The Republican journal., 1875-08-19
Changes on the Earth's Surface.
From the Hartford Times

Capt. James Rlley's Hartford brig, Com
merce, was wrecked on the African coast
of Morocco in the year 1915, and Capt.
Riley and some of his companions were
captured by Arabs and driven on foot
across large section of the "Great Des-
ert" of Sahara. Captain Riley, amid all
his sutferings in the interior of the desert,
could not fail to notice and be deeply i'm
pressed by the remarkable Typographical
features presented at certain distances,
somewhat widely separated, and all indi-
eating Enthusiastically that the Desert itself
once formed the bottom of the sea.
In ''Riley's Narrative" book that was
received with some incredulity at the time
but which is sustained in lis more impor-
tant statements by later revelations. these
Typographical phenomena of the Desert
are described as consisting of far-sweep-
ing lines OF low terraces, presenting eX-
actlv the appearance that one would ex-
pect to find in q well-preseryed ancient
sea beach. SO real was the appearance,
that the observer could not resist the con-
viction that these receding terraces were
in tact what We're in former ages lines of
a shore which marked the successive linn
its of an ancient sea.
In other words, it was seemingly evi-
dent that the ''Great Desert region q
thousand miles wide and more than two
thousand miles long, had arisen, like the
neurological Venus, from the waves, not
in beauty like the Grecian Aphrodite, but
in all the horrors of naked burning
plain, its inhospitabe bosom presenting
only hard and stony surfaces, alternating
with drifting sands. Its higher terraces.
OF course, We're the first to be lifted out OF
the sea; then, in due order, and at un-
known intervals. came the others-until
the existing line was reached, and even
that seems to be slowly changing.
In fact, a constant change seems to be
going on in the elevation of nearly all
parts of the earths surtace-some regions
rising, others very unmistakably sinking
In the latter class, very certainly, appears
the greater part of our Atlantic coast.
from Cape Cod to Florida The Connec-
ticut shore, from Connecticut River to
New York, as it existed before the Reyo-
lutionary War, is now covered by the wa
ters of Long Island Sound nearly two rods
out from the present shore
The coast OF New jersey has also re-
cedeu-the sea is now coming up to places
that were three rods from the water in
l770. 1t is said by some geolooists that
the greater part OF the present islands
known as the West Indies are really but
the higher portions of Il vast srlnken re-
glon that once formed a part Of the Amer
lean Continent. Nearer home, the region
around the great lakes is also said to be
slowly sinking, while Southern Indiana,
Kentucky and the surrounding States are
rising.
l. is found that the great lakes once had
a southern outlet Now they discharge
their surplus water, not through the Mis-
sissippi INTO the Gulf. but through the
Niagara River, Lake Ontario and the st.
Lawrence into the chill seas of the North.
The great channel known as Niagara
River seems to have been formed al re-
Gently as forty or fifty thousand wears
ago, and the ouset OF all the lakes above
Lake Ontario to have been simultaneously
changed from the Southern to the North
ern Gult-trom the Cult Of Mexico to the
Gulf of st. LaWrence-by northern de
pressions and southern upheavals.
These changes are governed by no
known law of relationship California
particularly, and all the Pacific coast to .
lesser extent. are found to be rising, But
the whole bed Of the vast Pacific, accord
ing to recent deep sea soundngs, is evi-
IDENTIFY a sunken continent, with numerous
volcanic mountains. In Europe the coasts
and bottom OF the Baltic Sea are rising
the ancient shores being now nearly halt
n mile from the water; but the shores ot
Holland, France, and Great Britain are
unmlstakably sinking. Greenland, u sort
of continent in itself, is said to be rising.
The fact is, and geology shows it, that
the earth's surface OF sea and land has
been for unknown ages constantly chaug-
ing. Slow upheavals of what at first
were islands have been followed by the
equally slow, increasing appearance Of
continents; and these have Slowly sunk
and disappeared, and as slowly risen
again--only to sink and rise; and this
vast process has gone on, with some ever
occurring changes IN the outlines OF the
land ior countless ages, And it is still
going on.