Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-02-03
EARTH OUT OF BALANCE
Great Quake Out in the Pacific Last
Tuesday.


Tuesday.
New York, Jan. 31-The earth in its
dizzy whirl through space got off
center for a few moments today and
shifted it's poles" or axes to fit the
new center Of rotation.
Then in order that 1t might not be
travelling on fiat Wheel" SO to speak,
a few million tons of solid rock some
where off the western coast Of the
United States in the bed of the Pacific
ocean slipped a hundred feet or so to
even things up.
Observers here said they could not
be certain whether the displacements
were horizontal or vertical. In the
great San Francisco shock Of 1906 the
horizontal displacement amounted to
about 20 feet.
This Is the manner in which pro-
fessors Of geology and seismographic
observers account for the violent earth
vibrations which demoralized instru-
ments in observatories throughout this
country today. Thus far the exact To-
cation Of the huge Slip" has not been
determined, although observers from
Washington, D. c., to Berkeley, Cal,
agreed that it probably was few
hundred miles Off the mouth Of the
Columbia river
Moment of Readjustment.
The absence of a recorded disrup-
ton of the visible surface of the earth,
or Of the huge tidal waves which
usually radiate from the scene of an
earthquake, led the observers to be-
believe the slip" occurred miles below
the bed Of the ocean. Its violence was
attested by the quivering seismographs
which in some instances were thrown
from the recording rolls, while a
strong machine" at Berkeley was set
in motion for the first time in many
years.
mo doubt the earth was readjusting
ITSELF" said Prof. ]. j. Lynch, seismo-
graphic observer at Fordham universi-
ty here.
about every SO often the earth be-
comes upset, goes off center, changes
it's axes and usually, about the same
time, there is violent earthquake, a
slipping of miles of strata. and we go
merrily along again."
The Andes along, the Pacific coast
in South America and The chain of
rocky determinations which join the two
continents, disappearing into the sea
off Southern California, are continually
lifting, falling and slipping, according
to the seismologists and the geologists.
Many of these disturbances take
place in midocean, the only visible evil
dence being the zig zag lines traced by
seismograph hundreds of miles dis
tant. One Of the examples of such a
paroXysm occurred in December 1920,
and scientists still are cudgeling their
brains to account for the "lost" earth
quake. It's source of origin never has
been definitely established although it
was of such proportions as to shatter
instruments thousands Of miles away,
and to send a tidal wave circling the
earth.
Earthquake Often Lost"
A few d..ys later came news Of an
earthquake in Kan-Su province in
China, in which 1000 persons perished
Scientists asserted there probably had
been two distinct upheavals probably
on opposite sides Of the globe.
. Lost" earthquakes taking place in
midocean often cause vast changes in
the appearance Of the ocean bed which
are not discovered until years later.
Such earthquakes are frequent near
the West Indies, and beneath the Pa
cific westward from the Americas to
the chain Of sunken mountains which
form the Japanese archipelago.
The first major catastrophe by earth
quake or volcanic eruption which his
tory records was that at Constantine
pie in the year 577, when 10000 persons
perished. Since then there have been
20 such disasters.
The greatest toll Of human life was
taken in q volcanic upheaval in Yeddo
in 1903, when 10000 persons lost their
lives. More than two centuries later,
in 1908, there was the disastrous erup-
ton which buried Messina and 81 other
Italian towns, causing the death of
$4,000 inhabitants.
White and Colored Farmers in the
U. S.-According to report of the