The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-06-20
BROKEN oRooKERY PERIOD.
A Queer Time That the Scientific Men
Are Talking About.

From the New York Times
Every one knows that during the gla-
cial period the entire northern hemi-
sphere was covered to an enormous depth
with ice. Scientific men now inform US
that another glacial period is among the
certainties of the future. They can very
nearly calculate the precise time when
New York and Paris and Pekin will be
buried under hundreds of feet of ice, and
despOtism, constitutional monarchy, and
republicanism will all alike be frozen
stiff. Our only comfort is that this ca
lamity will not take place for something
like two hundred millions of years, and
will not, therefore, seriously inconvenience
those of us who are now living.
Curiously enough, the scientific per-
sons who can thus confidently predict
what is to happen 200, 900, 900 OF years in
the future have failed to notice that a
| broken crockery period is comparatively
close at hand, aud that in very few mil
lions of years at the furthest the entire
globe, with the possible exception of Cen
trail Africa and a few other barbarous
places, will be buried hundreds of feet
deep under stratum of broken glass and
| broken china. The data upon which this
conclusion is founded are accessible to
every observer, and were it not that a
scientific person prefers to see what is
millions of miles away, instead of what is
in close proximity to his personal nose,
the precise date when the broken crock
cry period will reach it's final stage
would long ago have been accurately pre-
dicted.
The average man has not the slightest
idea of the immense amount of crockery
which is broken and thrown away every
year. The most careful statisticians are of
the opinion that the amount broken in the
United States alone is equivalent TO eight
bushels of fragments for every man.
woman and child of the entire population.
But the rate of breakage in the United
States is very small compared with that
which takes place in more densely popu-
lated countries where people with glass
ware and china in their hands are con-
stantly running against other people and
smashing their burdens. In England the
amount of breakage per head is twenty
three bushels of fragments per annum,
and in the rest of Western Europe it is
even greater.
Then, Soagain, the amount of crockery
broken on ocean steamers and thrown
overheard, is enormous. 1t has been cal
culated that on the steamer Etruria a
little more than 5000 articles of glass and
china are broken during every voyage
If like rate of breakage prevails on all
other ocean steamers, it follows that the
and overflow its shores, solely in conse-
quence of the enormous amount of
broken crockery which is yearly cast
into its depths. Not to dwell
longer on the details of the broken crock
cry period, it may be briefly asserted that
at the present rate of breakage the entire
civilized part of the earth will be covered
at the end of about two and half mill
ions of years from the present time with
broken crockery to uniform depth of
seventy-four feet-that is to say, in round
numbers. OF course, there will be
places where the deposit will be even
greater than seventy feet. Vast gla-
ciers, so to speak. of broken crockery will
descend along our valleys, especially those
which are in the neighborhood of summer
hotels, and it is thought that in Switzer-
land there will be crockery glaciers of
| 500 or 900 feet in thickness, owing to the
excessive number of summer hotels and
the amount of broken crockery which, as
every one who has suffered from a Swiss
landlord knows, is invariably charged in
the bill of the departing tourist
AS nothing can grow on a surface of
broken crockery, life will become extinct
during the broken crockery period. with
the exception, of course, of such goats as
learn to eat broken glass and TO fatten on
broken china. Man, however will be
driven into the interior Of Africa or to
some otner savage region, where crockery
IS unknown, there to dwell until in the
slow process of ages the broken crockery
stratum disintegrates and becomes re
solved into its earthly elements This is
a prospect which is much nearer, and
hence much more alarming, than the
prospect of the return of the glacial
period, and scientific persons ought long
ago to have foreseen it and given us due
warning
Thera is ono copDatap+ ohso,,,-,,, -
believes that the earth has already passed
through at least one broken crockery
period. There is a hill at Rome. called
Monte Testaccio, which is entirely com
posed of fragments of broken pottery.
No archaeologist has ever been able TO ex-