The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1894-06-30
TERRIFIC VOLCANIC FORCE.

TERRIFIC VOLCANIC FORCE.
Cotopsxrs Blazing Rockets and the Wen
Directed Efforts OF Smoky Vesuvius.
In 1898 Cotopaxi elected its blazing
rockets more than 5000 feet above its
crater, while nineteen years later the
roar of the flaming mass, as it made its
exit, was heard 600 miles. In 1897 Tun-
Cuaragna, one of the great peaks OF
the Andes, discharged such torrents OF
mud and lava as to dam the adjoining
river, opened new lakes, and made a
deposit 600 feet deep and twenty miles
long in valley averaging over 1000
feet wide.
: In 1877 Vcsuvius emitted a molten
stream that passed through Terre Del
Greco containing 80, 000,0 600 cubic yards
of solid matter. The town was a Sec
ond time destroyed in 1898, when this
volcano belched out 100000 cubic
yards. In 176O Etna evolved hoarse
rumble and spat out blazing river
that covered eighty-four square miles
with boiling lava from ten to forty feet
deep. Mount Rosini was formed on
this occasion of sand, ashes and scoria
"a cone-shaped structure near Nicho-
lisa, two miles in circumference and
over 1000 feet high.
Vesuvius in A. ID. 70 vomited forth
an amount of matter whose bulk far
excelled the mountain itself. In 1850
Etna disgorged more than twenty times
its own mass. Syria, Egypt and Tur-
key have received contributions of
ashes from Vesuvius. From this crater
stones weighing 500 pounds were
thrown to Pompeii, distant six miles,
in the memorable eruption of A. d. 70.
Cotopaxi has cast a rock containing 100
cubic yards distance of nine miles,
and which, calculating the angle OF
ascension. must have reached an alti-
tnde of sixteen miles. On several oc-
casions this volcano has shot up a solid
stream to height of 5000 feet. In
1915 volcanic outpour in Java covered
400 square miles with ashes and lava
and of population of $1,000 only
twenty escaped. During the terrible
earthquake of the autumn of 1888
twenty large and small Javanese vol
canoes were vomiting at the same time.
Fifty square miles of land, including
two villages, wholly disappeared, and
section of mountain chains 65 miles
long and 90 miles wide was swallowed
up leaving lake instead. 1t was the
vapor from this terrific eruption that
covered four-fifths of the globe and
caused the remarkable after sunset
glows of October and November of the
year mentioned, and which were visible
all over the United States. The noise
of this eruption was heard at a point
in Australia 1000 miles distant, ex-
ceeding all known records, ancient or
modern. The primary cause of vol
canic outpourings is undoubtedly the
pressure of the cooled shell of the
earth settling on the gaseous and mol
ten interior. AS the molten and gaseous
matter comes forth the shell gradually
settles toward common center, and
the cooled crust, having to accommo-
date itself to a slowly decreasing in
terror, wrinkles are formed, which we
denominate mountains. Preferably,
these mountains take the s'chain" for
nation, paralleling coast lines where
these are not too short and curving.
But when these lines are too abrupt
and also in cases of great continental
width, they display themselves capri
ciously.
But whence comes this incandescent
interior? This is still the original,
primeval heat, which is the incipient
condition of all the unnumbered
spheres in space, and so far as our
earth is concerned this heat is still
portion of what our globe maintained
when, as glowing mass, it was hurled
from the sun. But all the volcanic
eruptions of both modern and what we
call ancient times bear no comparison
in awful intensity to the Titantic out
bursts in what we denominate pre-
glacial time. Washington, Oregon,
California and other sections of our
western country literally rocked in
violent undulations, while the typo
graphical contour of the country
changed as Niagaras of molten matter
deluged the mountains and flooded tho
valleys.-Chicago Times.
Wisdom Tooth of a Mammoth.