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

to predict the great earthquakes with certainty, although science may yet help us out
 Tt is certainly much more foolish to encourage the fliterate and superstitious in ideas that the world may come to an end, as was done in this city few days ago.
 The world has never come to an end!
 Tt may some day in the infinite future STOW old. cease working and qualxing and die as the moon has died. But even then it will not come to an end, nor will it be destructlble.
 No human mind of intelligence can conceive of a method whereby it can be destroyed.
 Better dream of it as a future finished derelict in the great milky way, or some other censtery of finished planets.
 No Earthquake Weather.
 "The temperature of the interior mat ter, in the center of the earth, has been variously calculated, but I am not of the opinion that there Is any certainty in these conclusions. The temperatures that are formed in mines, for instance, vary. There is no scientific certainty, therefore. in these figures. The scientists always en- counter the unknown, the unknowable. and we can only speculate to the best of our ability by scientific precedent, by weeding out the true from the false.
 "For instance there is an impression that there Is a condition of the atmos- phere preceding an earthquake that helps to predict and forewarn. There Is no scientific basis for the calm that prevailed In San Francisco for long time of what they called earthquake weather. Rain or fog is no prediction of an earthquake any more than sultry temperatures, or thunder and lightning have anything to do with 1t.
 ''The clouds that usually hover over &C., tive volcanoes have no immediate rela- ton with an earthquake, as Is frequently supposed The clouds are a natural evaporation of the steam and gaseous substances thrown out of the crater.
 "1'he plant and forest life of the crust of the earth is only a parasite life that draws it's substance and food from the universal volcanism that supplies 1t with material to blossom and flourish.
 Proceeding from the contention that every part of the earth's material is a by-product of the inner activities of the center of the earth, the worlds obligation to that activity makes the process of adjusting earthquakes a promising assur- ance of the continuity of our planet.
 Movements Going On.
 "Quake movements, more or less i'm 
 many places every day. There is no guarantee, nor, in view of this theory, would we wish to have one, that the earth's tremors will cease.
 Professor Penck, the distinguished German geologist, with whom the Kaiser recently honored this country by send ing him as an interchange lecturer, gave an illustrated lecture in New York few weeks ago, wherein he showed the effects of some of the great movements of the folding and sliding Alps
 These geologic movemnets are going on in many places today. Occasionally they move with jerk and then it de- bends on who is in the way. This is what happened in the awful disaster in Sicily, that has happened in the history of the world as far back as we can read about 1t.
 "No one knows the hour or the place where the mountains will slide or the sea climb over the land-but the earth must not be deprived of its geological privileges to build and rebuild, because its crust Is inhabited, covered, by para sites-human or otherwise.