212 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



travelled westward would have swept towards the 

 east, we see that the force of the shock was sufficient 

 to have disturbed the waters of an ocean covering the 

 whole surface of the earth. For the sea-waves which 

 reached Yokohama in one direction and Port Fairy in 

 another had each traversed a distance nearly equal to 

 half the earth's circumference ; so that if the surface 

 of the earth were all sea, waves setting out in opposite 

 directions from the centre of disturbance would have 

 met each other at the antipodes of their starting- 

 point. 



It is impossible to contemplate the effects which 

 followed the great earthquake the passage of a sea- 

 wave of enormous volume over fully one-third of the 

 earth's surface, and the force with which, on the 

 farthermost limits of its range, the wave rolled in upon 

 shores more than 10,000 miles from its starting-place 

 without feeling that those geologists are right who 

 deny that the subterranean forces of the earth are 

 diminishing in intensity. It may be difficult, perhaps, 

 to look on the effects which are ascribed to ancient 

 earth-throes without imagining for a while that the 

 power of modern earthquakes is altogether less. But 

 when we consider fairly the share which time had in 

 those ancient processes of change, when we see that 

 while mountain ranges were being upheaved or valleys 

 depressed to their present position, race after race and 

 type after type appeared on the earth, and lived out 

 the long lives which belong to races and to types, we 

 are recalled to the remembrance of the great work 



