Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-03-22
AMERICAN VOLCANOES.

AMERICAN fULCANOES.
The Terrestrial Disturbances I'm North
CarOIina-Further Particulars from
BaId Mountain.
From the Knoxville Press and Herald, March %.
1t is certainly true that for three weeks
past Bald Mountain has rImbled and
grOwled and shaken the earth for twenty
miles around, until the alarmed residents
of the vicinity have fed in terror of being
the victims of enraged Vulcan, and of be
ing lost amid the hot lava which would
make of their settlements a modem POM
peii.
Bald Mountain is in the southwestern
edge of Mcdowell county, Western North
Carolina, sixteen miles due east Of Ashe
vile, and rises, loftily towering among the
clouds, to the left of Hickory Nut Hollow.
IL is wooded TO within mile of the top,
but the Vegetation is scant.
A gentleman from Nthe vicinity Of the
mountain passed through this city yester-
day, and reported that on Sunday last smoke
and occasional jets of flame were issuing
from the extreme summit of Bald Noun
tain, and that the rumbling noises were
louder and more frequent, while the earth
around was quaking continually. The re-
liability of the gentleman could not be as
cerained, and so the smoke and flame part
of this statement may be received cl1H
grdRO sails.
A Jonesboro letter states that a number
of prominent citizens of JOneSbOrO started
for Bald Mountain yesterday, with the pur
pose of being on hand when the eruption
begins and bringing home some lava-StOneS
as evidences of the bursting forth of vol
canic fires from the bald-headed old noun
tain.
There need be no great surprise if the
cOuvulsiOns of Bald Mountain should be
followed by an eruption of molten lava.
The pent-up matter within the mountain
must find a vent, and not till then can it
be expected that the rlmbling viii cease.
The mountains of Western North Carolina
present many evidences of decided volcanic
origin, though for ages past there has re-
mained no other trace of activity except
that which is shown by the hot and miner
al springs of this region.
From the New York Herald, March Il.
The electric wires have, perhaps, never
flashed more startling tidingS of physical
conylsiOn than the announcement that a
volcanic eruption was imminent in the
mountains of North Carolina. No geOlO-
gist of the present century has ever ven
tured, We believe to predict that the Ap-
palachain chain, at cur own doors, would
ever again be disturbed by those throes with
which, in the sO-called prehistoric epoch,
they were supposed to have been cOnvulSed.
The intelligence as now conveyed to US
reveals a terrestrial disturbance which, so
far as We know, has no parallel on this con-
tinent during the historic period. The his
toric accounts of American volcanoes are
confined to the western coast of the Cont
nent lying on that belt Offire which stretch
es from the PatagOnian and Chilian
Andes, through the isthmian noun
tains, far away to the nOIthweStward.
along the fOg-shrOuded shores Of
British Columbia. We are told by
Hayden that, in a remote geological
period, The entire country drained by the
Yellowstone and Columbia rivers was the
scene Of volcanic activity as fierce rs that of
any portion of the globe, and that it form
ed one vast crater made up of a thousand
smaller volcanic vents and fissureS, out of
which tie fluid rock was hurled in unlim-
tied quantities. We know that Mounts
Doane, LangfOrd, Stevenson and more than
hundred others were the nuclei of cyclO-
pean fires that rivaled many on the shores
of the Mediterranean. Humboldt has re-
corded the almost incOnceiyable upheayal
in Mexico. in 1853. when on the night Of
Sept. %, between the setting and the rising
of the sun, the volcanic cone Of JOTIllO
rose in fiery SplendOr sixteen hundred and
eighty-three feet above the plain. In the
middle of August, 1865, when the Pacific
ocean came rushing into the port of Val
paraisO, many of us remember how its
shock, responsive TO the deep upheavals of
the Pacific coast, spread terror and dismay
fn the streets of San Francisco.
At that time the shaking of the earth eX-
tended far inland in California. The
ground opened; jets of water were elected
from it; many buildings were demolished,
and ever since then the inhabitants of the
land Of gold have lived in constant uneasi-
ness.
All these rocl1ings of the Continent have
occurred on the western slopes. The con-
cusSiOns which have been transmitted from
the West Indian and Atlantic earthquakes
TO the Mississippi valley have been scarcely
perceptible, and make but little or no i'm
preston on the popular mind. The near
est approaches to volcanic action in the
Mississippi valley have been the occasional
slight disturbances in the bayOuS and estu-
aries Of the Lower Mississippi, which have
been traced TO the agency Of the Mexican
cuff and its underlying volcanic furnace.
There is no doubt it is a center Of PiutOnic
force, and Figuier, the eminent French
Physicist, has gone so far as to suppose that
its submarine furnace partly accounts for
the super-heated waters which emerge
through the Florida Pass as the great At
lantic current.
Il is not impossible there may BE con-
-. Il. and
the foundations of the Alleghany peaks,
from one Of which, in Western North Car
olina, the present eruption is reported.
The Alleghanies form an apparently isOlat-
ed barrier, or rather series of isolated up
heavalS, extending from Alabama TO Maine,
with a mean altitude of two thousand feet.
The two brothers. the ROgerseS, so eminent
as American geologists, who most fully eX-
plored them, first pointed ont the eXtraor-
dinary fact that they have no central axis,
but consist of a series of convex and con-
cave d4yures, giving them the appearance
of so many colossal intrcnchmenis. Mount
Mitchell. the lOftieSt, and Mount Washing
ton, the next in altitude, guard either flank
of the series. The western slope of the
whole range, running from the tseHGSee
country Of New York TO the Mussel Shoals
OF the Tennessee river, are skirted by a
deep underlying bed of limestone. This
latter fac: is significant, and may give a
ciew 10 the origin of the volcanic action in
North Carolina. If, as Sir Charles Lyall,
the highest geological authority, asserts,
volcanoes are due TO chemical action in the
bowels of the earth, and BGt 10 an eternal
sea of fire, If is not inconceiyable iiaW such
chemical action has eliminated in the pres
ent fiery disturbance iii North Carolina,
but We anxiOusly wait ioT iGstlieF intelli-
sence for the data from which a. draw q
satisfactory conclusion.