Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-09-08
A GENERAL DELUGE.

-",e Mysterious Workings OF Nature.
= is we'll known to geologists that an
,tis whose habitat was in or near the
':uy:c..i regions, and distant from which
hey could not survive, have been found
'l:.1a,ldelin ice in the Arctic regions
,nc;n OF Asia. They were so well pre-
er.ad through the countless ages since
hat hyperborean imprisonment that
.3:-,.r flesh was consumed by carniverous
,aio,als low inhabiting those regions
wen Il warmer sun melsed their encase-
.1er5. This fact of itself demonstrates
t..et ebo polar regions we're once approx
..aS.ang the equatorial; for these animals
.1j,} never have wandered SO far from
he places OF their nativity. It also
.,gpTes that the changesefrom high to
,,.sv te1parature was sudden, not leaving
r.-,a<s between for animal decay to COM
u,9!ca after the destruction of life, and
.il, formation of ice, by which they were
,,r-served.
Beds of the most excellent mineral
uC..i are found III Greenland, from which
il IS djlaTried and loaded directly on
snip board Of exploring steamers visiting
those high latitudes. It is found out
rr3pfing from cliffs at the very margin
Ct 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superseded one above another, with vary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
Gnerring certainty, that there have been
twerty-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
o.her island and continent on the globe.
And this oscillating condition Of the
aarth's crust viii 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 turbid
waves over the melancholy wreck, leav-
ing no trace of the toll, anxiety and IN
bounded hopes Of him who had delved to
make il satisfactory home for his am
bition.
The present revealings on the surface
Of Greenland, where few hundred years
ago were green fields, waving forests,
lowing rivers, populous and thrifty vii
lagos and contented people, show only
mountains of ice, all nature CONCEALED,
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 viii
cease to be inhabitaL1e. Already such
portions of the population as have means
are removing to the northern ATTITUDES
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
arTow head, shall remain to excite won
der or curiosity among those who shall
delve in its 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, a volcanic eruption and upheayal,
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, enguH CONT
nents and sweep away every vestige of
aspiring man, save the few favorable
locations which accidentally escape the
general deIuge and the submergence
of continents.
Such has been, such will be again and
again the fate of the globe.-[Dr. G. W.
Brown.