The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1906-05-11
DR.. BISHOP
TO DR.. HAYES
DIR. $. T.. BISHOP DEMURS TO
SOME OF THE POSITIONS TAKEN
by DIR HAYES.

EDITOR STAR: I thank you all the
same for the very handsome bouquet
you threw me yesterday; but | have
just enough smattering of geology to
know that you entirely over-estimate
my knowledge of it.
Nevertheless, l am so presumptious
as to venture to demur to some posi-
tohs of the eminent geologist DR..
Hayes, although he makes the same
surmise as mine i'm respect to the i'm
mediate cause of the recent earthquake
that it was a slipping of interior starta.
This is in accordance with well estab-
lished and generally accepted theory.
Where I disagree is with what he
says of volcanoes, THE interior of the
earth is probably not i'm a molten state,
except in the region of volcanoes, but
after you get down a distance of go
or 10 miles the rocks are practically in
a fluid state from the extreme pressure
ON top of them" No one has pene-
trated the crust of the earth more than
a mile or two or can assert anything
from actual inspection. We can only
infer and from theories without abso-
lutte certainty DR.. Hayes may be
right, but the theory | strongly incline
to is that the entire inner mass of the
globe below a depth of % or 30 miles is
at a temperature much exceeding that
of molten lava issuing from volcanoes,
which has parted with more or less of
its heat in passing through the thirty
miles of crust
Notwithstanding that excessive heat,
that interior mass of the globe is not
liquid but solid, owing to the enormous
pressure of thirty miles of rock It's
solidity seems to be proved by the
fact that it transmits seismic vibrations
or earthquake tremors, in direct line,
which only a body of rigid soidity
could do Every seismograph makes
a double record of earth tremors sent
from another side of the globe. One
record is sent around the crust, and
the other cuts straight across through
the interior. Thus we seem to known
that the fiery interior of the earth is
not fluid. but solid.
Nevertheless, whenever from any
cause the pressure is removed, the
fiery magma at once nquifies, its Oc-
cluded gases expand, and it pours up
in volcanic eruption. Such is a
consistent theory of volcanic force, mo-
difed by contact of the magma with
ocean or surface waters, producing
violent explosive action.
An earthquake may result from the
rending force of such volcanic action in
breaking it's way to the surface as iG
the great Kau earthquake of 1868. Or
it may result from the breaking away
of the side of an island as the north
side of Molokai once broke away and
fell into the sea; or in similar manner
the northeast side of Kohala mountain.
Such vast fractures would necessarily
generate earthquake shocks.
Or third, and probably more fire.
quent cause, is the slipping of interior
strata having no connection with vol
canoes as in the California temblors.
AS DR.. Hayes well states it, the rock
foundations are in a state of change
and have to readjust themselves and
shape anew into place. The earth is
slowly cooling and shrinking, and it's
outer crust keeps wrinkling up against
it, Nothing is absolutely stable.
TERRA FIRMA is with great limita-
ton.
S. e. BISHOP
Honolulu, May 10, 1906.