Delta chief., 1883-09-12
A Thin Crust TO Stand Upon.

from tne Shlt Lake lrlDune.
The earthquakes on the island of Java and
under the adjacent strait are, ii is probable,
the most destructive of modern times Noun
tains were divided as apples are, and sunk
in the deep waters islands suddenly appeared
where n mountain had stood smiling in the
morning, the sea many fathoms deep had pos
session at night; fortress with ali its garri-
and guns disappeared, and 100, 900 human
beings, each of whom in the morning had
like the rest of humanity, his hopes and
fears, at night had ceased to exist. To think
of what happened in those few hours is quite
enough to take all the arrogance from the
hearts of men, There was no distinction of
persons the evil and the good, the rich and
the poor met the same fate, and the sea as it
closed over them smiled in the tropical sun
light and in few minutes gave no signs of
the tragedy that had been enacted. Had the
catacysm been extended further and had it in
volved the continents as it did a part of this
island and the adjacent sea. all life on this
planet would have ceased and there would
have been that catastrophe which is known
as a geological period. There have been
eral of these since the earth first started
its axle and its orbit. More than once, evil
IDENTIFY its entire crust has exploded like a
steam boiler; how many times it changed in
its inclination on its axis no one knows; but
the fact is plain that what once was a tropical
region is now the frozen pole, and so sudden
did the change come that involved that region
iOr a moment with supcrheated steam, which
suddenly congealing buried it under a wall of
ice, that tropical animals have been dug from
that ice which still had half chewed morsels
of tropical grass in their mouths. The catas-
irophe was swift that it amounted TO an
instant transfSing; the change from tropical
heat to polar snow required but one moment,
and all the life of the earth went out as
quickly as death comes to a mortal when he
falls into the dead air Of u mine. Ii was then
that the glaciers, following law which at
taches to all matter and which forbids rest
began their flow; then the choked rivers be-
gan TO dig out new channels. After a while
the gases, which hid the greater and lesser
lights, flonted away, and with the years man
began to grope upon the earth and commence
the conquest of the world. 1t would require
but a tip of the old world on its axis to cause
all that to he repeated it would make the
frozen north again bloom with tropical vege-
tation and abound with gigantic forms of ami
NAL life I: but in the meantime all life would
have become extinct and the earth would roll
like the corpse of a dead worle, with no noise
to break the funeral silence save the wall of
the winds and the sobbng of the deep sea
And those sounds ear would hear save
Gods. There is enough in natures work to
COW any mortal into humblcness. When the
skies are smiling and the air is still there
may be but moment of time between that
calm and the annihilation of utter chaos.
We are here simply by sufirance, and it re-
quircs but one shudder of nature to obliterate
not only US but the fact that we existed.
And yet men sometimes become presumpt-
uous enough TO assert that they are in accord
with God. that they know His thoughts and
speak bv His authority. A spectacle such as
Java presents is wonderfully calculated TO
take all the pride ont of the human heart