POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



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quite as malignantly. Lockjaw appears in 

 every fatal case. Some men pretend to be 

 acquainted with antidotes, but their first care 

 on being called to a patient is to remove 

 everything that might excite him to convul- 

 sions. The father of the native who fur- 

 nishes the description of the poison assured 

 him that he had been often wounded, and 

 had averted the evil effects by cutting him- 

 self in different parts, so as to draw away 

 the poisoned blood. 



The Secnlar Changes of Level in the 

 Earth's Crnst. Professor Suesz, author 

 of a work on the " Origin of the Alps," 

 recently delivered an important address 

 before the Geological Institute at Vienna, 

 on the fundamental causes of the repeated 

 changes which have taken place in the dis- 

 tribution of land and water on the globe. 

 He assumed that, as viewed in the light of 

 more recent observations, the question did 

 not concern apparent elevations or depres- 

 sions of land within particular spaces, but 

 dealt with an increasing prominence of the 

 whole northern polar cap of the earth, far 

 down into the temperate zone, effecting a 

 real change in the form of the planet. 

 Howorth, who thought he had detected an 

 elevation of the land toward both poles, 

 and a depression near the equator, con- 

 cluded that the solid part of the earth was 

 steadily suffering a contraction in the equa- 

 torial regions, and becoming projected tow- 

 ard the magnetic poles. Robert Chambers, 

 in England, forty years ago, and Domeyko, 

 in Chili, inferred from the repeated occur- 

 rence of terraces, apparently showing that 

 the land had risen, that a force was at 

 work changing levels which embraced the 

 whole planet ; and, in later times, many who 

 have studied the subject most thoroughly, 

 as Pettersen, have not repressed their 

 doubts of the sufficiency of the common 

 theory of elevations to account for the phe- 

 nomena which they have observed. Many 

 have been led, from the force of these facts, 

 to embrace the theory of Adhemars and his 

 followers, CroU and Schmick, that accumu- 

 lations of great masses of water take place 

 alternately around one and the other pole ; 

 but the presumption of alternation is con- 

 tradicted by the fact that terrace-formations 

 occur along the coasts of South America, 



South Africa, and Southern Australia, 

 which seem to be as remarkable and as 

 regular in their distribution as those which 

 have been observed in the northern hemi- 

 sphere. In order to be accurate in expres- 

 sion. Professor Suesz does not speak of 

 elevations or depressions either of the land 

 or the sea, but of displacements of the coast- 

 lines ; of negative movements when the re- 

 sult is an apparent elevation, positive move- 

 ments when it is an apparent depression of 

 the land. Using these forms of expression, 

 the height of the upper level of a series of 

 terraces does not represent a measure of 

 the rising of the land, but the amount by 

 which the sum of the negative movements 

 of the shore-line since the time when it was 

 at its highest level is greater than the sum 

 of the positive movements. That repeated 

 changes from one movement to the other 

 are the rule is shown by the step-like form 

 of the coasts at points where many traces 

 of them have been left, as at Yan Rensse- 

 laer Harbor, Port Ffoulke, and Cape York, 

 in the Arctic regions. Sometimes they so 

 balance each other that the coast-line is 

 substantially stationary for a long time, 

 when a steep cleft in the rocks is formed, 

 as above Montreal and at the Island of 

 Tromsoe. We know nothing of the laws 

 that govern these oscillations. Many of the 

 comparisons of level hitherto made have 

 been liable to error, arising from regarding 

 the partly compensated sum of the several 

 movements in one place and the latest ob- 

 served movements in another place as of 

 equivalent value. Many examples show 

 that a positive movement has taken place 

 on the coast of Europe within historical 

 times, reaching at Naples to the holes in 

 the pillars of the temple of Serapis at Puz- 

 zuoli ; at a later period, perhaps between 

 the fifth and ninth centuries, a negative 

 movement began, of which we can not defi- 

 nitely say whether it still continues or not. 

 The oscillatory character of the changes 

 can hardly be comprehended from the 

 point of view of a movement of the solid 

 part of the earth's crust ; it might rather 

 be compared to the breath of a living body. 

 Some investigators, as Charles Darwin and 

 Kjerulf, have adopted the theory of inter- 

 rupted or rhapsodical elevations, instead of 

 the old one of symmetrical oscillations ; but 



