The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1909-10-16
MYSTERIES OF NATURE
BY George Frederick Wright,
A. M, IL. d.
Seas Slowly Filling Up With Sediment

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Among the active, but often de-
spised. agencies assisting running
water in it's work of planning down the
continents, angleworms have a prom
inent place. This they do by prepar-
ing the material and making it ac-
cessible. Darwin has discussed their
work in a very interesting and con-
elusive manner According to his es-
I Inmates, there are, on the average,
$4,000 angleworms to the acre, weigh
ing 17S pounds. So active are these
animals, in working over the surface
soil, that they annually eject to the
| surface about seven tons of solid
material, which is in condition to be
easily washed away by the falling
rains. From this it can be learned
that we should not despise the day of
small things, nor forget, when we
tread on a worm, that we are destroy
ing an important geological agency.
Numerous other aids in preparing
material for water transportation ex-
animal and vegetable life, and the
action of the heat and cold in pulver-
izing the rocks and of ice in starting
them from their foundation But these
deserve treatment by themselves, and
we will, for the present, pass them
by.
When the question arises, What
becomes of all this sediment which is
transported into the sea? the answer
Is not difficult to find. The wash of
the hills is constantly being spread
out over the bottom of the lakes. the
bays. and the seas into which the
rivers empty, where are accommodating
the beds of mud, sand, gravel and
pebbles which under proper conditions
may be transformed into slatestone.
sandstone and conglomerate rock;
while the lime held in solution is
furnishing material out of which
corals and shellfsh of various kinds
will construct their personal habita-
tons and leave them to form vast
beds of limestone rock.
The rapidity with which these &C.
cumulations of sediment take place is
somewhat astonishing Within his
toric times we know that many IA
nous cities which were once sea-
ports are now far inland. The city
of Adria. IL northern Italy. which was
at the beginning of the Christian era
en- famouc O coaporf that ~ ooyo -.
name to the Adriatic sea, is now 16
miles inland-the Pc and the Adige
having extended their deltas that dis
lance since the city became famous.
Paoto, on the Pei-Ho, in China, was
on the shore of the Yellow sea 200
B. c. 1t is now 40 miles inland. AS
late as 500 A. d. the sea was IS miles
nearer Tientsin than 1t is now. All
along the head of the Yellow sea, into
which great Chinese rivers are fiow-
ing, the land is gaining on the water
at the rate Of about 100 feet per an
mum. In approaching Shanghai, across
this sea, one meets the turbid water
along clearly-marked line forty or
fifty miles out from the shore. So
sharp is this line that in crossing It
half of the ship would still be in the
blue ocean water while the other half
is plunging into water made turbid by
the silt brought down by the Hoang-
Ho.
The Euphrates and Tigris have
hlled up the head of the Persian gulf
with their sediment until Ur of the
Chaldees, the former residence of
Abraham, is now seventy or eighty
miles inland. The delta of the Mis-
sissippi is more than 200 miles long,
and, on the average, 60 miles wide,
covering $4,000 square miles; while
the deposits of the river are pushing
1t out into the Gulf of Mexico one
mile farther every 16 years. Toward
the lower part of its course this sedi-
ment is known to be several hundred
feet in depth. The extensive plains
of eastern and southern China are all
deposits of the Hoang-Ho and Yangtse-
Kiang. Outside of the glaciated re-
gion in the northern hemisphere all
lake basins, with few exceptions, have
been filled to the brim with sediments
brought into them by incoming
streams, while in the glaciated region,
where the lifetime of the lakes has
been much shorter, they have been
largely filled with sediment, and so
are undergoing rapid process Of ex-
tinction. The western half of Lake
Z n
into solid land In few thousand
years.
What is going on thus at the pres
ent time helps us to appreciate the |
vast extent of similar work which was |
nj he