The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1890-04-16
NEW YORK IN DANGER.
WHAT AN EARTHQUAKE OR CYCLONE
WOULD DO THERE.

4 Strong Presentation of the Probable Con-
sequences of Such !. Convulsion of Nature.
Cincinnati Eoqulrer.
New York is turning into a city Of
high stories. Erasmus remarked Of
Amsterdam, which was built on
piles driven into the mud. that he
had seen a town where the people
are like crows Oh the tree-tops, but
New York is putting up the most
dizzy and weighty structures upon
the smallestpossible pieces cf ground,
so that IL scientific man lately re-
marked to me: If al earthquake
ever strikes the city OF New York it
will produce more death and ruin
than anywhere on the globe where
an earthquake has struck.
You remind me, raid [, '.of these
desolate and gruesome reformers
who are telling us that the surplus
will be expended in L few months.
whereas they never told US that there
would be any surplus six months be-
fore it vas coming. They are not
going TO stop building. apprehend,
in New York for fear OF earthquakes.
which have never yot come to Man
haitian Island.
However, I fell to rejecting my
self when ever an earthquake would
come to Manhattan Island ;tt any
time, now or iar in the future. l did
not see any sound reason to appre-
hend any earthquake in this quarter.
We have had earthquakes along the
tidal alluvial sandbar country. which
have come as fan north as baltimore,
and. perhaps, Philadelphia. Our worst
earthquake in the East has been at
Charleston, where the mountain range
which defines the solid limits of the
continent is great way inland. The
Charleston. earthquake was really a
big thing, and we can afford for a
moment to glance ut it withreference
to the rocky framework of this CONT
nent. It is l30 miles from Charles
ton to Columbia. and thence &c the
mountains it is at least 40 miles, OF,
we may say, about 300 miles from the
seat of the late earthquake to the rib
of the continent, which is the Blue
Ridge.
When you come out to New York,
however, you see that same noun
tain almost overhanging the city;
what is called the Orange mountain
in New Jersy is the eastern dixie OF the
Allegheny ridge. In short, New En-
gland and tidal New York are the
solid continent. down almost to the
gates of the ocean. The rock line
shen recedes and it is 100 miles west
Of Philadelphia, forty miles west OF
Washington, which ifitself far inland
upon an estuary: and when we arrive
1t Charleston, as I have said. the
mountains are near $50 miles inland.
! II we are to suppose that the con-
;ulsion which overthrew a part OF
! Charleston had some relation with
the gulf stream and the volcanic
mountains of the West Indies and
Central America, there is no great
probability that our granite MAN
land has ever been OF ever viii be
affected from the same cause and re-
lations.
The area of earthquakes and erup-
tions is tolerably well defined. San
Francisco has felt earthquakes and
been greatly dwarfed by them, and
since the two earthquakes over there
during the present generation they
have ceased to build high houses on
that coast. The volcanic zone seems
to embrace the Sandwich Islands
and co-terminus parts OF the Pacific.
| Caracas and Lisbon constitute two
centers of an ellipse, where the
earth has been greatly disturbed
within the historic memory. But the
formation of the Allegheny mountain
chain, which constitutes the eastern
dixie of the Mississippi valley, would
appear from geological criticism to
be altogether different from the vol
canic formations OF the tropics and
! the Cordi]leras. It seems to be the
Idea that the Alleghenies where once
a high table land with a soft under
stratum, and that the plateau fell
| down Like piece of badmasoD:y, and
| left the chains to catch each other
where there We're hard parts, thus
constituting the stretch of tolerably
uniform ranges through our Western
| and Middle States. The trend oft AL
legheny chains is from about Chatta-
.oosa to the Hudson river, near the
| city Of New York, and thus some
chains are found taking in the whole
breadth of New England, from almost
within sight of the seacoast back to
| the region of Canada.
| The city of New York IS built upou
islands and bars of hard gneiss which
| have been covered with sand in time,
| and, therefore, you can strike be-
| tween the bars of rock here and there
| and find either quicksilver OF well
water. There is no analogy to war
! rant the belief that New England,
New York city, OF the region Of the
Alleghenies are ever to suffer from
other than universal electrical and
caloric conditions There seems to
be no record that the city Of New
York ever had an important earth
quake. Hence, the establishment OF
these high buildings on the islend OF
! New York is fairly conservative, and
the same class of buildings are put
up in London and in the main cen
ters of Europe, and where cheap
coal and invention justify and stimu-
late elevators to supplant stal1ways.
New York is a very marrow island,
and where the island is the least mar
row it is probably the least solid:
that it is to say, the expansions Of