The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1877-08-02
TIE GREAT SEA-WAVE.
scientific Explanations OF the Recent
UPheAvaI in the Pacific.

IOrds fresh illustration of the vital energy
which still pervades the frame of our
| earth. IT those theories be sound accord
ing to which each planet during its ex-
treme youth is as a sun glowing with
hery heat, and in extreme old age is, ike
our moon, cold (save where the suns rays
| pour upon it), even to its very centre,
we should regard the various portions of
the middle age of a planet as Indicating
more or less of vitality according as the
| signs of internal heat and activity were
| greater or less. Assuredly, thus viewing
our earth, we have no reason to accept
| the melancholy doctrine that she is ap-
| preaching the stage of planetary decrep-
| itude. She still shows signs of intense
vitality, not, indeed, that all parts of her
| surface are moved at this present time by
what Humboldt called "the reaction of
Der interior" In this respect, doubtless,
changes slowly take place, the region of
( disturbance becoming after many centu-
| ries a region of rest, and vice versa.
| 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 telescope, 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 certainly conclude that
that planet was moved by mighty inter
nal 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 islands, 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 a tremendous
disturbance in Peru few hours earlier.
Here, at least, was the centre of subter-
ranean action, for land wave also travel
ed from that region along the Pacific
coast of Mexico, and was felt in the Sand
wich isles, where the KiIanea volcano was
set in motion 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 earthquake Of
August, 1868, the sea-wave had its origin
not in the local subterranean disturb
ances, but in the great upheaval by which
Iquique and other places were destroyed.
We.shall, no doubt, hear before long, as
in that case, of the arrival of the great
WAVE dG bllC hCdlllOd 1olCo, clI bA4C pcliACCC
archipelago, on the shores of New Zea-
land, Australia, and so forth. Now, the
great circular wave which spread on May
10th last from the Peruvian shore as a
centre, athwart the entire Pacific, was
probably not felt by a 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 q
height of some fifteen feet (Or thirty feet
vertical difference between crest and hOl-
low), the wave had vet 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 impercep-
tible. The great sea-wave, as Mallett
long since pointed out, consists, in the
deep ocean of a long, low swell of enOr-
nous volume, having an equal slope
before and behind, and that so gentle
that it might pass under a ship without
being noticed" And we are told, in fact,
by modern writers that during the rush
of the great sea-wave across the Pacific on
Aug. 13, IA, 1858, though where the
wave reached island shores it seemed as
though the land were first sinking bodily
into the ocean and then rising bodily out
of it, there was not one among the
hundreds of vessels which were sailing
upon the Pacific when it was traversed
bv the sea wave in which any unusual
motion was perceived"
How, then, it may be asked, can we
suppose that wave which was not per-
ceiyed by those actually sailing upon the
ocean traversed by it, could have been
! visible with suitable telescope power
from distant planet? The very circum-
stance which rendered the rise and fall of
ships upon the sea-waves of 1868 and OF
last May imperceptible, assures us that
the progress of the wave would so have
been visible. Besides its enormous range
in length, for when it struck the Sand
wich isles it's crest must have formed the
arc of a great cuuve, having for radius
the distance of sixty-three hundred miles,
| separating that group from Peru, the
wave had great breadth, otherwise, its
| height being about thirty feet, the rapid
advance of the wave would have caused
rapid rise and fall, instead of a slow mo-
| ton only discernible along the shore
lines. Probably the distance from val
| lev to valley, on either side of the mighty
crest of the wave, was not less than two
| hundred miles in the open sea. So far
as mere dimensions, then, are concerned,
| the great wave would certainly have
| DS6u NlSlDlC lIOll1 d pldlCO p4ctCOd DO
| Venus is when most favOrably situated
| for observing the earth.- To show this, it
| is only necessary to point out that Venus
| is then much nearer to us than Mars ever
| is. that the entire diameter of Mars is but
about forty FIVE hundred miles, while the
| radius of the great wave, when it reached
| the Sandwich isles, was fully six thou
sand miles, and that its probable breadth
of two hundred milesvery far exceeds the
| breadth of many of the wellknOwn
markings upon the planet Mars.
But it may be asked how the wave
would become discernible at all viewed
as it were, from above. How sheuld an
! observer in Venus know that the highest
| part OF the wave was thirty feet or 50 near
er to him than the hollow of the valleys on
| either side of it? The way in which the
wave would become visible corresponds
in some degree to the way in which those
strong radiatiOns which extend from sew
eTal of the lunar craters are visible,
/ though they have very little elevation,
! cast no perceptible shadows, and are
many Of them undiscernible when other
/ lunar features are clearly seen, and be-
come discernible only when those other
| features are scarcely visible at all. I'm
/ der the suns rays, the two opposite faces
| OF the advancing waves would De differ
emily illuminated. One face, hundred
miles broad, be it remembered, would
catch the light more fully than the ocean
as yet undisturbed, while the other
would catch the light less fully. Thus
/ the mighty arc OF the wave would appear
as a double arc, one-half of its breadth
being bright, the other relatively dark
We do not say that the wave would be a
very striking or obvious feature of the
/ earth's disc as seen from Venus, but that
| it would be discernible under the same
telescope power which the Herschels,
Lassel, Rose, and others have applied to
! the celestial objects as seen from the