Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1885-04-18

The student OF history reads of the great sea
fight which King Edward III. fought with the
French off Siuys; how in those days the mer
chant vessels came up to the walls of that -four
ishing seaport by every tide, and how, q Gen.
tury later, a Portuguese fleet conveyed Isabella
from Lisbon, and an English fleet brought Mar
garet of York from the Thames to marry sue
cessive dukes of Burgundy at the port of Sluys.
In our time If a modern traveller drives twelve
miles out Of Bruges across the Du tch frontier
he will find small agricultural town sur
rounded by cornfields and meadows and
clumps of trees, whence the sea is not in sight
from the top Of the town-han steepfe. This is
Sluys.
Michel, between Normandy and Brittany. In
Roman authors we read of the vast forest called
Setiacum Menus, in the center of which an
lsolated rock arose, SurmOunted by a temple of
Jupiter, once college of Drudesses Now, the
same rock: with its glorious pile dedicated to
st: Michael, is surrounded by the sea at high
| tides. The story of this Transformation is even
more striking than that of Sluys, and its ade-
quate narration justly earned for NJ. Manet
the gold medal OF the French Geographical So
ciety in 1923.
Let us turn for moment to the Mediterrane-
an shores OF Spain and the mountains of Murcia.
Those rocky heights, whose peaks stand out
against the deep blue sky, scarcely support a
blade of vegetation. The algarobas and olives
az thelr bases are artifcialy supplied with soil.
1t Is scarcely credible that these are the same
mountains which, according to the forest book
OF King Alfonso Ell Sabio, were once clothed to
Whlle soft clouds and mist hung over a rounded,
shaggy outline of wood where now the naked
rocks make hard line against the FURNISHED
sky. But Arab and Spanish chroniclers alike
record the facts, and geographical science ex-
plains the cause. There is scarcely district in
the whole range in the civilized world where
some equally interesting geographical story has
not been recorded, and where the same valua-
PIE lessons may not be taught. This is compar-
Capt. L. U. Herandeen, who mas spent years in
sailing the Pacific, relates facts that he had
forth by Dana that there is an immense area OF
the Pacific ocean bed, lying under the equator
about 9, 900 miles in length and about 5000 in
breadth, that has been gradually sinking lower
and lower for thousands of years. The first
thlng that called the attention of scientific men
70 TINS fact was the formation of the innumer-
able atOls and barrier reefs in that part of the
rac1hc ocean. They found on the outskirts OF
this area that there were islands fringed with
coral reefs.
GAS they sailed past these beaut full islands
they saw other islands with a barrier circling
tnem. "A coral reef q few feet below the surface
OF the water girdied the island at distance
from 1t varying from a half to thirty miles, and
whose presence was marked by u ring of snowy
foam made by the breakers. AS they pene-
trated farther into the region of the sea they
| came upon atolls, which are formed by circles
OF coral enclosing smooth sheet of water.
Ihese lagoons were found to vary in diameter
rom thirty miles or more to only few feet, but
corals do not build their reefs at greater depth
than hundred feet, and yet by sounding these
singular reefs in the Pacific ocean it was found
that the coral reached as far as the fathOm line
went The conclusion of scientific men was that
the bed OF the ocean was gradually sinking and
ina that the corals began to build fringng reefs on
the Islands, and as the land sank, the corals
Kept steadily at work building up as fast as the
land went down. AS the land disappeared, the
frlng1ng reefs became atols or circles of coral
enclosing calm lagoon. 1t was found that the
reefs below a hundred feet are dead, and it is
inferred that at a lower depth than that the
cOrals were killed by cold. This is the gen.
orally accepted theory in regard to the subsi.
HOnvn1Defp n ~ fio inc ct Ion,
gltude loSo %, and north latitude 500 5V. The
Island Is surrounded by a reef with q broad ship
channel between 1t and the island.
Az places in the reef there were natural
breaks, that served as entrances to the harbors
In these ship channels there We're a number OF
islands, many of which were surrounded by a
wall of stone five or six feet high and on these
| Islands there stood great many low houses
putt OF the same kind of stone the walls about
them. These structures seem to have been used
as temples and forts. The singular feature OF
these Islands Is that the walls are foot or more
below the water. When they were built they
were evidently above the water and connected
with the main land, but they have gradually
sunk until the has risen a foot or more
around them. The natives on the island do not
know When these works were built; it is SO far
back In the past that they have even no tradi.
ton of the structures. Yet the works show signs
Of great skill, and certainly prove that whoever
built them knew thoroughly how to transport
and lift heavy blocks of stone. Up in the noun
tains of the island there is quarry of the same
kind of stone that was used in building the
wall about the islands, and in that quarry to
day there are great blocks of stone that have
been heWn out ready for transportation. The
natives have no tradition touching the quarry
There is no doubt that the island was once in
habited by an intelligent race of people, who
built the temples and forts of heavy masonry
on the hlgh biu11s OF the island, and that the
land gradually subsidized these bluffs became
Islands,