The copper era., 1906-04-26

chasms filed with melted rocks
Enormous volumes of steam are gen.
Grated and keep on forming until the
inevitable explosion comes. Now if
moist materials issue, the volcano is
not deep seated, for the mud did not
have time to dry. If every particle
of the output is white hot, the vent
leads into deep recesses. A volcano
is a safety valve on the boilers within
the earth. Had Vesuvius been within
ten miles of San Francisco there
would not have been an earthquake
The earth's crust is thinner under
the ocean floor than on shore.
FAULTS IN EARTH'S CRUST.
The earth's crust formed in layers
during millions of years under ancient
thermal seas, and solidifed. Then
the globe contracted, warping the
layers, and cracking them into vast
blocks. Then the layer of one chunk,
layer or wide area, lowered, leaving
the edges of all the adjacent layers
exposed. Soil in time obscured some
of these. But those deep in the earth
make no end of trouble when water
percolates down one inclined surface
and meets a rising food of melted
rock. Sounds have been heard in the
earth of grinding: and also sudden
thumps as though the edge of one
layer or series of layers suddenly
slipped in the subsiding shell of the
earth. In primordial times there was
an upheaval of some kind at San
Francisco at the time the Golden
Gate was made. This rent drained
ancient California of a rock bound
sea.
Earthquakes in California do not
disturb very wide area. They are
what may be called local. The
earthquake at Lisbon in 1855 ex-
tend over an immense space, reach
ing from England, the Baltic
provinces, North Germany, and the
Alps to Spain, all Portugal and to
Morocco in Northern Africa. 1t
killed 10000 people in Lisbon in six
minutes. They rushed from their
falling homes to the quay and beach.
A nightly chasm opened and the
people were engulfed. The rent
closed and the $4,000 are there yet.
But Nature was more merciful in
Lisbon than in San Francisco; for
the awful terrors of fires add misery
to a scene, where one might think
that the solid earth was ending in
turbulent chaos. The great Charles
ton, S. c., earthquake, August 81,
1886, was wide, indeed, and waves
in the earth, extended from Florida
to New York, and even to Ontario,
Canada and westward to Missouri
and Iowa, an area 800 by 1000 miles.
The earth is chemical laboratory.
Vast reactions set in and generate
terrific gas pressure. Gas wells in
Kansas have pressed 700 pounds to
the square inch. l saw one roaring
near Anderson, Indiana, with a pres
sure of 600 pounds. Corrosive gases
are also liberated in enormous guam
titles. They are deadly. Chloro-
hydric, sulphurous and carbonic acid
gases often escape volcanic throats.
Thus, the $4,000 people at the base
of Pelee were suffocated in a few
by biting and gnawing floods
of hydrOchloric acid gas. Vesuvius,
Etna and Stromboli, those Mediter-
ranean chimneys, alone, have pre-
vented all Southern Italy from being
destroyed by earthquakes.
1t would be a vast benefit to Cali
fornia if a mighty volcano, or even
three, should burst forth in her noun
tains.
BELIEVES CAUSE WAS FAULT.
1t is the surmise of the writer that
the San Francisco earthquake was
caused by fault. The dispatches do
not say that sounds were heard. !
went in haste, on order of the Hearst |
papers, to Los Alimos, three years |
ago. Only three tremors were felt |
after my arrival, these made II in
all. Two of these were accompanied |
by a melancholy, sad and sinister |
sound. The rolling and rumbling was
like that of a carriage rolling over a
bridge of planks. Once heard, this
sound will never be forgot
ten.
If sounds were heard at San Fran
cisco, low and subdued, they were no
doubt caused by deep-seated fault.
If it is deep, then there is hope that |
it is final, the last of a series of regu-
lar and natural adjustments in pri-
meval strata distorted in those re-
mote cons of the past, when the en-
tire Pacific coast was lifted from |
primal seas. Credibility is due 10
this theory that it is the end of the
series. No gas escaped from the
earth, so far as reports go. The dis