The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-04-02


this century elected enough material to
cover the whole state of Kansas eight or
ten feet deep. 1t is believed by some
excellent seologists that there is sub
stratum of melted liquid material every
where beneath the surface; but the per-
haps more prevalent opinion is that the
molten matter occurs only in places, and
is the result of the cooling of the earth.
That melted matter may be due 10 cool
ing appears a little paradoxical. But
when the earth coois on the surface Il
becomes wrinkied, forming mountains.
The pressure, therefore, in some places
is diminished, giving chance for the
superheated masses below to expand and
thus hquify.
The age of the earth is subject about
which there is much uncertainty, or
rather, much conjecture. The geologist
can estimate time only from the rate as
which the land at the present time is be-
ing worn away by the great denudlng
agents, ice aud water, and this We know
is an extremely slow process. From the
amount of material that Is annually
carried to the sea By the Mississippi and
other large rivers, 1t IS estimated that
the surface of the land is being worn
away at the rate of about one foot in
every 5000 years, and, as the material
from which land is formed is wholly de-
rived from this eroded material, it fol-
lows that the formation must be equally
slow. If ell the rocks of the different
geological ages were piled one upon an
other the resulting thickness would be
over twenty miles. Again, we know
Eh,f .1la ha
organic world 60 on with extreme slow
ness. and the rocks furnish conclusive
evidence that these changes have been
very great in the past.
MANY, many times over has the world
been Inhabited by successive and entirely
different assemblages of plants and
snimals; many times in succession have
species, genera, families and orders of
living organisms appeared and disap-
peared. For these reasons, biologists
insist that many millions of years have
elapsed since the first land was formed.
On the other hand, from physical and
astronomical arguments it seems inn
probable that the time could have ex-
ceeded one hundred millions of years,
and some astronomers believe that the
age could scarcely have been more than
twenty or thirty million years. Probably
the real age is somewhere between these
widely separated figures.
Nowhere upon the surface of the earth
does there exist any of the original I'M
changed material of which the crust is
Nowhere has man ever seen
any of this original unchanged material,
save possibly, where it has been elected by
volcanoes Imperial Cesar dead and
turned to clay might stop hole to keep
the wind away" Even as the material
Of which our bodies is composed has
many times been animated by life, so
too. the rocks beneath our feet have
many times been worked over into land.
The Hottest hills and the deepest valleys
of all our broad state have been carved
out by the relentless, ceaseless raIndroD,
rivulet and river. Hundreds of thou
sands of years ago the Arkansas river
carved its channel by your present doors.
Inland lakes may have rolled over its
valley since that time. Elephants,
camels and monkeys have
drank from its waters, volcanoes have
mingled their ashes with its floods, yet,
age after age, it has steadily been carry
ing the land to the ocean.
If you will examine the limestone here
in the vicinity of Wichita you will OBJ
serve numerous shells among them in
places. some of them like grains of rice.
Now, as molluscs and similar animals
cannot live in very great depths, you
NAV be sure that the water could not
have been over 5000 or 5000 feet deep,
and because they are limestone, and not
sandstone, you may be sure they were
not formed IN shallow water Further
more the quarrymen will tell you that
the limestone oftens contains flint
in them, rendering their work
ing sometimes troublesome. These flint
nodulss come from those organisms, the
minority, which secrete siliceOus shells,
and were originally disseminated
the mud, but by peculiar
chemical action have been dissolved and
brought together in masses.
Not all the rocks-and by rocks geolo-
gists mean all the materials OF which
land is compassionate formed in the
ocean; but all, or very nearly were form
ed under water. either fresh or salt.
MANY sandstones, as those of western
Kansas, and the reddish sandstones to
the northwest Of here, were formed in
lakes, or even, maybe rivers.
Thus, while water is the great agent
in rock formation 1T is also the great agent
in rock destruction. Many ages ago
from the Rocky mountains on the west.
and the middle states On the east, the
rivers brought down to the moderately
deep ocean that covered Kansas the ma
terial that now forms the rocks here
abouts. The ocean bottom was eIevat-
ed, the water receded, and now these
same rocks are being washed away to
,he gulf. How great this g osion maybe
we can understand from the chasms that
have been cut BY the river that sweeps
oy your doors, and more strikingly so by
hose of the Colorado river. The water
coming from snow and ice through an
irid region has steadily and slowly worn
Town almost perpendicular walls for
1000 or 5000 feet, often through the
hardest rocks, and yet SO fast that noun
ain chains have risen across their
courses without DETECTING the streams.
The land rises from the internal forces
;auSed by the cooling Of the substratRm.
The strata Of rocks are often distorted
nd crumpied, sometimes turned com
)letely over, aud then again sink, maybe,
o rise again. How often these sinkin2s
md risipgs have been IN Kansas we can
tot vet say: but W. know that in the
astern part the sea and land have alter !
lated at least twenty times since the /
,ldest uncovered rocks were lad down. {
,ince the time that the rocks were form !
Il upon which the city of Wichita now I
ests, there have been AZ least hree times /
when dry land has alteruatsd with the I
nd west of here wac covered with large I
resh water lakes.
EXCHANGE SHOTS.
The Endorsement Unanimous,