The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1881-01-13
.ABoUr EARTHQUAKES.

ABOUT EARTHQUAKES.
/ In our local columns this morning Will DC
found an account of peculi Npoise heard
in a northwsstsrIy direction "a this city
The partios who have heard the strange
|rumbling sounds are Of those of our people
who are most accurate of observation and
statement in all things. According to the
description tho indi1ations ara of an earth
quake character, and it SO happens that in
the vicinity whence they proceed there exist
many symptoms Of volcanic work in the long
ago. EARTHQUAKES are manifestations of
the earth's central heat, and to them
the earth is indebted for the variety of
its geographic character. BY them its
! fairness has been relieved, SO that
hill and dale, mountain and valley enbel-
lish its surface. Sometimes they pay their
unweicome visits without tie politsneas of
premonitory, warning and treating the neigh
boring inhabitants with as an uncersmonious
and sudden carrying off es the Romans did
the Sabine women at other times they NUT
ter their intentions for months or even years
in advance; while again they gently, silently
but steadily prepare the people to be on
| guard for the fatal, gaping gulf. Tho Missis-
sippi valley was visited by an earthquake In
1872, at the time Of our second war with
England, the town of New Madrid, Missouri,
bsing partly engulfed up in the spring of
that year. In the same year, and in the sue
ceeding month, the city of Caracas, in New
Grenada, was swallowed up in less than
minute, 10000 inhabitants perishing, But
the Lisbon earthquake Of 1856, was, perhaps,
the naest disastrous of modern timsa, ss in 1t
some 10000 citizens and all their splendid
pslaces west down into the yawning cracks
Ia six minutes time. In Caiabria, about thirty
wears later, over 10000 people we're SO de-
stroyed. In these instances for thousands OF
miles the ocean disturbances were percep-
tible, and near the. grief stricken towns TIE
waves of the sea rose as high as sixty feet.
Oae Of the most noted of these dreadful
yisitstions known to history was that which
buried under delugo Of ashes from Veau-
vus the famed cities of Herculaneum and
Pompeii, and in their one hundred feet Of
depth. wore lost 70 view for seventeen hum
dred years, until about one hundred and
ssventy-Ave years ago a well-digger turned
up by accident bit Of statuary, which led
to the subsequent wonderful developments
since made. The latest serious one
known was that on the Island of st.
Thomas, in the fall Of 1867, when scarcely
stone or brick slructsro escaped either
destruction or great damage. Without warn
ing the shock came and lasted nearly two
minutes, parslyzing the iowa with fright and
CONSERVATION, as across the trembling, up
heaving earth, with the horribly roaring
noise, the Inhabitants fsd for and wide, from
the raging sea, giving up all savetbeir young
ones, their aged and their SICK. Noises made
By coming earthquakes have been liketed TO
those made By heavy chains pulled abou t,
increasing to thunder tones. Again they
have been likened to the rumbung of heavy
vehicles over distant road, or like the rush
of wind under ground, or like far of thun-
der. Sometimes, however, these subierrs-
mean sounds ere heard for esys or weeks
| without any earthquake following. As for
the origia or the nature Of these dread ysi-
tors, we are not down TO this day apprised.
The old theory Of the liquid ncuclus and
thin crust or in other werdl that the oarths
Interior is a molten mass while its
rind is in hardening and cooling
condition, having been abandoned
since recent Astroronical discoveries showed
its falsity, hence geologists are at sea The
most generally accepted theory, we believe,
is that they are a sort of vibratory motion
propss sted through the solid materials of
the earth, much in the sans way that sound
is propsgltsd ia the atmosphere. Ths We
locity of The wsvs Of shock Is often as high az
twenty miles por minute, sometimes only
one-half that. Tbs fubjeci l. an intessting
one, and It grows on US aswe write, but how
ever interesting 70 tho lover CT scienee, we
are such lover Of humanity, and
more particularly, as resident portion II,
Of North. Texas, that We are not specially
solieitcus for personal inspection or obIervA-
ton, hence We hspe he peculiar sounds re-
Gently and now bang heard BY our friends
in the @Psn-handle" viii in COED time cease
their disturbing ominovsness. We arc in this
business like The boy about the best plAcc %
havo boil. we prsfsr it At distance, and
about some other fellow.