, 1877-10-12
The Great Sea- Wave.

The great sea. wave which, after the re-
cent earthquake at Peru, swept across
the Pacific TO the Sandwich Islands az.
fords fresh illustration Of the vital en-
ergy which still pervades the frame OF
our earth.
If those theories be sound according
to which each planet during its extreme
youth is as a sun glowing with fiery heat,
and in extreme old age Is, like our moon,
cold(save where the suns rays pour upon
iU even to its very centre, we should re.
gard the various portions Of the middle
age of planet as indicating more or less
of vitality according as the signs of in
ternal heat and activity were greater or
less. Assuredly thus viewing our earth,
We have no reason to accept the melan.
choly doctrine that she is approaching
the stage of planetary decrepitude.
She still shows signs of intense vital
ity, not indeed that all parts of her sur.
face are moved at this present time by
what Humboldt called "the reaction OF
her interior" In this respect, doubtless,
changes slowly take place, the region of
disturbance at one time becoming after
many centuries region of rest, and pies
Uersa. But regarding the earth as a
whole, we find reason for believing that
she still has abundant life in her. The
astronomer who, should perceive, even
with the aid of the most powerful tele-
scope, the signs of any change in another
planet MARS for example, our nearest
neighbor among the superior planets),
the progress of the change being actually
discernible as he watched, would certain
ly conclude that that planet was moved
by mighty internal forces. Now it is not
too much to say, though at first it may
perhaps seem so, that the mighty sea.
wave which, on May 10, rushed in upon
the shores of the group of Sandwich ISL
snds would have been discernible from
Venus, supposing an observer there had
been watching the earth with telescope
as powerful as the best yet made on
this earth.
The wave was caused, as we know, by
tremendous subterranean disturbance
in Peru few hours earlier. Here, at
least, was the centre of subterranean ac-
tion, for land wave also travelled from
that region along the Pacific coast OF
Mexico, and was felt at the Sandwich
Isles, where the, Kilauea volcano was set
in action almost at the same time that the
sea-wave came in. But there can be NO
doubt whatever that, as in the case of the
great Peruvian earthquakes of August
1858, the sea-wave had its origin not in
the local subterranean disturbances, but
in the great upheavel by which Inquique
and other places were destroyed. We
shall, no doubt, hear before long, as 10
that case, of the arrival of the great
wave at the Samoa Isles, at the Japanese
Archipelago, on the shores of New Zea.
land, Australia, and so forth.
Now, the great circular wave which
spread on May 10 last from the Peruvian
shore as a centre athwart the entire Pa
ci6c was probably not felt by single
ship in the open sea, any more than the
still vaster wave of the 18th and 18th OF
August, 1868, and for the same reason
With height of some fifteen feet (or
thirty feet vertical difference between
crest and hollow, the wave had yet so
gentle slope that though it rushed at
the rate of three or four hundred miles
an hour across the Pacific, the rise and
fall of ship upon its surface would be
altogether imperceptible. The great sea.
wave, as Mallet long since pointed out,
consists, in the deep ocean, of "a long,
low swell of enormous volume, having
an equal slope before and behind, and SO
gentle that it might pass under ship
without being noticed" And we are told,
in fact, by modern writer that during
the rush of the great sea-wave across the
Pacific on August 1914, 1868, though
where the wave reached island shores il
seemed as though the land were first
sinking bodily into the ocean and then
rising bodily out Of it, "there was moi
one among the hundreds of vessels which
were sailing upon the Pacific when it was
traversed by the sea-wave in which any
unusual motion was perceived. .'-LOndon
Spectator.
No CoMPLAINT.-He was singularlJ