The Wichita daily eagle., 1894-02-07
THE EARTH DIvESTED OF WATER.
Beds OF the Ocean and Their Peculiar
Formations.

Beds OF the Ocean and Their Peculiar
Formations.
If we could survey our globe divested
of the vast volume of ice and water
that covers so much of it's surface, it
would be almost like beholding anoth-
er world It would be wonder to see
the great Impressions, the Atlantic, the
Pacific and the circum-polar valleys,
, and we should be brought face to face
with many new and puzzling problems.
Innumera BILE islands would be resolved
to mountain tops, and singular pla-
teaus, many Of them thousands of feet
high, we would recognize as one time
islands not high above water-line.
1t is the water surface that is now
determining the earth's mean level,
| and if this were gone it would be hard
to esta blish a grade to calculate from.
All our ups and downs have reference
to altitude or depth with reference to
the ocean surface. What immense val
leys would lie between New York and
London, between San Francisco and
China! What mountains and valley
systems would be disclosed in regions
that now lie under water! What reve-
lations concerning fauna and flora
would the now submerged rocks dis
close, and what skeletons of for
mer world would the Arctic regions re-
veal!
But the interesting problem which
we may consider. and one that as yet
is eluding solution, is, how and by
what agencies were the great
marine valleys scooped out? What
was it that followed out their basins
and especially by what action was the
North Polar sea excavated with its rim
of continents extending all around.
Greenland, North America. Asia and
Europe all butt up against this polar
ocean. It's antipodes is in mid-ocean,
but the meager sunlight and conse-
quently absent solar caloric have
evoked the development of the i'm
mense ice cap, much the most colossal
structure of the kind on the planet
But the South Pacific ocean, were
the water absent, would present most
singular looking craters, and which. as
they now just emerge little above
~" tAAc, VIC ICCOB AiZC dS CAkC huSC dS
tolls, the work of the coral insect. II
is more than probable that some of the
puzzling crater formations on the moon
are similar work fashioned when our
lunar satellite had oceans on her sur.
face as we now see on our earth. The
thousands of miles of coral reefs and
the numerous coral archipelagoes that
dot the aqueous hemisphere under
tropical and semi-tropical skies would
be almost insoluble problems did we
not understand the conditions under
which they were produced.
Much that is mysterious on our lunar
neighbor can be measure bly, compre.
hended if we can succeed in seeing our
earth as if divested of her watery en-.
velope, and if we can still further sue.
ceed in comprehending the conditions
under which our oceans would disap
pear, if they disappear at all, we would
probably have the key that would un.
lock each lunar mystery.
1t is to the water and the ice that we
owe the soil and the generally smooth
contour of the earth, and we find, where
these agencies have been at work, a
barren, rocky and broken condition,
well illustrated by the wild Yosemite
and other rugged canyons of the west
Pittsburgh Dispatch.