The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-12-10

the first dispute over the relative value
 of silver and gold occurred at the par
 titon of the spoil, After long debates
 the value of the gold ounce was fixed
 at eighty dollars in silver, and the gold
 pistole worth nominally $3.75 in silver,
 at fifteen dollars. This result was at
 tained by selling the gold at auction
 for silver and dividing all the silver per
 capita, The spoil did not long remain
 in the original hands. Most of the
 freebooters lost their shares at the
 gambling table. Among the winners
 some carried their winnings to Jamai-
 ca, where life was gay, while others
 added them to the stock on treasure island
 So we come to the problem whether
 the island of Santa Maria de PAguada has ceased to blot the face of nature,
 like the continent of Atlantis and the
 still more extensive continent of Lem
 uria or whether it is still there. That portions, if not the whole, of the west coast of South America are gradually settling down, so that levels which were formerly occupied by human be- ings are now many feet or fathoms un- der the sea, is no longer matter of de-
 bate. May it be assumed that the sub
 sidence has not been uniform, but has
 been excessive in some spots and mod crate in others? And have the changes in levels been more conspicuous on the line of the equator than elsewhere? Wafer, whose voyages and travels are in all the libraries. describes an in-
 cident which befell him a few miles south of Santa Maria. It was at four o'clock in the morning. His ship quiv- cred from a sudden shock so that all on board felt she had run upon an un- known rock. When the excitement subsided the lead was cast, but no bot tom was found The captain then an- | nounced that the shock had proceeded | from an earthquake, and when day | light broke the sea water was found to | be milky instead of green, and mixed | with sand. It was afterward ascer- | tained that on that morning severe shock of earthquake had been felt at | Callao.
 | Our range of information regarding | changes in the relative levels of land and sea is too limited to enable us to say positively that such changes have l never been abrupt. In the regions where they have been observed as in | Greenland, they have been gradual But In Angler straits fourteen years | ago islands and slices of the sea coast 1 of Java disappeared in a night, and
 never reappeared, and if Santa Maria | de PAguada was engulfed in an earth | quake 1t may have perished with equal | suddenEess, The catastrophe may 1 have been repetition of Belshazzar' S | feast, Some belated buccaneers may | have chung to the scene of their de- | lights after Davis and his crew had
 made sail. The captive maidens of the | kingdom of Darien-"the beautifulest l girls I ever saw''-may have been dan | cing while the eyes of the rough Eng | lish and Dutch sailors clung to the | graces of their rounded forms; the cup | of Peruvian wine may have gone round
 merriiy to the air of faraway tunes; 1 the laugh and the oath may have pro- | claimed the hour of license; when, all i at once, a low rumble may have been heard, the stars may have seemed to | be shooting from the sky, swish of | water and roar of crashing breakers may have overpowered all other | sounds, and in the fragment of a min- ute banquet arbor, jewellers, jars of wine, trees flowers and the very earth l itself may have gone plunging down to l the coral depths.-San Francisco Post.