18 JAPANESE WRECKS IN THE 



The presence of wrecks so far sontli near the equator, indicates that they 

 had been swept northward from Japan by the Kuro Shiwo, and thence south- 

 ward along the northwest coast of America until they fell into the equatorial 

 westerly current, where, in company with redwood logs, and drift-wood from 

 Oregon, they must have reached these islands in the equatorial belt. 



In illustration of this equatorial current, we have the report of residents of 

 Christmas Island, which speaks of a westerly current setting past that island 

 at the rate of one and a-half to two miles an hour. August 23d, 1861, there 

 was picked up on the shore of the island of Niihau, in latitude 21- 50' N., 

 longitude 160-15' W., a bottle containing a paper, thrown from the American 

 ship White Swallow, thrown overboard July 21st, 1861, in latitude 21- 30' N., 

 longitude 151^ 55' W. It had made a nearly due west drift of 460 miles in 

 about thirty-three days. This shows the existence of a very powerful westerly 

 current around the Hawaiian Islands of about 14 miles per diem. 



In 1862, September 10th, an enormous Oregon tree about 150 feet in length 

 and fully six feet in diameter above the butt, drifted past the island of Mauii, 

 Hawaiian Islands. The roots, which rose ten feet out of water, would span 

 about 25 feet. Two branches rose perpendicularly 20 to 25 feet. Several tons 

 of clayish earth were embedded among its roots. Many saw-logs and pieces 

 of drift-wood came ashore in this vicinity about this time. These were 

 evidently portions of the immense body of ship -timber launched upon the 

 Pacific during the great flood of the previous winter along the American coast. 

 Their almost simultaneous arrival at Mauii in September, seems to indicate 

 quite accurately the force and direction of the currents in this ocean. 

 Supposing them to have come from the Columbia River, leaving say February 

 18th, 1862, and to have drifted 2,800 miles, they must have drifted at an 

 average rate of 14 miles per day to have reached Mauii September 10th. 



"We may argue from the above that there were other ways of explaining the 

 similarity of flora upon many islands of the Pacific and the high terraces of 

 our Sierra Nevada mountains, beside the hypothesis of an intervening conti- 

 nent where the broad Pacific now rests. 



There is a strong jDresumption that the present bed of the Pacific Ocean may 

 once have been an extended valley, submerged by some abrupt and spasmodic 

 catastrophe, at a period when the fiery interior of the earth was in a state of 

 inconceivable agitation, and its equilibrium temporarily disturbed. Abundant 

 ruptures of the entire combined strata of its crust along our mountain ranges, 

 bear indisputable evidence, in prominences tilted up and raised to immense 

 heights: conditions which must have necessitated corresponding depressions, 

 and consequently established new beds for water, forming new islands, 

 re-dividing and re-shaping continents. The existing shore lines of enormous 

 empty basins, the pebble and cobble stones rounded by erotion, at present in 

 the centre of this continent west of the Rocky Mountains, all contribute 

 testimony of some great change. 



The spores or seeds of plants may, however, have been more recently 

 transferred by clinging to the earth around the roots of such mammoth trees 

 as floated from the high latitudes of the northwest coast of America. Once 

 cast upon any island and rooted, they would soon replant and extend them- 

 selves. Driftwood from Columbia River and Puget Sound distributed itself 



