The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1923-06-20
by MILTON A MOBILES.
Copyright, 1923, BY United News.
(Specialcto The Age-Herald)

NSPcCidiVtO Inc AEe-Hcral0D
PHILADELPHIA. June 19.-Provi-
dence, working with earthquakes and
volcanoes as majestic tools, is about
to prune some 100000 square miles
or so of worn-out skin from the face
of Mother Earth, If internal rum
blings are correctly interpreted.
This week, Providence yawned a
little and expelled its breath. As a
result, more than $4,000 human be-
irgs are fleeing from their homes
in Sicily.
Southeastern Europe and the near
east of Asia are being undermined
like a section of cream puff under
internal pressure. This corner OF
the world will soon be ready to sink
and make room for the surrounding
waters to rush In. Italy. Bulgaria,
Turkey, Arabia and Persia are in the
area destined to be covered before
long by a new ocean, dotted by a
few islands that once were mountain
peaks.
Deep in tho bowels OF the world,
white hot commotion OF inconceiv-
able intensity Is occurring. Vul-
cans men are busy at their forges
and at Etna, at Vesuvius, and on the
cracking plains and hills of Persia
are seen the small outward signs of
subterranean travel, Mother Earth is
altering her profile.
When this internal heat has blown
a big abscess under the cold surface
of the earth, the top crust will crack.
as it has done on titanic scale three
times in the past 5000 years. Waters
will cover the submerged terrain as
it did in Noah's day, but for more
than 40 days-and the mapmakers
will need to get busy re-designing
their charts.
Radiating from the new ocean like
tho starlike slashes In broken plate
glass window will reach other mar
row submerged areas. the trend OF
the earth disturbances indicate
stretching in every direction to far
corners of the globe.
If this planet alters its physiog-
nomy as radically as it did between
Monk Brendens visit to America in
1900, when the Mississippi valley was
an inland sea like the Mediterranean
today, and the belated arrival of Co
lumbus in 1892, an appreciable frac-
ton of the land surface of the globe
will disappear. New land Will
emerge in it's place.
Today the ancient volcanic areas
of Italy, eastern Europe, and Ice
land are ready for that final dis
fully one-third of the present earth
areas and submerge their remnants
beneath the waters of the Atlantic,
the North sea, the AEGEAN, the In
dian ocean and the Pacific.
But not only will a new continent
appear from Australia and the Pa
cific depths, but there Will be
change of polar axis. formed of re-
glons now in more temperate climes.
, 1t is probable that the north polar
area will be in the area destroyed.
Every mountain OF the Alps, the
Pyrenees and the Himalayas Is a
potential volcano. the active outlets
being at such points as Etna, Strom-
boil and Vesuvius.
Let Stromboli once split and Gro
vase, and the onrushing waters Will
be gasified and will illuminate IN a
series of explosions that Will spread
southwark to northern Africa, south
eastward to the Malay Peninsula
eastward to China and Japan, north
westward to Saghalien and north
westward from Italy, through Eu-
rope and Iceland and northern Brit.
ish Columbia to meet at the central
earth collapse in Asia.
There seems to be a perlodicity in
such cataclysms whose details are
but family established, beginning
historically with the biblical deluge
about 1916 B. C. Etna and Strom-
boil have been active since long be-
LATER even longer. Such activity
means the constant eating away by
internal fires of the overhead walls
When will those walls be so weak
ened that the crevasslng occurs? II
would be foolish guess to esti-
mate in years, though the earth
seems ripe. Nor should this be re-
garded as merely destruction, but
rather as an act of providential re-
| generation.
What is a volcano? Succintly, q
new born section OF this ever-grow.
ing earth More specifically, 1t is
born as growing deposit of super
y imposed layers of decaying vegeta-
! BILE and animal matter and limestone
in alternating strata, capped by ar
atolic island, volcanic but yet I'M
opened, waiting for the subterranean
| heat to force an outlet.
simultaneously. there exists an
! cient volcanoes, born ages ago, and
now ripe and discharging the heat
explosions as smoke, lava and gases
I There comes a sinking of the super
imposed surface, resulting in the
/ constant gravitation thereto of sea
| waters and the emergence of new
! volcanic islands. In these two forms
| we have the birth and the approach
ing death of the volcano. Between
| these, the initial and the final ages
| of volcanoes are probably equiva-
/ Tents of those five stages of man
which lie between infancy and Sc
nifty.
Soviet Russia imported 65, 900 head