Amador ledger., 1907-04-19
EARTHQUAKES DUE
TO SEAS ACTION.
Special dispatch to the Globe-Demo-
crat.

crat.
Washington, March 3d. Earth
quakes have so disturbed the world
during the past year that the we'll in
formed citizen is more anxious to
know the cause of these terrible dis
asters than anything else within the
domain of human knowledge. Pro-
found interest, therefore, attaches to
the learned investigation just publish
ed in the Proceedings of the AmeIi-
can Philosophical Society at PhiIa-
delphia," March, 1907, by Prof. L.
j. j. See, United States navy, former
~ of Missouri. The paper occupies
lao pages and the subject is treated
in the most comprehensive manner.
Prof. See is in charge of the naval
observatory at Mare Island, CAL, and
was thus in the midst of the great
Francisco. As the outcome of his
studies, he shows that earthquakes
of the world shaking class are caused
by the expulsion of lava from
beneath the bed of the sea by the
explosive power of steam which deve
Iops beneath the earth's crust by the
secular leakage CT the ocean bottom.
| He shows that the pressure of the
deep sea upon the bed of the ocean is
so great that water is driven down
through the rocks of the earth's crust,
ana at depth of fifteen or twenty
miles it comes into contact with
molten rock at a temperature of about
1000 degrees. Steam is thus formed
beneath the crust, and it finally
acquires such power that the rocks
are shaken and lava expelled from
beneath the sea toward the land.
After great earthquakes, it has often
been observed that the seacoast is
upllfted, and sometimes it Is pushed
horizontally, as in the San Francisco
earthquake, where the earth along the
fault or crack in the crust had a
relative displacement of 10 feet.
At Valparaiso, on August 16, 1906,
the seacoast was raised about ten feet.
When the coast is raised lava is pushed
under it, and the jarring in this ex
pulsion of the lava is what shakes
down cities and lays waste the work
Septem ber, 1899, the land along the
coast was raised AZ feet, which shows
that a vast amount of lava was ex-
PEELED from beneath the adjacent sea.
One of the most remarkable results
of DR.. Sees researches Is the develop
ment of new theory of mountain
formation. Every schoolboy knows
that the mountains run parallel to
the seashore, and yet geologists have
never been able to explain why this
happens.
New Mountain Theory.
1t has been customary for about
eighty years to explain the mountains
by the supposed shrinkage of the
earth. Now comes the new theory of
the earthquake work, and it proves
that mountains, too, are formed by
the sea; when lava is expelled from
beneath the sea by earthquakes the
crust is broken and pushed up along
the seacoast. All the region is in
iected with porous lava or pumice.
1t lies under all mountains and is
blown out of those mountains which
break out into eruption and become
volcanoes. Earthquakes and vol
canoes are thus directly connected,
as the ancIents believed; but, as
general rule, the steam saturated lava
does not escape to the surface, but
remains hidden In the earth. 1t is
only occasionally that the steam
breaks out and forms volcanoes.
But DR.. See has not only explained
earthquakes and volcanoes and noun
tain formation along the sea coast;
he has also explained the formation
of islands in the sea, the feeble
attraction of mountains long noticed
in Geodesy (they are found to affect
the plumb line as if they were hol-
low, and how the great sea waves are
produced which frequently accom-
pany violent earthquakes, and some
times do more damage than the earth
quakes themselves.
ISLANDS are upheaved in the sea
| just as mountains are on the land.
The mountains attract the plumb line
as if they were hollow because they
are stuffed with pumice. which Is a
very light substance. The great sea
waves are due to the sinking of the
sea bottom after the bed has been
undermined by the expulsion of lava
under the adjacent coast. The coast
along the west shore of South America
is raised up by the lava pushed under
it, and afterward the neighboring sea
bottom sinks. This at first causes the
waves to Iecede from the shore, to
flow in and fill up the depression
where the bed has sunk, and then in
an hour or so 1t piles up into a great
ridge, and when that colIapses 1t
sends the first great wave ashore.
Seismic sea waves are thus part of
the earthquake process, which also
forms the waves along the shore.
Along this line are laid down rules
for saving ships in the case of the