The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-08-12
SUNDAYS RARTH0uAKE.

S0OgIdpnefO OIL Irlnceuon SOucSey ING AhlSNAV8h
people have felt very easy as to any harm
from earthquakes That Java and Italy
should suffer was to be expected; they lie in
earthquake areas But the late English earth
quake and the earthquake Of Sunday are
further evidence that no part of the globe is
free from the effects of the increasing tension
produced in the earth crust by thesteady con-
traction Of our cooling planet This immense
strain is relieved by earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions; also by those secular movements
which result in the elevation Of immense
mountain folds, the sinking of vast areas and
the elevation Of corresponding areas.
The strain is constant; the accommodations
of the crust toitresult in earthquakes, and these
are catalogued by thousands; they occur nearly
every week, and by the physical geographer
are regarded as among the regular and con-
tinuous terrestrial phenomena Their general
causes as also those of volcanoes, were fully
discussed in these columns in the articles en-
titled Earth Changes" following the Java
| and Casamicciola disasters, and ''The En-
glish, Earthquake following the shake-up
which has just been paralleled in the region
| of New York and Philadelphia.
claw Of distribution Of earthquakes is of
paramount Importance for the explanation Of
these mysterious phenomena While they are
liable to occur anywhere, it is significant
fact that the classical centers of conclusion,
the places in which earthquakes have been
mostnumerous and violent fall within two
great. zones Of broken lands. The first is the
Pacific ocean zone. In it are the earthquake
areasof the Andes, with such eruptions as
that Of August, 1863 This shook the Andes
from Chill to Ecuador, thousand miles, OBJ
literating africa, the main harbor of Bolivia, in
moment It swallowed up the cities of Ibarra
and Ottawalla, and not one of their 10000
residents was ever seen again. Three hun
bred thousand people were made homeless in
moment The sea was as furious as the earth;
the ships in the harbor Of africa were stranded,
and the United States steamer Wateree left
two miles inland.
To the Pacific ocean zone Of fracture belong
also the earthquake centers of west North
America, Kamtchatka and New Zealand. In
the second zone of broken lands occurs the
great Mediterranean area, extending from
Spain to Syria, and including Italy, Greece,
Asia Minor and North Africa. These two
zones of fracture encircle the earth at nearly
right angles, indicating the lines of crust
weakness; they cross each other in the Arab
an and Indian areas Here as Prof. Guyot
says is the really classic soil of earthquakes
the East Indian archipelago, with such exam
pies as the late destruction of an entire coast
range of mountains in Java and the formation
Of range Of volcanic mountains across the
Strait of Sunda.
The general distribution Of earthquakes is
analogous to that of volcanoes both are
intense in their action along the great
fracture lines Of our planet, but the domain
of earthquakes extends far beyond that Of
volcanoes. This cursory view of earthquake
distribution is reassuring, as it shows that
the great areas Of the continents, as north
and central Europe the great plains Of south
Asia, with their vast populations, and the
most valuable and generally habitable por-
tions Of North America are outside of the
probable range of destructive earthquake &C
ton. It shows also that these apparently
spasmodic and irregular exhibitions Of ma
lures forces are really acting under trace
able and discoverable law and method 1t is
the result of the earth,s gravity, taken in
connection with the shrinkage due to the loss
of the primary heat with which the forming
earth was endowed
The occurrence Of Sundays earthquake
may be referred to secondary zone of
fracture, incident to the formation Of the
Allegheny coast range. The eastern Cordil-
leras, as the term is used by Dana and Whit
ney, includes not only the Alleghenies proper,
but also the Adirondacks and the Nova Scotia
ranges. The various ridges of these chains
were thrown up as gigantic earth-folds from
the effect of the pressure that came at right
angles to the line of folding that is, from the
east and southeast and it is likely that the
pressure was due to the formation through the
action of animal life and from drifted ma
terial Of immense deposits in the Atlantic
ocean bed. The thickened ocean bed abutting
on the ridges and solid lands of the old world
stood firm and unyielding, and as the shrink
age Of the crust went on, the strain was thrown