Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1886-11-30
A LOST CONTINENT.
THE EVIDENCE THAT 1T WAS IN
GULFEO BY THE PACIFIC.

GUlFEO BY THE PACIFIC.
Some Startling Revelations of Modern
science-CurIous Facts which Have ~
Bearing On the Ouesti"n-Two AppaII-
} ing Alternatives Presented.
! Little rs We know of the prehistoric adven-
lures OF the Atlantic ocean and the countries
which border it, We know still less of the Pa
cific and It's antecedents Reasoning upon the
date Of the earthquakes of 1854 and 1868 Pro
fessors Barrie and Hochstetter reckOned the
average depth of that ocean To be from 2UOU
to 400 fathOms. The rusCarOra, which
trayersed the Pacific from California to ia
pan via the Sandwich islands, taking sound
lnss on the way-with "a view To- the LAYING
of an ocean cable-found an average depth Of
about :, 2OO fathoEls with depresSion- Of 500
fathOms. The Challenger in the South Pa
ciiic found average depth Of about 800
fathomS; also with deep spots reaching OCCa-
siOnally 30 fathoms But in the northern
! Pacific very different state of things Is
found In BehTing il is an exception TO
find depth Of 100 fathoms; twenty five,
thirty, forty and fifty fathOms are the rule.
Round the fur seal islands Paul and st.
GeOrge-bottOm IS reached at twenty five,
thirty, forty and fifty fathOms; in the center
of BehrIns strait . the depth marked on the
coast survey CT arts is twenty five fathOnls.
Again. at the S,uth the average depth of the
ocean ietween Chill and New Zealand is
known to Ike about | 800 fathomS. Thus, 80
far as we know-and that is precious little
the basin OF the Pacific is a circular bowl
about 3,cOO fathomS deep in the deepest part,
with "A well defined rim on the western, north
ern and eastern sides, and with innumerable
islands cropping up all over, like the peaks of
the mountains of a submerged continent. On
the southern side the rim is broken of and
the bowl merges into tue Antarctic ocean.
BASIN or THE PACIFIC.
Assuming that this is a correct description
of the Pacific baSin-which, from want Of
adequate soundings. We are far from being
sure Oft compares Curiously with the At
lantIC ocean, about which we know good
deal. The latter ocean has bench or ter
race, varying from 80 TO 100 miles in width,
and from nothing to 100 fathonIs in depth,
which borders the continents that mclOse the
ocean. Beyond this bench deep water-in
places a. deep as $500 fathoms-comes sud
denly. The ocean basin is travcrsd from
north to south by plateau, extending from
the Azorts, or even further south, to Iceland;
on either side of the plateau is II deep valley
of water. On the plateau depths of 1000
fathoms are rare; 800 fathOms is the usual
average But just outside the edges of the
plateau there are places where no bottom is
found at 5000 The theory of cosInogonists
is that this plateau was once dry land, and
that SIuE In "a Iapth nf nearly miles
beneath the surface of the ocean in a conyul-
sion of nature. It was by coupling this hy-
pothesis with Plato's remarkable account of
the lost island Of Atlantis, from which, ac-
cording to the Egyptians, they and the
Greeks, and indeed all the enlightened peO-
pies of ancient times, derived their civilza-
ton, that Ignatius Donnelly constructed his
interesting theory of lost continent
Sir William Dawson has not furnished the
public with the reasons that induced him to
suppose that the Creators work is finished in
the Atlantic and unfinished in the Pacific 1t
cannot have been that he argued that there
had been no subsidence of the bottom Of the
latter, for the evidences of such catastrophe
were long ago pointed out by Dana and Dar-
win The coral insect will not build below
100 or $50 feet beneath the surface of the
water. Yet coral detritus has been brought
up from depths of 200 TO 5000 fathoms,
and this throughout Polynesia, as far north as
. degs or 3 degs. above the trOpic of Capri
corn. and as far south as Australia. Hence,
it seems that what is now the bottom Of a
deep sea must once have been the bottom of
a shallow sea, such as Behring sea is now.
sOME VERY CURIOUS FACTS.
Again, the colossal remains on Easter
island show that at some time or other that
island must have been connected with islands
now lying 600, 1000 and 5000 miles further
west They could not have been erected by
the natives of an island which cannot feed its
people, much less prove home for art. The
islanders could not have sailed TO Easter from
Polynesia, for they cannot beat ~ windward
in their light draught canoes, and the trade
winds blow from the east and southeast for
eleven months in the year. Nor could they
have come from the west of South America,
for they are men of q different race from
any that ever lived on this continent, being,
in fact, obviously members of the PolynesiaI'
family Hence, the former existence of a
South Pacific continent, though not abso-
lutely demonstrated, is rendered so probable
that no man of science would be surprised at
the discovery Of absolute evidence of its hav-
III been
Geographers have amused themselves by
reconstructing the lost continent, as Don
nelly reconstructed Atlantis. They have
taken existing islands for the tops of noun
tain ranges, and imagined valleys between
them, spreading from range to range. Thus,
Dana imagines two principal mountain
ranges, one starting from the Hawaiian
group and running south to the Mendana,
Society and Pearl islands. and another start
ing from the Society group and running
westwardly through the Navigators the FIJI
group, the solomon group, New Guinea, the
Spice islands, Celebes, Borneo, Sumatra and
joining the continent of Asia at Malacca
Perhaps this theory of cosmogony is as recon-
cilable with the facts as any other.
1t involves two alternatives, each more ap-
peIling than the other. II there was Pa
cific continent how did it disappeari Did it
fall rashing down through the waters, in an
instant, in some mighty earthquake which
hurled millions of human beings into eternity
with such awful swiftness that no one knew
what was happening to him! Or did it sub
side gradually, the area of cultlvRble land
becoming less each year, so that men fled to
hilltops to escape the ineIorable advance Of
the surging sea, and while a few made their
escape and bore to distant lands the story Of
the deluge, the great bulk persisted miserably
of hunger or in the battle for the food which
was too scanty to suffice for alll Are such
catastrophes likely to occurt-San Francisco
Call
One on the Old Gentleman.
He was the son Of worthy Chicagoan,
and he had just retmped from college.
Tho father yas a hruSuuP matter-Of fact