Year: 1869

ing from Terra del Fuego along the
Andes, Cordilleras and Rocky Noun.
tains to Alaska, thence across the
North Pacific via the Aleutian islands
to the volcanic islands, east and south
east of Asia, including the East Indies
and those east of Australia, as far
south as New Zealand. From the
East Indies a branch runs west via
the Mediterranean Sea to the Canary
Islands, including in its course sever
al volcanoes.


1t is found by experiments that up
on descending into the earth heat in
creases at the rate of about one de-
gree of Fahrenheit for every so feet
of descent. If this rate of increase
continued to the depth of 45 miles,
the heat would be sufficient to fuse
the most obdurate metals and mineral
substances. Hence the inference that
the central part Of the earth is in an
incandescent state. Allowing tn e
crust to be so miles in thickness, then
1880 of the entire distance from one
side Of the earth to the opposite side
would be filled with melted matter.
The solid crust of the earth is not as
thick, in proportion, as the skin of an
orange is to the part enclosed by it.


1t is not strange that this compara-
lively thin crust should crack asunder
as the earth was being reduced from
fluid or plastic state into a solid
one. 1t is well established fact that
Jupiter, and some other of the larger
planets of the solar system, have only
about one fourth the density of the
earth. Now if these planets ever as
sumo the density of our earth, or our
earth should ever become as dense as
the planet Mercury, there must in each
instance be great reduction of size
and consequently great heat would be
evolved. During this antagonistic
/ process of reduction of size and the
evolution of heat in our earth it is
evident that rents must have been
made in the earths crust which was
then much thinner than at present.
As the earth continued to grow small
er the outer crust would become wrin-
kled and collapse. Hence it is, that
in the older stratiied rocks We OBJ
serve the plicated or highly inclined
strata. Many are led to believe, when
they see the stratified rocks with their
strata nearly perpendicular, t h It
some great convuIsion in nature" has
placed them in that attitude This is
not necessary. 1t requires compare
lively no greater convulsion to pro-
duce the inequalities or foldingS Of
the earth's crust that it does to pro-
duce the wrinkles in the skin of an
apple when the bulk Of the apple is
reduced and it becomes shriyeled by
drying or by being baked. The ele-
vationS and depressions or the sur
face Of baked apple are much great
er in proportion than are the hills and
valleys of the earth. The skin of an
apple is highly elastic, but even with
its elasticity it is sometimes burst as
under and the juices of the apple are
forced through it into the hot oven.
Aud so with the earth'S crust. 1t has
become wrinkled and being inelastic
/ to a certain extent it has cracked, and
/ out of those cracks melted matter has
been forced by the intense heat and
disengaged gasSes, steam and contin-
ued pressure of the contracting crust,
till long mountain ranges and numer-
ons volcanic islands have been formed
on the line OF this great fracture
When the break has once been made,
the fused matter which is called lava,
will more readily escape through these
than at points where the is solid
even if not so thick. Hence it is
that we often find lava escaping from
the topmost peaks of the Andes in
stead of breaking out at lower points
on the land or through the oceans
bed.


And it is along this line of fracture
that the crust is most likely to be af-
fected by the surging tide of lava and
made to bend and produce earth
quakes. 1t was the bending of the
crust, made weak by the fracture, that
caused those waves of the Pacific to
rush, with such destructive force upon
the coast of Chilli, at the time of the
recent earthquake. 1t is only along
the line or in the vicinity of these
events" that destructive earthquakes
abound. Hence it is that no severe
earthquake was ever felt far inland or
distant from volcanic vents, or frac-
ture lines in the earth's crust. We, in
| Vermont, therefore, who are far re
moved from these fractures, need not
apprehend serious danger from the
grand but terrible phenomena of earth
quakes and volcanoes.