The Newark star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1909, 1909-08-07
LOST M
THOUGH our world is very old
L.. l. - .-aA a~I1Lal DArftnnC |

~ LTHOOGH our world is very Olu
~ it is not yet finished. Portions
are being lifted up here and
there. AT one point the beach is grad
ually cut away, while at another point
the Ian is en~croaching on the sea.
Volcanoes are at work, and, although
no general upheaval takes place as in
prehistoric ages, 1t is nothing unusual
to hear of an island of considerable
size emerging from the bosom of the
deep. On the other hand, it is just as
usual to chronicle the disappearance of
an island.
Years g an earthquake swept over
the Malay archipelago, which seems to
lie in n perpetual earthquake belt, and
the result was the disappearance of the
principal island of the Sangir group,
lying midway between Mindanao and
Celebes.
Not long afterward came the disap-
pearance of an island long marked on
the maps and well known to mariners,
lying on the northwest coast of Aus
tralia-Expedition Island, at the mouth
of Collier bay.
The island was almost in the same
longitude as Sangir Island, and nearly
E-AhNf o15AtN oOaIAA rs Tx sea IL
which it lay was ~unfrequented by ship
ping, it is quite possible that its sub
sidence, if it occurred, was simultaneous
with the submersion of Sangir below
the waves.
A Dutch skipper reported that he
sailed over the spot where the island
had been, and found eight fathoms OF
water, whereas all around the place the
depth was normal for the Sea of Timor,
say seventy to one hundred fathoms.
No one knows when the island
vanished from view, and the only ex-
PLANTATION for the phenomenon is thai
for some cause or other there had beer
a sudden depression of the earth's crust
in those waters.
The subsistence of the island was not
accomplished with such rapidity ano
violence as to attract attention through
the disturbance of the sea on any civil.
lied coasts. II a sudden cataclysm had
occurred, like that which blew the
greater part of Krakatora into the all
and scattered the fragments over the
sea-bed, great waves would have car.
ried to far distant shores the neWs
that something unusual had occurred
for Expedition Island was thirteer
miles long, and, ON an average, one
mile wide.
1t Is fortunate for the inhabitants
that the earth is subject to these con,
vulsions only in a limited area; else
where the change Is more gradual.
The whole crust of the globe is prob
ably in motion, changing it's relative
level, as it gradually adjusts itself Il
the contractions of the interior, OF
which it rests.
In the North the circumpolar region,
are rising. If we had records to guild,
US we should probably find that Gran
Land, Grinnell Land and Franz Josef
Land are several inches higher thai
they were when they were first dis
covered.
And simultaneously the coast O.
Greenland In the neighborhood of Disco
8 sinking, so that stakes which wer'
1riven into the beach to moor boat
o are now under water.
1t is easy to understand that. with
nut any volcanic agency the surface o
the earth, resting as II does on a foun
,lation which must be incandescent
must rise and fall as the action of FIR
expands and contracts it's subterranea
supDort.-R. e. Barclay in Golden Days