Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1885-02-15
ASUNkEN CONTINENT.
interesting Address BsfOre the
Academy Of Sciences.
THE cYcLoPEAN MONUMENTS.

Ala CIUaRian.

captain Cnurchlu paper re"u L~S' 49,
ing before the California Academy OF Sci
ence, assembled and grouped together many
interesting facts gathered from deePsea
soundings, and from the truly wonderful
remains ofan antecedent population in the
islands of the South Seas; tending to show
that where the present host of islands now
covers a vast extent of oceanic area, there
once existed q continent, whose subsistence
has left above the surface Of the central
Pacific Ocean, little besides its isolated or
clustered mountain peaks.
The refusal of Captain Russell, U. 5. N,
Commandant of Mare Island Navy Yard, to
allow the use of the charts-of the only
charts on this cosst-giving soundings be-
tween the various groups of the Polyneslan
archipelago, has proved a great dlsapPoint-
ment to Captain Churchill, who lost all his
by shipwreck, and to the members OF the
Academy, who are also engaged IN an INA
lytical study of this wonderful subject. Cap
tain Churchill, who was thoroughly trained
at Yale College as a scientific observer by
Prof. Jas. d. Dana, the eminent g%eologist,
gave his personal experiences and observa-
tons, and quoted thirteen significant sound
ings taken by the U. s. steamship Tuscaro'
"a, Captain Belknap, while examining the
ocean bed along the southern route for a
telegraph cable across the Pacific to Japan,
for which he acknowledged himselfindebted
10 Charles Wolcott Brooks. These sound.
iups were taken between q and q deg. OF
north latitude, and range from III W. to
l42 E. The greatest depth OF the soundlngs
quoted are 2,042 and 2,lT3 lathoms, while
the average is 1857 fathoms. The charac-
ter of the bottom thus brought up shows
great similarity, viz. white coral and sand,
white coral and lava, white coral alone,a and
coral mud. UnmodiGed coral is brought up
in all casts southwark Of % deg. \. Be
tween latitude "a deg. and q deg. n. this
coral is modified in the shape Of coral lime
store, or mixed with sand or particles OF
lava.
The ~Soundings.
He recited seven sets of soundings vary
ing in depth from 1900 to 1926 fathoms,
taken at distances of from one to two hun
bred miles from the FIJI Islands, giving the
same character of bottom now found with q
forty-iathom lead line inside the present
coral reefs. Her Britannia Maje5ty's steam
er Espiegle brought up coral from over 1000
iathoms, VIXEN sounding between Samoa
and Tonga; and three other sets Of sound
ings taken By her between Tonga and Ra-
rotonga give the'same character Of bottom
at much the same depth. OF all soundings
marked upon the Admiralty charts, by far
the majority of those just without the Dor
ders of the island region, and in many
places within these borders, record the coral
bottom at great depths.
Professor Dana, in his work on geology, |
is authority for the statement that the coral
polyps making coral reefs cannot live at
any greater depth than 100 feet, where in
common with a profusion Of oceanic life,
they increase and flourish in shallow waters
off shore.Hnes, down to that depth. From
a study Of zoophytes preserved in fossil beds
of early ages, there is nothing observed
which would indicate that any coral polyp
ever existed 1000 and 5000 fathoms be-
low the surface, even with altered thermo
metric and bathymetric conditions. A few
desultory fragments Of broken coral may
cave and sink from surface reefs,
but such would be comparatively
lnSlg0llCa0I ~COl0UdT6u 10 lHS aE
coral snottsrod oIor certain parts OF the
bed of the Pacific. The inference is a strong
one that at some remote period certain
parts of the bed of the Pacific, now thous.
ands of fathoms deep, must have been within
one hundred feet Of the ocean surface.
Either the depth of the water has been IN
creased by two or three miles, which is alb
surd and physically impossible, or the solid
surface of the earth's crust, which when
above the mean level of the sea is called
land, has subsidized to that extent. He then
outlined the bounds of q subsidized continent
as they are unfolded to us by deep sea
soundings, and spoke ofthe massive re-
mains Of
An Extinct Civilization.
which connects these continental remains
among the islands of 0ceanica with the
wave of Cyclopean buildings, which encir-
cled the earth, leaving its desultory traces
at Birs Nimrod-up and down the Nile
Yalley-at Tiryus, in Etruria, and across
the Atlantic in Yucatan, and in r~ockhewn
terraces and colossal figures at Rapa nui,
or Easter Island. The simplest type is the
artificial mounds erected throughout our
central States by that unknown people com
monty called Mound Builders Such a
one is found on the Island Of Lefuka,
although no other is yet discovered in Poly
neSia. 1t is forty feet high by fifty feet in
diameter, shaped like the trustum
of a cone, with a flat summit.
Natives refused to allow it opened,
but its great age is apparent, and great
trees grow upon it. Artificial mounds are
found OF dressed stone c~ayefully laid in par
allelogrammatic outlines forming terraces;
and temples have their foundations thus
built, on the summit OF three or four such
terraces, each smaller as the structure rises.
These terraces are Enthusiastically of great
age and are everywhere found by hundreds
among the islands, and none have been
built for a long time except an occasional
one, rudely constructed OF undressed stone
for some special need, Eighty or more
substantially finished stone dwellings are
found on the south face OF Rapa nuI. They
are built of large-sized dressed stone, skill
fully shaped and Joined without cement.
He knew Of no other sach struc-
lures 10 the South Pacific archipela-
20. Although in fine condition, they be-
long to a very ancient race, and are unused
by present inhabitants. Natives say they
were built by the man.gods in the begin
ming. He then described the rectangular
funeral tumuli, built Of undressed stones,
many of which have been destroyed and
lost TO science through an excess of fansti-
cism, since the introduction of missionaries.
These have q succession Of superimposed
terraces, composed primarily Of rubble
work. One opened at Wit was fifty feet
long by twenty feet wide, with terraces FIVE
feet high, and was surely several hundred or
more years old, In Rapsnui these are
faced with hewn stones of superior work
manship, and skillfully mUrtised and ten
anted into each other. The joints are close
but no cement is used. The use Of metals
was unknown to The present inhabitants OF
Polynesia until recently. At Rapaii, iA
the Austral group. are remains Of