The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1875-10-02
THE PACIFIC
GommertlalAobertis
SATURDAY. OCTOBER =
Instability of the Earth's Surface.


vEw YORK AND SEw JERSEY NKIxG-PARADIs
UNDER wATER-NEw THEORIES OF CEoLGGY.
We are so accustomed to consider the solid
earth TO be the type of stability that it requires
quite an effort of the mind 20 elevate itself to
the thought that even the rocks, which appear to
be the foundation on which everything else rests.
are of an unstable nature, subject TO upheavals,
depressions, and dislocations. Every observing
mind that has seen bold mountain regions, rail-
road cuttings, or mining shafts, must have been
struck with the evidences Of mighty disturbances,
although, perhaps, n book on geology never came
under his eye. Ii is the study Of these disturb
ances which has created this science, one Of the
most interesting in the whole field Of human
knowledge.
1t was formerly supposed that the only cause
Of such changes was volcanic action, and that all
the metamorphoses which have taken place were
sudden and violent. The observations of volcanic
action and of the changes which it rapidly pro-
duces in the earth's surface necessarily led to
such conclusions but patient investigation, dur
ing long periods Of time, has led to the knowl-
edge of n mode Of change, formerly unsuspected,
by slow upheavals and depressions, taken place
gradually at a rate of one or more feet in q CEN
fury. Such changes have been and are now con-
stantly taking place, and necessarily must, if
prolonged for a sufficiently long period of time,
essentially change the earth's surface. not only
as TO the relative heights of continents and
islands, but, in connection with the ocean, as 10
the whole cosmography Of our globe.
We will not speak Of the supposed continent
Atlantis, mentioned by the ancient NEUROLOGICAL
writers, which was, they asserted, sunken in the
Atlantic Ocean but we will mention only posi-
tive facts, recorded as a result of careful observ-
alton. That the coasts and bottom of the Baltic
sea are rising is an old and well established fact,
the ancient shores being several thousand feet
from the present waters edge while Great
Britain and part of the west coast of Europe,
-. II IL
condition. The evidences in and around the
British channel have long since proved the pro-
liability of this, while the astronomer royal has
announced that minute observations prove that
Greenwich observatory, with the ground upon
which it stands, has been sinking ever since its
establishment.
In regard to our continent, it has been proved
that the whole Pacific coast, especially California.
with all its mountains, is perpetually rising, and
that at a comparatively rapid rate. The land
containing in its bosom our great American lakes
is slowly sinking while southern Indiana, Ken
lucky, and the surrounding States are rising.
Geological Investigations prove that our great
lakes, except Ontario, had formerly a southern
outlet until. by gradual northern depresslons
and southern upheavals, a northern outlet was
formed from Lake Erie into Ontario, about 49,
600 years ago. This outlet, the Niagara river,
is still wearing away its channels. The division
line of the watershed south Of the lakes and the
Mississippi valley, has since that time been stead
lily travelling southwark, and when Chicago re-
Gently turned the water of Lake Michigan,
through the Chicago river, into the Mississippi
valley, the old state of affairs was artifcially re
established.
New Jersey is sinking, with New York city
and Long Island, at the estimated rate of sixteen
inches per century. The coast of Texas is as
cending at a comparatively very rapid rate, some
observers stating that it is as much as thirty or
forty feet in the last half century.
Combining these observations with the results
of the recent deep soundings of the United States
steamer IuSc0rora in the Pacific Ocean, we find
that the bed is evidently a sunken continent,
Astounding in volcanic mountains some 1000 feet
high, many of them not reaching the surface of
the ocean, and others which do so forming the
numberless islands of the Pacific. The study of
the coral rocks proves that this sinking has con-
tinually been taking place during several centu-
ries, and observations of the coast will undoubt-
edly reveal that it has not yet ceased.
The most eminent German biologists and
ethnologists now maintain that the locality of
mans primitive origin, the seat of the so-called
Paradise, was in the Pacific ocean south of Asia,
whence the race slowly difused itself n~orthward
to Asia, westward to Africa, and eastward to
Australia. When the great Pacific continent
slowly sank, so that the ocean commenced filing
the valleys, man retreated to the mountains,
which, by continued sinking, were transformed
into islands, and now form the many groups of
Polynesia. The insularity of The thus preserved
races was not productive of civilization, which
requires conflict, in which the superior in the
end gain the victory over the interiors. In those
islands, the inferior races were preserved for want
of this conflict, hence their savage condition even
at the present day while primitively the great
est advance took place at the spot of the most
intense conflict, the continent of Southern Asia.
Even at the present day, it has been said that
gunpowder is the greatest c~ivilizer. Scientific
American.