Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1877-11-28
A Great Sea-WaVe.

fresh illustration of that vital energy
which still pervades the frame of our earth
If those theories be sound, according to
which each planet during its extreme
youth is as sun glowing with fiery heat,
and in extreme old age is, like our moon,
cold (save where the suns rays pour upon
it) even to its very center we should
regard the various portions of the middle
age of planet as indicating more or less
of vitality according rs the signs of intern
al heat and activity were greater or less.
Assuredly, thus viewing our earth, we
have no reason to accept the melancholy
doctrine that she is approaching the stage
of planetary decrepitude.
She still shows signs Of intense vitality,
not indeed that all parts of her surface are
moved ut this present time by what Hum
bolt called 1.-THE reaction of her interior"
III this respect, doubtless, changes slowly
take place, the region of disturbance at one
time becoming after many centuries II re-
gion of rest and vice versa.
But regarding the earth us 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 ielescope, the signs Of any
change in another planet MARS, for exam
pie, our nearest neighbor among the supe-
rior planets), the progress of the change
being actually discernible as he watched,
would certainly conclude that that planet
was moved by mighty internal forces.
Now it is not to 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 Sand
wich Islands would have been discernable
from Venus, supposing an observer there
had been watching the earth with tcle-
scope, as powerful as the best yet made on
this earth, The wave was caused, as we
know, by tremendous subterranenn dis
turbance in Peru few hours earlier
Here, ut least, was the center of suberra-
mean action, for a land wave also travelled
from that region along the Pacific coast of
Mexico, and was felt ut the Sandwich Isles
where the Kilanea volcano was set in
motion almost at the same time that the
sea-wave came in. But there can be no
doubt whatever that Us in the case of the
great Peruvian earthquake of August,
1868, the sea-wave had its origin not in the
local subterranean disturbances, but in the
great upheaval by which IQuique and
other places were destroyed. We shall,
no doubt, hear before long, us in that case,
of the arrival of the great wave at the
Samoa Isles, at the japanese Archipelago,
on the shores of New Zealand, Australia,
and so forth.
a. 1,u,nt o;,.ou1ou ,,binb
spread on Nav 10, last, from the Peruvian
shore as u center athwart the entire Pacif-
ic, was prboablv not felt by single ship
in the open sen any more than the still
wasver wave of the 18th and 14lh Of Aug,
1868, and for the same reason. With a
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 Cour hundred miles an hour across the
Pacific, the rise and fall of a ship upon its
surface would be altogether impreceptble.
The great sea wave. as Mallet long since
pointed out, consists, in the deep ocean,
..ofa lono. low swell of enormous volume,
bavino m eoual slope before and behind,
and that So GENTLE that it might pass under
a shin without being noticed" And we
are told. in fact, bv modern writer, that
during the rush of the great sea- wave
across the Pacific on August 9th and 18th,
1868. 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
if was trnversed by the sea-waye in which
onv unusunl motion was perceiyed.'
How. then. il NAV be asked, can we sup
nose that n wave which was not perceived
bv those actually sailing upon the ocean
travcrsed hy it, could have been visible
with suitable telescopic power from a
distant plnnetp The very circumstance
which rendered the rise and fall of ships
npon the sea-wnyes of 1868 and of last Nav
imnerceptible. assures us that the progress
of the wave would SO have been visible.
Besides its enormous range in length, for
whom il struck the Sandwich Isles lis crest
must have formed the arc of Il preat curve
havinp for radius the distance Of sixty-threl
hnndr1d miles. Separating the group from
perm. the wave had great breadth, other.
wise its heiuht beinT about thirty feet, the
rauid advance of the wave would have
coi,sed n rapid rise and fall, instead of /;
slow motion only djsccrnable along shore
lines Probably the distance from valley
ia valley. ON either side of the mighty
crest of the wave. WAS not less than tive
hundred miles in the open sea,
| o. en- ,s n,oro din,nnuionS than .,r,