Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-12-11
A GENERAL DELUGE.
Che mysterious workings of Nature

Che Mysterious Workings of Nature.
It is well known to biologists that an
ima!s whose habitat was in or near the
tropical regions, and distant from which
they could not survive, have been found
imbedded in ice in the Arctic regions
north of Asia. They were so we'll pre-
served through the countless ages since
their hyperborean imprisonment that
their flesh was consumed by carniverous
animals now inhabiting those regions
when warmer sun melted their encase-
ment. This fact of itself demonstrates
that the polar regions were once approx
mating the equatorial; for these animals
could never have wandered SO far from
the places Of their nativity. 1t also
proves that the change::from high to a
low temperature was sudden, not leaving
time between for animal decay to COM
mence after the destruction of life, and
the formation Of ice, by which they were
preserved.
Beds of the most excellent mineral
coal are found III Greenland, from which
it is quarried and loaded directly on
ship board of exploring steamers visiting
those high latitudes. It is found out
cropping from cliffs at the very margin
of the sea.
Twenty-eight different beds Of coal,
superseded one above another, with vary
ing thickness of intervening rock and
slate, have been opened and worked in
Great Britain. The lowest of these are
more than 5000 feet below the present
surface of the sea. This tells us, with
unerring certainty, that there have been
twenty-eight epochs, each of indefinite
duration, when those islands were alter
nately above and below the sea level;
periods when the earth was covered with
dense verdure; when the surging ocean
rolled over it, and covered that verdure
with sand and gravel, the material of
which everything rock was formed; when
it again emerged; was again adapted to
the growth Of vegetation, and again,
after the lapse Of countless ages, went
down, and so has continued until the
present order of things was introduced.
What is true of the British islands in
this regard, is probably true Of every
other island and continent on the globe.
And this oscillating condition of the
earth's crust will ever go on with seas
and continents while the same laws
which have governed matter as in the
past shall continue. To-day continent
covered with animal and vegetable life;
tomorrow the ocean rolls its tr1rbid
waves over the melancholy wreck, leav-
ing no trace of the toll, anxiety and un-
bounded hopes of him who had delved to
make it a satisfactory home for his am
bition.
The present revealings on the surface
of Greenland, where a few hundred years
ago were green fields, waving forests,
flowing rivers, populous and thrifty vii
lagos and contented people, show only
mountains of ice, all nature CONCEALED, a
country of desolation and snow. This
change has been gradual, and the tenn
perature is still declining.
Iceland, too, is slowly undergoing a
similar change. At the same rate Of de-
cadence in another hundred years it will
cease to be inhabitable. Already such
portions of the population as have means
are removing to the northern latitudes
of America. The island, like Greenland,
will soon be cold and dreary desolation,
so to remain until other changes shall
transpire when it may again, in lower
latitude, become the home of man; but
ages of frost and ice must first mark its
site; other lands in turn, now nearly
tropical, must become frigid; and then it
is questionable if any traces Of man,
even as Insignificant as the stone ak or
arrow head, shall remain to excite won
der or curiosity among those who shall
delve in it's soil.
While we can account for the gradual
changing of the polarity of the earth and
the shifting Of climates-the glacial per-
iod always existing in some parts Of the
earth-we cannot, by the same mode Of
reasoning, explain why whole continents
are suddenly submerged, or why the
beds of oceans, as suddenly, become
continents.
Mountains of ice are continually form
ing within the arctics. The heat of
summer cannot reach them; but century
after century, and age after age the
accumulation goes on, adding to the
polar density. Some disturbing element,
as an earthquake shock convulsing the
globe, volcanic eruption and upheaval,
or the addition Of some fragmentary
planet or wandering body lost in space.
which has been attracted from its orbit
by its nearness to our earth, falls upon
it, the equipoise is lost, and the waters
of the ocean, seeking their plane, roll
over their rocky bounds, engulf CONT
nents and sweep away every vestige Of
aspiring man, save the few favorable
locations which accidentally escape the
general deluge and the submergence
of continents.
Such has been, such will be again and
again the fate Of the globe. DR.. G. w.
Brown.