Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1895-07-11
HOW MAN MADE THE CYCLONE.
He Did 1t by Building Railways and
SO Diminishing Earthquake s.

SO Diminishing Earthquakes.
Does that portion of your nature
which makes you grasping, avaricious
and exacting ever lag for a few mo-
ments, or for sufficient length of
time to give that which is nobler in
your makeup a season to reflect upon
the actual state of affairs which the
greed of man has brought upon our
little planet? In America the havoc
wrought every year by man in his
/ headlong search for wealth and power
| is beyond human powers of computa-
! ton, even had one the intellect of
| Babbage or a Newton.
| In a recent article, entitled Making
a Desert, we plainly pointed out
the dangers which now menace
the agricuIturists of the Mississippi
valley through the lumberman's
ruthless destruction of forest
trees. We also wish to remark
I that man is not only re-
sponsible-to a greater extent, at
! least, than is generally ina gined-for
| floods as we'll as drought; he has also,
in our estimation, had a hand in shap-
ing the devastating cyclone.
/ Prior to the opening of the Union
! Pacific and other Pacific railways, the
sand dunes and rock-ribbed hills and
mountains of the west coast were reg
ulariy shaken by small editions of
earthquakes, no less than thirty-four
distinct shocks having been felt at
San Francisco between 1850 and 1869
After the opening of the railways re-
ferred to, western earthquake shocks
gradually diminished both in number
and Intensity, until now they appear
to have ceased operations altogether.
The last earthquake OF any cOnSe-
quence which occurred on the coast
was that of 1881, fourteen years ago,
and it was only pigmy compared
with some of the old-time stalwarts
Some one will ask: In what manner
are west coast earthquakes and
through lines of railway connected,
and why does an increase in the
latter decrease the former?
In this way: That particular species
Of seismic disturbance which formerly
spread terror from Puget Sound to
Cape San Lucas was of electrical ORR
gIn-that is to say, it belonged to the
great family Of '''quakes'' which af-
feet only the surface of the earth and
the strata Immediately underneath.
To those who may be inclined to doubt
that the earthquake is sonnet ines, not
to say in the majority of instances,
the result Of surface disturbances only
we viii say that scientific deductions
have SO proven. \ series Of obserya-
lions carried on for a great number of
years among the deep mines of both
Nevada and California furnish evil
dence in support of the assertion that
the most severe earthquake shocks
are seldom felt at a greater depth than
500 feet. The great earthquake which
wrecked the hosting machinery at the
COmStOck mines, Virginia City, New.
and knocked down every chimney and
cracked every brick wall in the city,
was not felt at all by men working the
900 and 1000 foot levels Of the mine.
and only slightly by those working in
the 700 and 800 foot levels.
Man acted as a go-between in the
transformation of the western Garth
quake into a central cyclone in this
way: AS soon as he connected the
earthquake laboratory With the great
central regions by means of continuous
iron bars, the electrical OverDlus of
the coast was drawn off and appeared
on the plains and in the Mississippi
valley as cyclones and other death
dealing magnetic storms The only
proof we have in support of this spec
ulatiOn is the tornado record, which
shows that cyclones became sur
prisingly frequent in Nebraska and
Iowa, and Kansas, Immediately after
the completion of the first through
western railroad. The western earth
quake record is also very plain on this
score showing that the "'Quakes'' de-
creased in the ratio that the cyclones
increased.
When the Kansas Pacific Railway
was finished the cyclones theater of
action moved further south and east
Next the fertile plains of Texas were
connected with the sandy wastes of
California by the iron conducting rods
used as a track by the Texas Pacific
road. When this was done the sport
i've cyclone occasionally frisked from
the Rio Grande to the Black Hills
Then the Northern Pacific was pushed
through to the coast and the
wheat raisers of the Red River
of the North were treated to a
grand aggregation Of ''prairie twist
erS''
If man keeps on monlseying with
natures safety-valves, how much
longer will it take him to "civilize"
our race out of existence?-St. Louis
Republic.