SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Stupidity 

 Subsidenc 



fossils known to us are from rocks now 

 raised up in our continents, and they lived 

 at periods when the continents were sub- 

 merged. Now, in geological time these peri- 

 ods of submergence alternated with others 

 of elevation; and it is manifest that each 

 period of continental submergence gave scope 

 for the introduction of numbers of new 

 marine species, while each continental ele- 

 vation, on the other hand, gave opportunity 

 for the increase of land life. Further, peri- 

 ods when a warm climate prevailed in the 

 arctic regions periods when plants such as 

 now live in temperate regions could enjoy 

 six months of continuous sunshine were 

 eminently favorable to the development of 

 such plants, and were utilized for the in- 

 troduction of new floras, which subsequently 

 spread to the southward. Thus we see phys- 

 ical changes occurring in an orderly suc- 

 cession, and made subservient to the prog- 

 ress of life. DAWSON Facts and Fancies in 

 Modern Science, lect. 3, p. 125. (A. B. P. S.) 



3279. 



The Glacial Period 



The Walrus Swimming among Sunken 

 Fir-trees of England. There is a writing 

 upon the wall of cliffs at Cromer, and whoso 

 runs may read it. It tells us, with an au- 

 thority which cannot be impeached, that the 

 ancient sea-bed of the chalk sea was raised 

 up and remained dry land until it was cov- 

 ered with forest, stocked with the great 

 game whose spoils have rejoiced your ge- 

 ologists. . . . That dry land, with the 

 bones and teeth of generations of long-lived 

 elephants, hidden away among the gnarled 

 roots and dry leaves of its ancient trees, 

 sank gradually to the bottom of the icy sea, 

 which covered it with huge masses of drift 

 and boulder clay. Sea-beasts, such as the 

 walrus, now restricted to the extreme north, 

 paddled about where birds had twittered 

 among the topmost twigs of the fir-trees. 

 How long this state of things endured we 

 know not, but at length it came to an end. 

 The upheaved glacial mud hardened into the 

 soil of modern Norfolk. Forests grew once 

 more, the wolf and the beaver replaced the 

 reindeer and the elephant; and at length 

 what we call the history of England dawned. 

 HUXLEY Lay Sermons, serm. 9, p. 194. 

 (G. P. P., 1899.) 



328O. SUBSIDENCE, GRADUAL, OF 

 EARTH'S CRUST Coral Islands a Proof. 

 There are many large spaces of ocean, 

 without any high land, interspersed with 

 reefs and islets formed by the growth of 

 those kinds of coral which cannot live at 

 great depths; and the existence of these 

 reefs and low islets in such numbers and 

 at such distant points is inexplicable, ex- 

 cepting on the theory that their rocky bases 

 slowly and successively sank beneath the 

 level of the sea, whilst the corals continued 

 to grow upwards. No positive facts are 

 opposed to this view, and some direct evi- 

 dence, as well as general considerations, 



render it probable. DARWIN Coral Reefs, 

 ch. 5, p. 132. (A., 1900.) 



3281. SUBSIDENCE OF GRECIAN 

 COAST Deluge of Samothrace Capitals of 

 Columns in Fishing Nets. As to the deluge 

 of Samothrace, which is generally referred 

 to a distinct date, it appears that the shores 

 of that small island and the adjoining 

 mainland of Asia were inundated by the sea. 

 Diodorus Siculus says that the inhabitants 

 had time to take refuge in the mountains 

 and save themselves by flight; he also re- 

 lates that long after the event the fisher- 

 men of the island drew up in their nets- 

 the capitals of columns, which were the re- 

 mains of cities submerged by that terrible 

 catastrophe. These statements scarcely leave 

 any doubt that there occurred, at the period 

 alluded to, a subsidence of the coast, ac- 

 companied by earthquakes and inroads of 

 the sea. It is not impossible that the story 

 of the bursting of the Black Sea through 

 the Thracian Bosphorus into the Grecian 

 Archipelago, which accompanied and, as 

 some say, caused the Samothracian deluge, 

 may have reference to a wave, or succes- 

 sion of waves, raised in the Euxine by 

 the same convulsion. LYELL Principles of 

 Geology, bk. ii, ch. 22, p. 356. (A., 1854.) 



3282. SUBSIDENCE OF LAND IN 

 EARTHQUAKE Sudden Death in Fissures 

 of the Earth. In the year 1692 the island 

 of Jamaica was visited by a violent earth- 

 quake; the ground swelled and heaved like 

 a rolling sea, and was traversed by numer- 

 ous cracks, two or three hundred of which 

 were often seen at a time, opening and then 

 closing rapidly again. Many people were 

 swallowed up in these rents; some the 

 earth caught by the middle and squeezed 

 to death; the heads of others only appeared 

 above ground; and some were first engulfed 

 and then cast up again with great quanti- 

 ties of water. Such was the devastation 

 that even in Port Royal, then the capital, 

 where more houses are said to have been 

 left standing than in the whole island be- 

 sides, three-quarters of the buildings, to- 

 gether with the ground they stood on, sank 

 down, with their inhabitants, entirely under 

 water. . . . The large storehouses on the 

 harbor side subsided, so as to be twenty-four,, 

 thirty-six, and forty-eight feet under wa- 

 ter, yet many of them appear to have re- 

 mained standing, for it is stated that after 

 the earthquake the mastheads of several 

 ships wrecked in the harbor, together with 

 the chimney-tops of houses, were just seen 

 projecting above the waves. A tract of land 

 round the town, about a thousand acres in 

 extent, sank down in less than one minute 

 during the first shock, and the sea imme- 

 diately rolled in. LYELL Principles of 

 Geology, bk. ii, ch. 29, p. 504. (A., 1854.) 



3283. SUBSIDENCE OF THE QUAY 

 AT LISBON Crowds Engulfed under Sea and 

 Land. Among other extraordinary events 



