The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-10

i of intelligent science utterly untrue. The earth is not dead planet, and very far from being a dying one. Its activity, it's physical vitality is restless and eager as the life of a growing child
 "The earth is in a constant quivering tremor of constructive change I cannot understand how the superficial impress l sion prevails among some scientists that earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are signs of the earths destruction.
 Earth Living Mechanism.
 "The earth is a great. active. living, celestial mechanism, containing within its interior potent energies ever capable of repeating in the future processes which have taken place in the past.
 These processes are not destructive by any means; they are the growing facul- ties, that instead of imperilng the life of the earth. establish it's indestructibility From the unexplored interior of the earth comes the creation of such by ] products as compose it's elemental char acter
 "The crust upon which we lie, the oceanic waters concealing a far greater topography, and the atmosphere sur rounding us, are but by-products of the intensely heated, terribly expansive and ever-active matter of the unexplored in- terior.
 'It has always been incomprehensible to me, therefore, how the phenomena of volcanic eruptions always seems to give 1 the impression that the earth is in a stage of dissolution.
 How can dissolution occur in the ac- | tual expression of internal life sources that these earthquakes so wildly declare for us? This material, which is the inner meaning of the external life of our planet, has been the heart and blood of its exist ence, continuously pulsating through its terrestrial body, physical certainty of growth.
 The By-Products.
 '"The escape of this material to the ex- terior Is known as volcanism, and the by products of valcanism are liquids, solids and gases.
 "The solid by-product we call rocks, whether original volcanic ash CT lava, or
 
 the oceans border.
 There is as distinct a purpose in the natural law of volcanic eruption as there is in the downfall of rain that moistens the parasitic life of plants on the crust of the earth.
 This rocky crust of the earth is always being added to by the volcanoes and being torn down and washed away by the ele- ments and the material deposited along sea borders. Not only this, but the rocks are being folded, fractured and otherwise broken or deformed by the great shrink ing and settling of the eaTth's crust as a 1 whole.
 "The contraction of the earths sphere Is the physical shrinkage of age that Is measured in aeons instead of years. The prehistoric convulsions of the earth be- fore man inhabited this planet were ter rife, almost inconceivable.
 "Whole forests sank mile deepi
 .sThe displacements that occur in the ceaseless readjustment of the life of the earth are not always sudden catastrophes of great violence, however.
 Phenomena of Present.
 "Most people in observing mountains i think that the great forces which brought about their deformation are phenomena of the past but these transformation movements, scarcely perceptble some- times are going on as much today as they ever did.
 'It Is these movements which make the earthquakes, and the Sicilian horror, from A geological standpoint, can only be look i ed upon as one of the dislocations which are constantly going on since the earth ! first formed crust and which will go on until it is cooled to it's center.
 "It may be startling to realize that we have an earthquake every IS minutes per haps, but no one feels them, or is con- scious of these tremors. The earthquakes of modern time bear the same comparison to the earth's evolution of life measured from it's beginning
 ! There have been greater catastrophes in geological history than any earthquakes 1 observed by man.
 "The European and American Mediter- ranean area seem both to have been sites : of great weakness and movement. There is evidence in our own West Indies that , in late Eocene time, before man is sup posed to have arrived on the scene, l there were vast and sudden disappear ances of land area beneath the sea- and that the crust has heaved up and down | through thousands of feet several times. l "In the rocks of Barbadoes, for in- l stance, 1t Is recorded that a forested land area went suddenly and rapidly down until 1t was a mile deep. There it was covered with deep-sea animal oozes and mud. After a time 1t was again rapidly elevated into land, and carved into hills by the rain. Again 1t went down sudden ly. before the topography could be leveled by the erosion. which wears down all mountains In time.
 Rises HOO Feet.
 Since the last submergence 1t has l gradually risen to HOO feet above the sea. all draped or veneered with coral reef rock. The myth of the Atlantis is un- doubtedly founded on some occurrence of this kind.
 "Al volcanic action is constructive, not destructive to the life of the earth. I cannot see how 1t is conceivable that we are on a dying planet or on a combusti- ble sphere that has no intelligent pur- poses of growth in its phenomenal!
 T cannot see how the world can come to an end in the sensational manner of some gigantic disaster.
 Tt is foolish to anticipate or to attsmnt