Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1899-12-06
HUNGER OF THE EARTH
Great Chunks of the World That May
BE Eaton Up at Any
Moment.

/ Moment.
When one reads or hears of some sud-
fen and violent alteration in the crust
af this planet of ours, one instructive
y puts it down to something in the
way Of a volcanic outburst. In most
Eases it is SO. But not always. Mother
Earth has many fashions of building up
what she likes and getting rid Of what
she is tired of.
tribes who frequented the shores of
he Columbus river used to worship as
The "All-Devouring One" a great cliff
near. the Cascades, which for many
Tears past has been steadily advancing
upon the river, with the evident inten.
ton of blotting out it's bed and form
ing a huge lake above. This will in
evitably happen. The mountain, which
is 1000 feet high and eight miles long,
has been proved to be moving forward
and downward at a rate of one to three
feet year. The railway track which
runs along its base has to be constant
" altered. The reason of this ponder
| Gus landslide is that the mountain
rests on layer of soft sandstone. which
is steadily giving way. The village of
Sainte Foy de Tarentaise, in eastern
France, seems doomed to be engulfed.
The base Of the hill on which it stands
is being eaten away by the rapid wa.
tiers of the Isere. The houses, some of
them, show cracks rivaling those of our
Cheshire Northwich. Some day there
will be short, sharp Shock" and
Tarentaise will no longer exist.
Islands go and come SO constantly
that none but the admiralty keep count
of them. Submarine volcanoes are re-
sponsible fer most of these disappear
ances, but others are harder to account
for. Metis island, for instance, in the
South Pacific, bore no sign of volcanic
action about it. 1t was charted in 1880.
it's highest point being $50 feet Last
year it had gone-vanished utterly
without leaving a trace. On the site
of another small guano island off the
coast of southern California, recent
soundings showed so fathoms of water
Tangier island, in Chesapeake bay, was
fortified by our fleet in the war of 1912
1t has sunk steadily, till now those fort.
A1lSallOnS are WATER.
The shifting sands of great desert
are as hungry as the pitiless sea itself
Many of the smaller GASES in the Sa.
hara have disappeared from sight in
an hour or two, buried deep by the
deadly simeon.
Some 400 miles southeast of the old
city of Kashgar, far out in the yellow
naSnIa finn IF tho % oh H.
great Swedish explorer, Sven Hedin,
saw something projecting from the
smooth side of the long dunes. It was
the wooden roof of house. Further
investigation showed that it was but
one of thousands. A teeming city of
highly civilized Aryans had long existed
on this spot, until the earth had tired
of it and wiped it out.
Until December 10, 1911, the eastern
part of Craighead county, Arkansas,
was one of the most beautiful and fer
tile stretches of prairie imaginable, in
terspersed with tracts of lovely wood
land. Pretty rivers ran between high
clay banks, and the country was rapid
ly settling. On the morning of Decem-
Der 10, in place of rivers and rolling
prairie, great lake rippled in the sun
light. In the night the whole region,
100 miles long and 60 wide, had sunk
20 to 40 feet. To-day the weird lakes of
the Arkansas sunk lands offer the most
beautiful scenery and some of the best
sport in all the southern states.
Nothing is too big or too small to es-
cape the nav of our hungry globe.
Quicksands are the traps she spreads
for smaller fry. Probably the worst
and most dangeron1 in the world are
the ''Shotts" of the Sahara. These gre,
perhaps, the dregs of some prehistoric
sea. Now they are covered over with
thick crust of salt and sand. Whole |
caravans have walked unconsciously |
into these death-traps and been quick
ly swallowed up. Reclus, the great
French authority, declares you can
sound these quicksands to a depth of
800 feet without finding bottom.-Lon,
don Mail