The Delaware Ledger

There is, it seems, a perpetual shaking of this earth of ours, a fact that was first discovered by a company of astronomers who were studying the stars. The Italian government keeps employed a corps of experts to record these involuntary motions of the earth. These tremblings are too feeble to be noticed by the senses, but the instruments employed show that the movements are constant and not regular.

M. Danree, a French savant, accounts for earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the constant tremors of the earth's surface to a single cause, to-wit: superheated steam. The waters of the earth fall into the molten material at the interior of the earth—steam is produced and this steam is superheated, developing such enormous power as to cause the violent eruptions and earthquakes which in times past have rent the earth. Other scientists have held that the gradual shrinking of the earth's crust and the consequent contraction from loss of heat will account not only for earthquakes but for the upheavals of mountains and the appearance of valleys and depressions. Perhaps both causes may be at work; but M. Danbre's belief that superheated steam is the one cause of the tremulous motions has many adherents.

When on a steamer we are conscious of a pulsation, as it were, made by steam, but this tremulousness is regular while the vibrations of the crust are irregular: hence it is surmised that the earth immediately under us is a great steam boiler acting irregularly but never at rest. In some portions of the earth it is known there is a constant connection between the water of the surface and the internal fires. This is proved by hot springs in numberless places on the earth. At Carlsbad, in Bohemia, for instance, it is known that a large section of country is a huge caldron of boiling water covered with a thin crust of earth. From certain vents come out highly mineralized hot water of great medicinal value. These hot springs have been known to exist since the 10th century and it is believed there has been no material change in the character of the water. It is known there has not been any for five hundred years. Should the vents at this place be closed up for any cause, it would result in a violent explosion and the people of Carlsbad would be plunged into a boiling caldron. A partial eruption of this kind took place in 1859, but fortunately no lives were lost.

This topic is interesting just now in view of the earthquake which has devastated the famous and beautiful Vale of Cashmere, in India. A town was destroyed in the valley and many lives lost. Volcanic disturbances occurred about the same time in other parts of the world. It is noticeable by the way, that every serious earthquake in one part of the world is apt to be contemporaneous with a shock at its antipodes. These imprisoned forces affect enormous areas of the earth's surface.—Demorest Monthly.