Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-04-06
EARTHQUAKE REGION.

| EARTHQUAKE REGION.
Shifting Of Lands In the Mississippi
| Valley Years Ago.
Although the great earthquake
that destroyed the Italian cities OF
Messina and Reggie on December 2s
last is one Of the most disastrous OF
which accurate historical details ex-
ist, the great loss Of life was not
wholly due to the severity Of the
shocks. Messina, like Charleston and
San Francisco, was unprepared for a
violent assault Of natural forces, and
as result unsubstantial buildings
/ resting on light foundations, crum-
bled together like the houses chill
dren make Of cards. If the edices OF
Messina had been built according to
the rules that should guide archi-
tects who intend to guard against
such calamities 1t seems almost GER
Of the shock would have been at
least partly avoided.
| A curious and instructive example
Of the manner in which hardy and
courageous people may face great
peril and an imminent death, may
be found in the conduct of the pio-
neers who inhabited the lower Mis-
sissippi valley during the severe
- = lrn oh -
though the colonizing of the district
had just begun, the area Of country
already cleared by settlers was so
great that the United States govern
ment was compelled to furnish some
hundreds Of thousands Of acres of
new land on higher ground to those
whose dwelling places had been rem
dered uninhabitable by the sinking of
the earth's surface.
Save, perhaps, that which, in 1919,
disturbed the delta of the Indus, in
Western Hindustan, the Mississippi
earthquake Of 1911 directly produced
geographical changes than any other
Of which an accurate account exists.
So violent and continuous were the
shakings that the alluvial land in the
neighborhood Of New Madrid was
lowered ten feet or more below the
previous level. Into this depressed
region the stream Of the Mississippi
poured with such violence that for a
/ 70 potH
BILE part Of their course, turned back
ward toward their source.
1t seems likely, judging from ex-
listing data on the subject, that an
area Of not less than 5000 square
miles was, on the average, though ir-
regularly, lowered to the depth Of
ten feet below its original level. The
energy Of the shocks was so great
that the low, strongly built cabins of
the pioneers were wrecked. Great
forest trees, too, were beaten against
each other, and their branches inter-
locked, as they swayed to and fro. The
irregular movement Of the ground led
to the formation Of numerous crew.
ces, from which turbid water was
frequently thrown up to a considera-
BILE height. And precisely at this
point Of the narrative the high cour-
age Of these hardy American pio-
neers should be noted. Guided by an
instructive knowledge of natural laws
and determined not to abandon the
land in a panic, they felled trees so
that they lay on the ground at right
angles to the general trend Of the
assures, and built places Of refuge on
the broad foundations which they
thus secured. 1t may be noted, too,
that the brave men who thus faced
ly, courageously, unfiinchingly -
shortly afterward shouldered their
rifles and marched to join General
Jackson in the defense of New Or
leans.
Thus these brave men lived, their
women and children remaining with
them, until the gradual subsistence of
the shocks and the reformation Of
the land enabled them to select new
sites for their permanent homes.
They seem to have accepted the
strange and unnatural situation as
calmly as they faced the British reg
ulars at New Orleans; and In the
earthquake region, as on the field Of
battle, their natural shrewdness sup
piled the place of exact scientific
knowledge. The huge trees they had
felled supported their temporary
dwellings until the shocks gradually
subsidized, and, although new assures
opened in the ground, those already
formed did not widen.
The peculiar local subsistence Of
the land which occurred during the
earthquakes of 1911 in the alluvial
region Of the Mississippi valley Is
probably to be attributed to the fact
that in the delta regions the frequent
changes in the path Of the stream
form numerous lakes in the abandon
ed portions Of the river bed. These
natural basins gradually become fill
ed with accumulations Of vegetable
matter, and in time are flooded over,
so to speak, by the river mud. In
this manner all surface indications Of
the effaced lakes are removed. Then
the thick layer Of vegetable matter
gradually decays, the carbon unites
with the oxygen or becomes a gas
and escapes to the atmosphere
through the porous coverings Of the
earth. When this process Of decay
has gone on for a great period, an
earthquake shock causes the mass to
settle together. and, as a result, the
surface is much lowered. The shocks
which affected the Mississippi valley
in 1S11-13 are, by their violence and
continuity, to be ranked among the
first score Of recorded earthquakes
Philadelphia Record.
YOUNG AMERICA TOO DAINTY.
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