Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-23

tect it against the waves. The latter break
off great pieces OF the coral and throw them
inward, thus helping to build up the sink
ing island. All rocks found in the Pacific
islands have been of volcanic origin, and it
appears as though vast number Of peaks
Of volcanoes Of about the same height have
gradually disappeared within geologically
recent periods, and are all kept connected
with the surface through the coral build
ers.
The formation of great mountain chains
has shaken up whole continents. and the
grinding and crushing subsidence and up
heaval has also evidently caused great COM
motion on land and fearful tides of the
oceans, which would sweep far inland, or
possibly over half continent. New con-
tinents have arisen, ,groaning and quivering
out OF their bed on the bottom OF the sea,
while an old continent went down miles out
Of sight with mighty rushing and roaring
of the waters, which made the whole world
rock, for these movements are not entirely
surface operations. but they originate GER
tainly at great distance down beyond the
center of this tenanted sphere.
There is nothing to determine the magni-
tude of these grand throes of the world +,
but whole mountain must have been up
heaved at once or in the same continuous
movement, or subsidized in like manner. In
their upheaval they left vast depressions be-
tween them which contained great bodies Of
water. Such was
THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY
and its ramifcations. The great lake broke
through the mountains at some remote
period, either by earthquake or weakness of
the mountain walls, and formed the Poto-
nd riv The
of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio
rivers were at one time vast cracks in the
crust-chasms which have been filled up to
their present grade by the influence of the
water.
According to all theories of coal formation
the many veins of coal found from New
York to Alabama 60 to show that there
must have been great upheavals and sub
sidences connected with large bodies of
water throughout all of those coal beds and
throughout the vast region from the Blue
Ridge to the Rocky Mountains.
Water is tine agent which IS constantly
changing the face of the earth. Each drop
of rain has its duty to perform in changing
the face of nature. 1t falls on rock, and,
freezing, bursts away a small particle-a
grain OF sand perhaps-and that grain and
other grains are blown by Boreas or Zeph-
by friction. Drops of water in snowfakes
make the mighty glaciers, great, slowly
moving rivers Of ice, which, like the mills
of the gods, grind slowly but they grind
exceeding ine." They pulverize into sand
great beds of granite, and erode the rocky
ribs of mighty mountains, all the time
sending from underneath them great rivers
of ice water.
So these little drops of water are constant
ly at work to move the mountains and hills
down into the valleys, thus assisting the vast
upheavals and subsidences in changing the
face of the earth. There is no earthly sub
stance that is not at least partially soluble
in water. and the presence of water in rocks
means their slow destruction. can English
scientist estimates that there may be everv
year dissolved by rain $50 tons of rocky
matter to one square mile of surface"
RECEDING OF NIAGARA FALLs.s
It is supposed that the great Niagara
chasm has been 81, 900 years receding from
Queenstown to the present falls. The
greatest ravine in the world, the Colorado
canon, flows 300 miles through horizontal
strata at depth. perpendicular at many
places, of 5000 feet. Nothing but birds
can cross the country on account of these
vast ravines which have been caused by the
UdGuTal GTOSlOU VI lue IdplQ bIIcaWS OF py
the mighty earthquake.
The history of the growth of continent
comes down through vast cycles of time, or
through the 'ages of the ages" Basing
conclusion upon fact, it is certain that the
or corrugation OF the earth's
crust has been caused by the shrinking of
the interior by great diminution OF heat
and consequent contraction, causing great
and upheaval and subsldence
over vast spaces of the globe during long
periods of time. Mountains have not only
been formed and great valleys made, but
bodies of rock, strange to the
locality, have been showed horizontally over
regions hundreds of miles square. Rocks
are constantly making and unmaking.
Rain, most, glaciers, rapid rivers and ero-
sion are destroying rocks, while great rivers
ire pouring the detrItus into the sea, where
it is gradually being reformed into new
rocks composed almost entirely of the old
ones.
1t is estimated that it would take 4, 500, 900
years to reduce this continent to the sea
level. That is vast space of time, but the
elevation of the Cordilleras, the Andes, the
the Alps or the Rocky Noun
tains, and the formation of the vast beds of
sand and limestone could not have been ac-
in much less time. As the sea
recedes, great plains are pushed above water,
of these vast bodies of sand which
have been washed down by the rivers. Par
ticles may stop awhile on the way down,
but the sea is their inevitable fate as surely
as that tine soul of man washes into the sea
Of eternity. BUMBALo.