional slight disturbances in the
bayOus and estuaries of the Lower
Mississippi, which have been traced to
the agency of the Mexican Gulf and its
underlying volcanic furnace. There is
no doubt it is a centre of plutonic
forcee, and Iiguier, the eminent
French physicist. has gone SO far as to
suppose that it's submarine furnace
partly accounts for the superheated
waters which emerge through the
Flor da Pass rs the great Atlantic cur
rent.
It is not impossible there may be
connection between this volcanic CEN
ter and the foundations of the Ale
ghany peaks, from one OF which, in
Western North Carolina, the present
eruption is reported. The Alleghanies |
form an apparently isolated barrier,
or rather series of isolated up |
heavals, extending from Alabama to |
Maine, with Il mean altitude of two
thousand feet. The two brothers, the
Rcgerses, so eminent rs American ge-
ologists, who most fully explored
them, first pointed out the extraordin-
airy fact that they have no central axis,
but consist of series OF convex and
fexures, giving them the APP
pearance of SO many colossal intrench-
ments. Mt. Mitchell, the Hottest, and
Mount Washington, the next in alti-
tude, guard either flank of the series.
The western slope of the whole range.
running from the Genessee country of
New York to the Mussel Shoals of the
Tennessee River, are skirted by deep
bed of limestone. This
latter fact is significant and may give
a clew to the origin of the volcanic &C
ton in North Carolina. If, as Sir
Charles Lyell, the highest geological
asserts, volcanoes are due
to chemical action in the bowels of the
earth, and not to an internal sea of
fire, it is not inconceivable how such
chemical action has eliminated in the
present fiery disturbance in North Car
DINA; but we anxiously wait for fur
Their intelligence for the data from
which to draw a satisfactory conclu-
sion.-N. y. Herald.
CHAPPED HANDS, face, rough skin,
ornVn