St. Paul daily globe., 1895-11-04
THE EARTHQUAKE BELT.


Until that Kansas zephyr came
playing havoc through Southeastern
Minnesota some ten years ago, the
inhabitants of this favored state
read in their papers the accounts
of the devastation that strewed the
path Of these demons of the plain as
they swept over Iowa, and congratu-
lated themselves that they were not
in the Cyclone bslt." The Rochester
and, later, the st. Cloud tornado
shook their complacency into tatters.
SO that little quaking of the earth
Thursday morning has disturbed the
pleasing illusion that our Northern
country was outside of the earth
quake belt. Although geologists as
sure US that we here in central Min
nesota are living on foundations too
solid to be moved by the tremendous
forces that set the surface of the
earth quivering in the less solid coun-
try just over the southern borders,
it is we'll not to be too sure; for the
same carelessness that sent the cy-
clones out of their usual crosS-coun-
try course to bring wreck to our su-
burban towns, may misdirect the
seismic forces some day and give us
a shaking up.
ics
Mississippi valley had any serious
tremar The South Atlantic coast
had one eight years ago, central and
most destructive about Charleston,
and our Northeastern corner trem-
bled under the pent up forces twen-
ty-five years ago. But the famous
New, Madrid earthquake, that made
a turbulent sea of the solid earth in
Southeastern Missouri, and kept it
moving in pillows for months, was
an event, largely forgotten now, but
then and for years after one of the
great events Of the world The hills
sank and lakes formed where they
stood, to be in turn upheaved and
their waters poured over the sur
rounding region. A region extend
ing three hundred miles north and
south along the Mississippi river and
inland for many miles was in con-
dition of upheaval and depression
for months. The disturbance began
late in 1911 and ended in March, 1872.
The whole surface of the country was
changed. Where is now what be-
came known as the Sunk country"
covered with swamps and lakes,
was before an elevated country.
Within this area and across it the
earth sank and rose almost contin-
uously during these months, wave
succeeding wave, resembling an ocean
in tempest Great assures opened in
the earth and floods of waters and
mud were elected from them. For
tunately, the country was scantily
peopled, and the loss of life was
small; but the narrations of the in
habitants who went through it and
survived formed the stock Of CONVEX
sation for many years afterward.
1t became locally one of those epochs
from which people get their bearings
in the passage of time, and things
were said to have happened before
or after the great quake"
Such am occurrence as that which
sent a CULVER through the body Of
our old earth Thursday morning sets
| one to thinking Of the incomprehensi-
BILE forces that are confined under
| the crust on which we so confidently
and serenely live. The mind cannot
grasp their gigantic power. Engi-
| known to modern engineering could
| transport and lift into place the
stones forming the pyramids of Egypt.
| We have simulated, in dynamite and
giant powder, these explosive forces
| of nature, but they are the strokes
Of a pygmy compared with the power
that shakes half continent. Man,
with all his power, shrinks into moth
ingness in the presence of these i'm
mense manifestations of force
whose magnitude he cannot even
compute. Science speculates upon
their causes. 1t forms its hypothesis,
more or less erudite and plausible,
but, when formed, there comes some
fresh manifestation to prove their in
| accuracy. What part they have
played in the changes whose mark
ings we can trace all over the earth,
the catastrophes of the past, and
what part they are yet to play in
| the future of the earth and it's peo-
pies we can speculate on; but, in
the end, we conclude. with Aristotle,