The Sunday tatler and Jersey City express. (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886, 1886-09-05
EARTHQUAKES THEORIES.
Various specuIations as TO Their Cause and
Origin.

Various SpecuIatiOns as TO Their Cause and
Origin.
Noah Brooks in the Newark Advertiser.l
The theory of earthquake waves would
explain the long delay between the great
CONFUSION in Greece and the later dis
turbances in the United States But,
usually, or at least commonly, earthquakes
are synchronous. Thus, in 1888, earth
quake shocks were felt at the same time
at points as far apart as England and
Peru. And in 1850, shocks were simulta.
neously felt in England and Italy. What
are known as secondary earthquakes, how
ever, are not infrequent. These are the
remote effects of IRENE ldous commissions
of the earth's surface. Thus the waves
from the great Lisbon earthquake of 1855,
when 10000 people were destroyed, were
noted in the British Isles. The Arequipa
earthquake of 1868 was felt in New Zea-
land and New South Wales.
Nothing in nature so battles human
knowledge as an earthquake. Every other
natural phenomena have been studied
with at least some practical results. We
are as ignorant to-day of the causes of
the earth's tremors as the first who ever
experienced their terrors- Mallet, Milne
and many others have, however, collected
a mass Of highly interesting data which
may help to solve the problem, in course
of time. In the variety of causes assigned,
it is possible that sevsral of them are true;
for it is likely that some tremors of the
earth are due to one cause, and others to
another. For example, the notion that
the interior of the globe is liquid mass,
and that movements in the thin crust of
the earth are caused by motions of this
central mass, is dispelled when we learn
that earthquakes that create great COM
motions on the surface OF the globe are
not felt at all In the bottom of deep mines.
But, on the other hand, the theory that
what we call an earthquake Is really an
electric storm on the earth's surface is not
borne out by the fact that the solid ground
sometimes opens and yawns to receive the
ruinsof mans handiWork. But the quskes
which were not felt in the mines may
have been electric storms, and those in
which the earth opened may have come
from the interior of the globe. One writer,
accounting for these disturbances on the
theory of atmospheric pressure, calls atten-
ton to the fact that barometric rise of
one inch Is equal to load of seveuty-tw0
pounds being put upon every foet of the
area where this rise takes place. When a
sudden rise, over large extent of terri
tory. takes place, it is possible for the
earth's crust to give way in places and
indicate the pressure far and wide. The
majority Of earthquakes, however, happen
in volcanic regions, and we must attrib-
ute to the explosive efforts of volcanic foci
greater proportion of these mysterious
csmmotions. Asmaller number originate
Immediately around active volcanoes.
Some earthquakes. possibly all that we
have known in the United States, are pro-
duced by the collapse Of rocky strata in
the interior of the earth and tAe produc-
ton Of what biologists call faults ;"
These are attributed By scientists TO an
upward strain by pressure from below !;
and when we add the collapse Of vast in
terror caverns as an explanation, we have
completed the list of probable causes.
Bat, when we have done this, we are still
very much in the dark. Human curiosity
will always banker after an explanation of
all natural phenomena. But the earth
quake, the most frightful of all these, in
whose commotion man is most helpless,
remains riddle unsolved.