The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1893-04-29
AGE OF THE Earth.
Three Hundred and Fifty million Years
Required for It's Cooling.

Written for THE CHRoNICLE.I
In some former articles have given
a feeble description of the wonders of
the great fossil beds of Eastern Oregon
also of the causes which, from all the
evidence handed down to us IN these
rocks by the hand of generous Creator,
have produced these mighty changes
upon all the earth.
The next thing to be considered is the
time. How long has it been since all
these multitudes of strange beasts wan
dered over the hills and valleys of the
old miocine and pliocine Oregon? In
years there is no way to answer; but
data has been provided by which we can
determine with certainty that the time
in which man has lived upon at least
this part of the earth is but day in
comparison to it.
We will begin with the overthrow of
the wonderful inhabitants that once
constituted the life of the older period,
represented here in the John Day fossil
beds, land teeming with life of act
ivity by Gods creatures, never disturbed
by man. Already we have seen the
causes which changed beautiful land,
full of life, into one of desolation; causes
which on much smaller scale spread
destruction and death upon parts of the
earth today. Mighty rumblings could
have then been heard within the earth;
fearful earthquakes frightened the crea-
lures here, and finally great fissures ap-
peared in the face of the land, through
which mighty rivers of lava poured out
and overwhelmed them all. During
this great overflow this region was en-
veloped in layer of lava several hun
dred feet in thickness, and in the Cas-
cade range of mountains it is shown
that this bed of lava reaches in many
places the enormous thickness of 1000
to 5000 feet. In making an estimate,
then, of time, how many years did it
take this mass of molten rock to cool?
Then. again, that these great monu-
ments were here, with their wealth of
remains of countless numbers of what
once made life, there is abundant proof,
as in very many places can be seen
these same assures, through which the
lavas once poured. These assures ex-
tend for miles, and quite frequently run
directly through the fossil beds. Al
though have called them fissures, they
are not properly so now, but are called
by geologists dykes. These dykes are
made by the lava left in the assures,
which on cooling off, was SO much
harder than the other rock that the sur
rounding rock has worn away, and in
many places in the fossil beds left the
dykes standing up many feet like solid
wall. These dykes run in various di-
rections, just as the earth cracked open
of all widths, from small seams foot
or less wide, to forty or fifty feet in
width. One of these larger ones have
traced from point five miles north of
the lower end of the John Day valley in
a northwest direction for thirty miles,
and in this distance it crossed the river
twice. Its course is as straight as line
could be drawn, and in places it is seen
for ten miles standing out like great
wall. In places it's hight is forty or fifty
feet.
Now, we have seen that these fossil
beds were here when the lava was
poured out; also the great depth of the
lava formation, which 1 think is not less
anywhere in the John Day region, than
1 900 feet in thickness. The eminent
Prof. Helmholz, in making calculation
as to how long the earth was in cooling
off from a molten state, computed that
in cooling from 1900 to 200 degrees, CEN
tigrade, it would require the enormous
period of $1,000 900 years, and his cal
culations were based upon the cooling
of lavas now. This being the case, how
many ages must have passed to allow
this great overflow to cool, and how
long for the fearful internal fires, which
roared beneath the ground we are on, to
die out? Then, after all of this, how
long has it taken for the elements of
nature to wear away the barren rock
and form the soil upon which a new
life is to be brought forth? And how
long this new life has been in existence
none but the Great Ruler may ever
know. L. S. d.
Cabinet photos $3.50 per dozen for a
short time at Flowerday's gallery, on
Court street. 2Sd-1w