Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-07-21
MYSTERIES OF The
OCEANS BOTTOM
Scientists Trying to Discover if Tidal
waves are Caused by the Moons
Pull or Submarine Earth ouake
BY Jonn Henry Wilkes, Phi. d.

-
several times during the past few
years the world has stood ashast at the
horrors that lave resulted from tidal
waves. Towns have been wiped out Of
existence. thousands of human lives have
been lost and ships have disappeared.
swallowed by the rising sea. For years
ana centuries these terrible fatalities
nave been of not infrequent Occurrences,
and yet the tidal wave is as great a mys-
terry today as it ever has been, Scien-
tlsts nave devoted time and study to the
phenomenon and yet the secret has re-
manned safely locked on the oceans bot
i ton.
Almost as mysterious is the ordinary
tidal wave, hat inexplicable swelling Of
the waters that, following the pull Of
the moon, rolls round his globe OF ours
twice each "a hours, stemming the out
now OF mighty rivers, penetrating far
inland, wherever access is available, and
doing. within it's short lease of life an
amount OF beneficent work freely that
would beggar the wealthiest nation of
the world to undertake if it must needs
be paid for.
Mysterious it may well be called, since,
though its passage from zone to zone be
SO swift, 1t is, like all other waves, but
an undulatOry movement of that portion
Ny liC
suasion of the planet, not, as is vulgarly
supposed, by the same mass of water
vehemently carried onward for thou
| sands of miles.
Such is the beneficent tidal wave the
wave that does it's good work with per-
feet regularity and order, but there is
another tidal wave whose benefcent eff
feet is not so easily apparent. To meet
such a wave at sea is a grim and not-to-
be-forgotten experience. Floating upon
/ the shining h1lla nlain with tho ipaoIart
swelling of the surface of the water just
giving a COW roll to the ship. one sud
denly sees in the distance a ridge, a knoll
of water a advances with an aspect
that is appalling.
THE AWFUL WAVE.
1t Is vast, silent, menacing. Nearer
n nearer 1t comes, rearing It's appar-
emily endless curves higher and higher.
There is no place to which one can flee.
| One can simply wait for the wave to
come in it's regular, death-dealing course
There is little time for suspense how
ever, for it's pace IS swift, in spite of
the fact that 1t appers so deliberate from
When it strikes the ship there is one mo-
ment of supreme horror. The vessel be-
HAYES according to the way in which she
has been caught, but in ar case she is
hurled forward, upward, backward,
downward, as If never again could she
regain an even keel.
In this way the vast body OF water pro-
ceeds on it's course. a course that ever
the limits of the ocean cannot stay.
When it strikes the land it still has force
enough to deal its DEADLY blow. Lives
and property pay tribute to it's fury until
such time as it is willing to cease its
awful work.
In studying this mysterious phenom-
enpn many scientists have come to the
conclusion that these upliftings of the
seas bosom are not tidal waves at all,
that they have nothing in common to
the normal ebb n flow of the ocean
that is undoubtedly the effect of the in
fluence of the moon: They hold, on the
other hand, that these s~tuperdous waves
are due to cosmic disturbances to sub
marine earthquakes upheavirlg the ocean
bed and causing SO vast a displacement
of the ocean that it's tremendous undu-
~lations extend for thousands of miles.
There is a certain reasonabtaness about
that theory that makes it attractive, fol
this would explain why such tidal waves
are not met with more frequently and
far more disasters placed to their ac-
count.
One of the scientists whose long study
of his subject has led him to the ac-
ceptance of the earthquake theory Is Pro-
fessor Davidson, who is well known for
his work ON the government coast
survey. He holds that the trouble
lies in the crust of the earth, which Is
under constant and unreasonable strain
arising from the gradual and inevitable
contraction of the materials near the
surface. This contraction is itself the
result of the dissipation of the earth's
heat into space where the temperature