The Daily Texarkanian., 1895-04-07
IS THE EARTH DRYING UP.

Scientists for several hundred
years have clearly shown that wa
ter is fast disappearing from the
earth.
The statement is made that
world wide drought has prevailed
ever since 1886, in greater or less
degree, In European countries, in
Asia and Australia, as well as in
greater portious Of the United
States, all of the smaller streams
have disappeared and the larger
ones are rapidly dwindling to mere
rivulets. The waters of the great
lakes of America, as we'll as of the
so-called "seas" of Europe and Asia,
are fast receding from the banks
which formerly circumscribed their
boundaries. Between the years
1889 and 1891, according to the re-
port of Government inspectors, the
water levels of Lakes Michigan,
Huron and Erie was reduced two
feet, causing the marginal line to
reCede hundreds of feet along some
of the shelving banks. During the
three years which have elapsed
since the date last above given the
retrocession has been comparative
ly much greater, This being the
case we have no reason to doubt the
report which was lately made to
the effect that there are dozens of
piers and warehouses which we're
used 50 years ago in loading shallow
draught lake vessels which have
long since been abandoned because
they now stand high and dry far
from the waters edge,
Nor is this all. On the contrary
there is abundant proof that the
oceans as we'll as the rivers aud
lakes are suffering. Their areas
have been steadily diminishing for
thousands of years, as is proven by
a careful survey of the beds they
formerly occupied, No one doubts
but that there was a-time when the
Gulf of Mexico washed the foot of
the Black Hills and covered all or
nearly all Of what is now Texas, In.
dian Territory, Kansas and Nebras-
ka. In the early geological ages
the Mediterranean covered the pres
ent Desert of Sahara, and the
Black and Caspian seas were all one
immense single body of water, At
Dpmfries, Va, there still stands a
mill which has often had a ships
gang plank pushed in at its back
door, At that time QO5 years ago.
IS feet Of water washed the old
mills foundation; today the ocean
is hardly in sight Of it, The report
of the British photographers for
1894 says; "Harbors everywhere
are rapidly growing shallower, de-
spite the fact that many Of them
were long since dredged 70 the solid
rock" The same report for 1894
mentions the discovery or removal
OF 200 rocks and other obstacles
which were formerly not considered
dangerous because lying below and
out of reach Of the same vessels
they now menace, But why multi
ply proofs2 The very fact that we
see dry land at all, or even exist, is
proof that the waters Of the globe
are vanishing, Why2 Because, If
we are to believe the astronomers
and geologists, our world, in the
days when it was young ("without
form and void') was entirely cover
ed with water
The marked dimluution in the
worlds water supply was never par
ticularly noted until within the last
25 years, although the noted phil
osophers Of two and three centuries
ago gave It as their opinion that
the earth would in The ages to
come, be as arid as the moon is now
believed to be, What is becoming
Of the water Is a question that has
never been satisfactorily answered,
Some authorities believe that 1t has
gone to help form hydrated mineral
The late r. A. Proctor believed
that as the earth cools, It's interior
opens into enormous assures which
suck In immense quantities of wa.
ter. One authority is Of the opin-
ion that it is accumulating at the
polls in the form Of ice aud perpet-
ual snow, while another, somewhat
visionary thinks that 'iu all prob
ability 1t Is being disslpated into
space through the medium of our
....