1

like an old-time majority. Such a result, if it should happen, would be regarded as materially affecting the prospects for 1888, and as defining the relations of Mr. Blaine to the Presidential campaign which will then occur.

THE examination of the books made thus far shows that the Republican party is a defaulter to the tune of $20,000,000. Yet here is Mr. Blaine, with unspeakable effrontery, demanding that it again be intrusted with the combination.-Chicago Times (Ind.).

MR. BLAINE means to be the next candidate for President, if he can, and he is making a set of taffy-tasted speeches. The taffy he holds out to the workingman is the tariff.-Memphis Appeal (Dem.).

We have no profound respect for the mass of mankind as depositories of wisdom, but it would be monstrous for a majority of Americans to be fooled by Mr. Blaine. -Augusta, Ga., Chronicle (Dem.).

MR. BLAINE is committing political hari-kari, and the worst we can wish him is that his friends will continue to keep him on the stump.-Newark Journal (Dem.).

MR. BLAINE will have hard work to get enthusiasm across his State line.Omaha Herald (Dem.).

OTHER PRESIDENTIAL SPECULATIONS.

St. Louis Globe-Democrat (Rep.).

THE President's determination to give a few more of the positions of power and influence to New York is evidently due to a desire to make himself "solid" with the Democrats of that State. In every other State throughout the country, excepting his own, he is undoubtedly to-day the choice for the candidacy in 1888 of four out of every five Democrats. In New York, however, he is weak. Only one of the Democratic journals in its leading city favors him for renomination. In the remainder of the State, it is true, the odds against him among the newspapers of his party are not so great. But there is scarcely room for doubt that if New York State were to select delegates to-day for the Presidential nominating convention they would be instructed to cast their votes for another man than Cleveland. And with an aspirant's own State delegates instructed against him his chances for the nomination would not be promising. The man whom two out of every three New Yorkers desire to see nominated two years hence is Gov. David B. Hill. This is undoubtedly the sentiment of the State to-day. Between now and the middle of 1888, of course, it may change in the President's favor, but, clearly enough, he is not disposed to take any chances on this. Cleveland "workers" will be put in positions where they can do the most good, and the crusade against Hill will be begun. Cleveland's bitterest enemy will hardly assert that he is unduly apprehensive of peril in this emergency. The boom of Governor Hill, although youthful and unobtrusive, so to speak, up to the present time, is gaining rapidly and steadily in strength. Among the delegates to the Missouri Democratic State convention interviewed by Globe-Democrat reporters Hill was the choice of a large number of those who were opposed to Cleveland. He is strong in all the Eastern States, and he possesses political sagacity enough to refrain from "pushing things" too actively at this early stage. The fact, though, that many prominent Federal officials prefer Hill to Cleveland, and that a movement to push Hill's claims on the Democratic party is about to begin in Washington, at the fountain-head of Cleveland's power and influence, is full of omen for Buffalo's "man of destiny."

Springfield, Ill., special to New York Tribune (Rep.).

SOME of the Republican politicians attending the State convention to day talked about the Republican nomination for President in 1888. The majority of Illinois Republicans are loyal to Senator Logan, but there was a strong belief expressed here to-day that Blaine would command more general strength. A number of shrewd politicians suggested the "old ticket." Senator Cullom, referring to the Presidential question, said: "I see that Iowa Republicans are disposed to boom Senator Allison for 1888. Of all the Westean men that may be mentioned for the nomination, I think Allison would be the most in accord with Eastern sentiment. As chairman of the Committee on Appropriations in the Senate, he has had an immense experience. In matters pertaining to general legislation he is one of the best informed of our Senators. Should lightning strike him, General Hawley, of Connecticut, would no doubt be struck for second place on the ticket. Logan is strong in Illinois and the Northwest. He would have more general strength were it not for the fact that he has suffered himself to get into so many unnecessary quarrels. Blaine will no doubt be the strongest man, at least, he is the strongest now. Cleveland says to his friends: The Republicans will have to nominate Blaine and if I am renominated I will beat him."" 66 Suppose Blaine is nominated'; who is in your mind for second place?" "He must be a military man such as Harrison, of Indiana." "How would the old ticket, Blaine and Logan, do?" It would suit me, but I don't think Logan would stand it, from the fact that he is too pronounced a candidate for the first place, or at least will be. I believe Blaine would prefer to have Foraker, of Ohio, as his second on the ticket. I believe myself that he would make a stronger second than General Harrison.”

Philadelphia Telegraph (Ind.).

ened his party to an almost incalculable degree by his efforts to elevate and purify to the civil service. He has not yet divorced it from politics, but he has done a great deal to make it easy for the divorce to be procured hereafter, and by what he has done he has made it very difficult for his successor to set up as a rule of administration that the victors belong the spoils. He has gone so far forward that to go backward will be not only difficult but dangerous. If the Democratic party were not rather blinder than the owl at noonday, they would perceive that their chances of success in 1888 are, first, in a hearty support of the President's policy; and, second, in the choice of Mr. Cleveland for their standard-hearer. It is a far cry to 1888, but not too far for the Democrats to decide what they mean to do.

Chicago News (Ind.).

SENATOR VOORHEES says he does not want the Vice-Presidency. If that is the case, and it is deemed proper to give the nomination to Indiana again, why not offer it to Joseph E. McDonald once more? That would not only keep Uncle Joe off the track for the other offices, but would give the Hoosiers another opportunity to send a delegation to the national convention instructed for Joseph and constructed for somebody else. * ** No doubt Indiana would support her Dan

as Illinois will support her John, but Indiana, as the banner Democratic State, is a bull worthy of the rawest and freshest delegate from Tipperary. Indiana has given her electoral vote to the Democrats twice since 1860, a period of a quarter of a century, and then because one of her citizens was on the national ticket. In 1876 Tilden and Hendricks carried the State, but in 1880 Garfield and Arthur carried it against Hancock and English, the latter being an Indianian. In 1884 Mr. Hendricks was again a candidate on the national ticket, and he carried the State. Instead of calling it "the banner Democratic State of the West" the correspondent should have called it the banner Hendricks State of the West, and when he died he took the banner with him. Banner Democratic States are as few and far between at the West as molars in a hen's jaw, and the Democratic party is not going to make the mistake of putting Mr. Voorhees at the head of its ticket even though he comes from Indiana.

Columbus, Ohio, Dispatch (Ind.).

SENATOR Wm. B. ALLISON, of Iowa, is prominently mentioned among Republicans of the Western States as an available Presidential candidate. It is also understood that it was to Mr. Allison that Senator Edmunds.referred when he recently expressed the opinion that the next Republican candidate for the Presidency would come out of the West. A keen political observer, who has traveled extensively over the Northern States in the last six months, is authority for the statement that at this time Senator Allison's boom is of a more substantial nature than that of any other man named, Blaine not excepted. The first recommendation for Senator Allison is that he is an Ohio man, having been born at Perry, Lake county, in 1829. He was educated at Western Reserve College, and studied and practiced law in this State until 1857, when he moved to Iowa. He has had a long Congressional experience, having served in the lower house eight years and in the Senate for the last thirteen years, his present term not expiring until 1891. An Ohio man of fifty-seven years, .with a legislative experience of twenty-one years, ought to be good timber to make a President of.

Portland Oregonian (Ind.).

THE future of politics is not a hopeful one for the Republican party, despite the fact that the astute Mr. Edmunds, in an authorized interview, thinks the Republicans have a better chance to elect the next President than the Democracy if the party "go West" for a candidate, and select "some good, clean, upright man with an honest record upon financial questions, a man who is above reproach." Mr. Edmunds, according to ex-Governor Long, of Massachusetts, has John Sherman in his eye and thought, and Gov. Long thinks Sherman, if nominated, could carry New York and be elected. The truth, as it seems to us, is that the Republican party is lame not so much for the lack of a candidate as for an issue. The sentimental issues are extinct; the record of the last Congress is that of a barren session for both parties, so far as any word or deed of fruitful promise for the business interests of the country. President Cleveland is the only man who has gained any. thing in public esteem by his connection with the legislation of the session. National Republican (Rep.).

THERE has been a caucus of a few of the Democratic sachems, who have decided that the next Presidential campaign shall be run without a platform. It is so difficult to construct one, and after the construction to explain satisfactorily to the people its advantages. It is further recommended that letters of acceptance containing pledges to the dear people be dispensed with. To meet this emergency it is proposed to make a Presidential ticket composed of opposites, in order to let Pennsylvania and Kentucky ideas dominate on the tariff question. For President, Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania; for Vice-President, John G. Carlisle, of Kentucky. These old and reliable Democratic hack horses, it is thought, can make the race successfully, for they will have protection heads and free-trade tails. making this combination it is but just to state that Morrison, of Illinois, has not been consulted.

Toledo Blade (Rep.).

In

THE "Democratic Campaign Book," about to be issued, must be a queer document. It is said to arraign Cleveland for his alleged mistakes, and to assert that the President, in his financial policy, is the tool of the Wall street magnates. As the management of the national finances is one of the most vital of administrative duties, to accuse Cleveland of being the tool of stock-gamblers is certainly to either impugn his Democracy or to brand the party as being the creature of the gamblers aforesaid. Yet the publication goes on to declare that Cleveland must be nomi

less at the next session of Congress the House of Representatives should reawaken it by opposing the Presidential policy. Mr. Cleveland has also helped and strength

Pittsburgh Dispatch (Ind.).

As to who shall be the Republican nominee, Senator Allison shows a refreshing tendency to get out of the ruts. While conceding that Blaine and Logan are now the most prominent, he puts in a strong word for Judge Gresham. "Now there's a good, clean, strong candidate. He possesses splendid Presidential qualities. To begin with, he was a gallant soldier; then his record on the bench, at Washington and in the Legislature speaks for itself. He unites to the judicial mind the common-sense qualities of a business man. And, lastly, he comes from a State which we have got to carry." Senator Allison's praise of Gresham is not too high. But if he hopes to make that candidacy an important fact two years hence, he should be careful that the Judge's boom is not exposed to the frosts of the two intervening winters.

New York Sun (Dem.).

SENATOR VOORHEES, of Indiana, does not want to be Vice-President of the United States. The Tall Sycamore of the Wabash prefers to waive his exuberant foilage on the floor of the Senate. Listen to his words:

"The idea of my surrendering the United States Senatorship, a position that fills the full measure of my ambition, for the Vice-Presidency, an office worthy any American citizen, but in which I could be of no service to a friend, whether he applied for the position of watchman or minister abroad! No intelligent friend would ask me to take the office. I would not have it."

This is the manly utterance of a kindly heart. The politician who remembers his friends and wants to help them is not so often met with as the great man who forgets.

New York Evening Post (Ind.).

THE Springfield State Journal, the Republican organ of the Illinois capital, interviewed a number of the delegates to the Democratic State convention last week as to their feeling about Cleveland. A few disappointed office-seekers complained of the President's course, and favored some other candidate in 1888, one of the disreputable Chicago gang characteristically remarking, "What's the matter with Dave Hill?" But the representatives of the rural Democracy generally declared themselves hearty supporters of the President, and said that the people are well pleased with the administration.

Kansas City Times (Dem.).

IT is the fear of the St. Paul Globe that Editor Dana will be booming Mrs. Cleveland for the Presidency, and then the poor little woman's good luck will desert her forever. We apprehend no such step, although Mr. Dana's success in booming the ladies has been phenomenal. He may succeed in convincing the country that Mrs. Cleveland is the proper person to manage the White House for a term of four years beginning in the spring of 1889, and in this event he may accomplish a power of good and secure a renewal of assurances of Mrs. Cleveland's regard.

Mansfield, Ohio, News (Rep.).

IN 1884 Mr. Cleveland wrote: "No man ought to hold the office of President more than one term." Now that the President is evidently disposed to ignore this principle which he himself laid down, those who do not approve a second term for him are reminding him of those words. To help him out of the difficulty the Chicago News suggests that what the President intended to write was that no single man ought to hold the office more than one term, but that as he has since been married the case has been changed completely.

A MOVEMENT is on foot in Washington to organize a David B. Hill boom for the Presidency. Since the President has begun making his New York appoint. ments with the purpose of fighting Hill in the Empire State, the Governor's friends believe it time for them to take the aggressive.-Terre Haute Express, (Ind.).

DANIEL WEBSTER VOORHEES declares that under no circumstances would he give up a Senatorship to become Vice-President. The country is full of people who, for and in consideration of the sum of thirty or forty cents, would insure Voorhees against being called upon to do so.-Philadelphia Press (Rep.).

INDIANA Democrats are saying Cleveland and Voorhees will not do for a ticket in 1888, but that it must be Voorhees and somebody. It is getting to be second nature in Indiana Democrats to loudly demand the first place on the ticket and to quietly take up with the second.-Boston Record (Ind.).

THE Hill Presidential boom is in dead earnest-so say knowing ones at least It will soon have its headquarters in Washington, with agencies in every State, The Washington bureau will be run by persons holding office under Cleveland well hidden from view.-Pittsburgh Times (Rep.).

THE latest reports from John A. Logan's search for the Presidency, aver that he has gone up a blind alley.—Macon Telegraph (Ind.).

CENTENNIAL OF FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. Philadelphia Times (Rep.). September 3.

THE governors of the thirteen original States of the Union are expected to meet in Philadelphia two weeks hence to make arrangements for the celebration there on September 17, 1887, of the centennial of the completion and public presentation by Washington of the Constitution of the United States. The event so far has not received the attention which it deserves. This is one of the very few countries of the world which have had a written Constitution for any considerable number of years. General charters of rights many have had in more or less definite shape, but in these as much space was given to the rights of kings and the preogatives of aristocracies as to the liberties of the people, and in the majority of instances, perhaps, more. The American Constitution is pre-eminently a charter of popular rights. And no people have ever preserved their charter so carefully through so many perils of both peace and war. None have added fewer amendments, considering the comparative periods through which the charters have run, and none have made so few changes, if any at all can be said to have been made in the American Constitution. The amendments have been to carry out the spirit of the paper and the undoubted purposes in general of the framers of it. Beyond ques tion the American Constitution in the hands of intelligent foreigners, in private as well as public life, has exercised a powerful influence on the idea of self-government in the old world, and in France especially, on account of the historical asso ciations of that country and our own. Take out of the French constitution the provision for a responsible ministry, which is borrowed from the unwritten constitution of England, and the fundamental law of France is a reproduction of our own, altered merely in detail to suit different circumstances. France is the beacon light of Republicanism to the nations beyond the seas. Her wealth, her intelligence, her passion for progress in the higher arts of life, her military power and ardor, all characteristic of a people devoted to self-government, give her that honor. Exactly how much her honor is due to a study of the principles illustrated in the American Constitution and to the establishment of them as a guide for her own life need not be conjectured. Every observer of modern events knows it is largely due to that.

THE GOVERNMENT OF HAWAII.

Springfield Republican (Ind.), September 3

THE turn in Hawaiian affairs sure to come is remanded to the indefinite future, which will last so long as business is prosperous, and business men will sacrifice their manhood rather than risk their property. Constitutional government as administered in the Islands is a farce. The merest travesty of justice is flouted in the face of a community that has not self-respect enough to assert its right to public decency. Kekoa, representative from Puna, was recently tried before a jury and convicted of violating the election laws. He was fined $50, but still holds his seat in shameless effrontery. The proprietor of a certain store has been for some time suspected of being King Kalakaua's agent in selling contraband opium. Information came to the marshal, acting on which he found a quantity of the article in the store wrapped in a valise. When the case was tried, the judge dismissed the proprietor on the ground that two Chinese wit nesses had conflicted in their testimony. The marshal was summarily dismissed as was also the police officer who made the arrest. A Hawaiian was put in the marshal's place who when sheriff of Hilo embezzled $3,000 not yet accounted for. The Legislature prolongs its sessions and is voting into the appropriation bill thousands of dollars for all manner of foolish and extravagant projects. Ten o the representatives are also tax assessors, and to enable them to answer the law in making their assessments before July 31, the whole Legislature adjourned for two weeks. With a majority of 22 to 10 any administration measure can be passed. An opium license bill is pending; also a bill to increase the number of judges of the supreme court from three to five, which means by and by a majority of natives, appointees of the king. Spreckels has recently departed from Honolulu; and his boast of the restraining influence he had exercised upon the administration is sig nificant, and not at all encouraging. A government by favoritism and personal influence is just what is not wanted, and the prospect of a government of principle honestly administered by capable officials is but dimly hoped for.

SCIENTIFIC.

THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE.

ON Tuesday evening, August 31st, a violent earthquake occurred which resulted in the destruction of life and property at Charleston, S. C. The following description of it was given by Professor Powell, of Washington, by cable to Secretary Topley, of the British Association for the advancement of Science :

Earthquake most severe on record in the United States, and affected greatest area. Origin along line of post quarternary dislocation on eastern flanks of Appalachians, especially where it crosses central North Carolina. Slight premonitory shocks felt in the Carolinas for several days, moderately severe shocks occurring near Charleston, August 27th and 28th. The principal shock, causing great destruction in Charleston, originated in central North Carolina August 31, 9:50 p. m., 75th meridian time. Thence the shock spread with great rapidity in all directions with velocity varying from 25 to 65 miles a minute, over area of 900,000 square miles, one-quarter of United States, embracing twenty-eight States, from the Gulf of Mexico to the great lakes and Southern New England, and from the Atlantic seaboard to the central Mississippi Valley. In the Carolinas it was accompanied by land slides, crevasses, and great destruction of property. Half of Charleston in ruins, more than forty lives lost. No sea wave yet reported.

A second, moderately severe shock felt at Charleston 8:25 a. m. September 1, minor shocks followed at increasing intervals. The principal shock was felt over this vast area within 15 minutes, and may be recorded at some of the principal points on a scale of intensity of 5, as follows: Raleigh 4, at 9:50 p. m.; Charleston 5, at 9:54; Cedar Keys, Fla., 2, at 10; Knoxville 3, at 9:55; Memphis 4, at 9:55; St. Louis 2, at 10; Milwaukee 3, at 10:06; Pittsburgh 3, at 10; Albany 2, at 10; Springfield, Mass., 1, at 10; New York 2, at 9:53.

Signed,

POWELL.

The earthquake is the topic of the hour, and the various theories of its cause are being vigorously discussed. Out of the enormous mass of opinions that have come to hand we have selected the following, believing that they fairly represent all that has been said on the subject:

Chicago Inter-Ocean.

THAT the earthquake, which seems to have had its center of disturbance at Charleston, was vibratory we can very well appreciate, but we are chiefly interested in learning how Charleston became the dynamic point and by what process of disturbance. We have our choice of a multitude of theories, and in the forthcoming monthlies and quarterlies we will, no doubt, find the matter very learnedly discussed according to one or another of the numerous unsatisfactory and undemonstratable hypotheses. There is a German notion that small earthquakes or tremors may be attributed to the falling in of the roof of enormous subterranean cavities formed by the long-continued solvent action of water on deposits of rock salt, limestone and gypsum. The affair of Tuesday night was too widespread in its effects for such an accounting. A theorist, who has departed this earth and possibly solved the problem more to his satisfaction in spirit life, was of the opinion that most earthquakes could be referred to "the snap and jar occasioned by the sudden and violent rupture of rock-masses, and perhaps the instantaneous injection into them by intumescent molten matter from beneath." This, it will be seen, is a description of effect rather than a declaration of cause. The cause, this learned savant believed, was the expansion of deeply-seated masses by mineral matter, consequent upon either increased or diminished temperature. This theory, it is urged, could only hold good on mechanical principles in the cases of small and local disturbances. On the other hand it is claimed, very logically, it seems, that earthquakes marked by long-continued tremors, "may be due to the movement and crushing of rock-masses by tangential pressures produced by secular cooling of the earth." All of these theories presume an internal void, and keep within range of the early Michell theory. It may be accepted as a general proposition that the cause of earthquakes is closely related to those capable of producing volcanic action, and whatever will lead to the one may occasion the other, though it is definitely determined that the volcanic action and the earthquake do not stand in the relation of cause and effect. Though Charleston appears to have been the seismic focus of the Tuesday night shock, it does not follow that that city was the mathematic center. The so-called center is, presumably, a subterranean region of great dimensions, possibly many miles in diameter, from which waves may be propagated in all directions. In this view of the case, we accept the good old theory that the center of the earth is a lake of igneous matter, and that our planet is honeycombed with corridors, caves, and channels that communicate with main exits by way of volcanic formations. The great pressure of water upon the earth's surface streams through rock fissures that come in contact with heated rocks, where the water lies in spheroidal form until a sudden change of temperature causes it to flash into steam. In proportion to the water force, the volume of steam and the accessibility of the channel conduits will be the form and violence of the external manifestations. Internal explosions of steam may produce disturbances that may result in an earthquake or find relief in volcanic eruption, and we are content to believe that water is the chief and primary agent to the interior distraction of the earth.

Springfield Republican.

THE fate of Charleston tells this country that it can no longer be regarded as out of the main earthquake courses of the globe, and liable only to slight tremblings and sympathetic waves. The earthquake of Tuesday night was the first great seismic disturbance that has been known on the Atlantic coast of the United States, and greater than any that is recorded on the Pacific slope, while the only other disturbance within our borders that can be compared with it in violence, the

New Madrid earthquake of 1811, was not only widely different in character, but occurred in a sparcely inhabited region where there were no buildings to topple down, and no lives were endangered. What is called the New Madrid earthquake was an incessant quaking of the ground for an extent of 300 miles in Missouri along the Mississippi river, south of the mouth of the Ohio, during which the surface rose and sank in vast undulations, lakes were formed and drained again, and fissures were opened from which quantities of mud were thrown high in the air; a large tract of country was permanently sunken below its former level. This earthquake, which has laid a great part of Charleston in ruins, destroying churches and public buildings, rendering houses uninhabitable and dangerous to approach, and destroying many lives, and which was felt seriously in several cities on and near the southern coast as well as generally throughout the whole region east of the Mississippi, was nothing like that. It seems that it was preluded early Saturday morning by a series of shocks (at some places four were felt) in the vicinity of Charleston. The severest of these was at 4:45 o'clock, and was felt in that city to the degree of shaking crockery on the shelves, making door-bells ring, and starting people from their beds; it was more pronounced in Summerville, about twenty miles north of Charleston, and also at Augusta, Ga., and Wilmington, N. C. This was the time of the great earthquake on the western coast of Greece, though it of course had no direct connection with that. The Charleston News devoted two columns to a rather playful discussion of this shake, little thinking how soon the matter was to take on a tragic_character. It recalled the previous earthquakes felt in that city, which occurred in 1754, 1799, 1811 (twice in that year), 1812, 1843, and 1857, none of these being more serious than the shock of Saturday. It is superfluous to review the theories concerning seismic phenomena, which are mainly based on the supposed contraction of the earth's surface by the gradual cooling of its molten interior. These disturbances are severest in warm countries, and Portugal, Italy, Greece, the isles of the Mediterranean, the Malaysian archipelago, Central America, and the northern and northwestern coasts of South America have been the scenes of terrible destruction and the loss of human lives by thousands. Beside the Calabrian earthquake of 1857, by which 22,000 lives were lost; the ravage in Lisbon in 1755, with its 60,000 people swallowed up in the sea; the convulsions and tidal waves in Peru, Quito, and Ecuador in 1868, whereby 30,000 persons were killed, and the tremenduous union of volcano and earthquake ruin in Java in 1883; beside these the experience of Charleston is trivial. But it is a tremendous enlargement of our acquaintance with the impris oned forces of the globe, and compels us to realize that we are not free from the danger which always threatens the historic earthquake regions. Should a shock like that in Charleston Tuesday night be given to the great city of New York, with its towering buildings, closely packed with human beings, the calamity would be appalling, very possibly rivaling any of the great catastrophes.

Oh, yes; in the Middle States its work has been recorded for a long time. The movement there has been so gradual that there has been no very violent shocks. Observations have been less accurate and widespread in the South Atlantic States and less is known of the movement."

"You have found nothing since coming here to break your theory?". "Nothing. I may say that everything is confirmatory as far as I have gone. There is absolutely no reason to believe that volcanism has anything to do with this earthquake. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe it had not. I have heard of nothing that can not be explained by the theory of displacement.' The area of disturbance alone is strong suggestion in this direction. It is, perhaps, the largest area recorded for any earthquake. Volcanic disturbances are usually local, while the slip of a coastal plain hundreds of miles in length may affect half a continent.”

I asked how he explained the twisting of railroad tracks in opposite direction to the slips.

"Because," he said, "there is a refluent motion of the land just as there is of water. You see chimneys that have fallen both ways. Suppose," the professor continued, taking a piece of bread and cutting it in two, almost entirely through, and holding it at an angle, "the upper piece of this bread was forced to slide off the lower piece. If I had cut it clear through there would have been no resistance except the friction, but as it is joined together at the end there is additional resistance. In the effort to tear loose, there is produced a crinkling, or what we call corrugation. This resistance would also increase, the reaction of which pushes the earth in the opposite direction from which it had slipped."

I asked how he explained the shocks which still continue at Summerville. "Suppose you take," he said, "fifty saucers and tie an elastic string to them, then pull the saucers by the string. You will find the saucers do not follow the elastic pull in a steady motion; they come in jerks, although you pull with perfectly steady hand. The jerky motion is caused by the difference in what is called starting friction and sliding friction. The jerks of the saucers, really their stops and starts, would not be synonymous. Each would act independently of the other. So with every part of the coastal plain-in responding to the force that urged it forward it went in jerks or by fits and starts, and these movements are independent of each other and may be more violent or last longer at one point than another."

Philadelphia Ledger.

THE origin of such vast disturbances of the earth's crust has been for a long time. the subject of profound study, particularly in Italy, and more recently and, it is said, with greater care and completeness, in Japan. It is quite probable that there

are various primary causes capable of disturbing the earth's crust, elevating one part or depressing another, which movement, whatever the cause, produces the phenomena of an earthquake. Without rejecting other explanations seismologists (such is the title of those who study earthquakes) seem to generally believe now that such convulsions are preservative of the earth as a whole, even though destructive in particular localities, as they secure a gradual settling of the crust about the shrinking nucleus, a settling which, if not frequently effected, would produce a convulsion of nature, wrecking the whole globe. By the upheaval of the crust faults or fissures are produced, associated with earthquake shocks, continued as masses of rock slide one upon another in the process of readjustment. The opening of fissures under the ocean, or the percolation of water through the earth to volcanic centers, may develop steam explosions, accounting for some earthquakes. The ground beneath volcanoes may be hollowed out by the vast discharges of lava that they send forth, making the ground unstable, both by destruction of supports and additions to the load. This, in turn, might lead to sinking and the phenomena of earthquakes. Chemical action, making great caverns under mountains, might also destroy their supports and produce destructive settlements. It is also supposed that the sun and moon, by attractive force on the crust of the earth itself, or on the molten matter within (assuming it to be fluid), may produce tides and consequent strains sufficient to produce earthquake phenomena. The variations in loads due to the ocean tides have also been supposed to have some possible relation to fractures of the earth and consequent phenomena, and even variations in atmospheric pressure and temperature have been held to be possible causes of these shocks of earthquake. The general opinion seems to be, however, that the causes extraneous to the earth, like the attraction of the sun and moon and barometric fluctuations, have little influence, and, if they operate at all, are effective only when the earth is already in a critical stage. The majority of earthquakes appear to be associated with explosions in volcanic centers, and these most frequently take place under the sea. One of the latest books on the subject is by John Milne, Professor of Mining and Geology in the Imperial College of Engineering, Tokio, Japan. He discusses the several theories of other earthquake observers and students, and adds observations of his own. It appears from his account that Japan is provided with the latest and best forms of instruments for determining the movements, times, and direction of earthquake waves, and that, with unfortunately superior advantages for such observations, Japan is collecting a vast amount of information on the subject. One of the great aims of seismologists is to find some means of getting forewarning of earthquakes. If such convulsions depended upon tides produced by the sun or moon, or upon changes in barometric pressure, there would be some reason to hope that a system of prediction might be discovered, but thus far there has been no sufficient evidence found of any kind of periodicity. Close study is being made, however, of earth tremors, and it is possible that these may afford some indication of the approach of earthquakes.

Hartford Daily Times.

THE truth is, that after all these ages of man's dreadful experience with earthquakes, the real philosophy of these frightful disturbances is but partially understood. The theories are sufficiently numerous, but the scientific proofs are still lacking. For unknown ages human beings have lived upon the earth's surface, but they have not mastered the problem of the actual state of things that exists in its interior. The deepest mines go but about 2,000 feet below the surface-only two or three exceeding that depth, and none going below 2,500 feet. A theory widely proclaimed and accepted is, or has been, that our globe consists of one vast central mass of fiery matter in a fluid condition, covered with a thin solid crust, as an egg is covered by its shell. The rocky crust, according to this theory, would be thinner in proportion to the liquid mass of fire inside than the egg-shell is as compared with the egg. This theory seems quite lately to be as badly shaken by better investigation as Charleston has been by the earthquake. Probably the best treatise concerning volcanoes and their lessons is Prof. John W. Judd's. Mr. Judd is an Englishman, who holds a place as professor of geology in the Royal School of Mines. His book, "Volcanoes-What They Are, and What They Teach," presents a cumulative and lucid argument, not easily to be resisted, to show that the theory of the fiery fluid mass with its covering of a thin rocky crust is all erroneous, and that in reality the interior of our earth, while it is undoubtedly surrounded by a relatively shallow zone of molten fiery matter, maintained by chemical agencies, which are duly explained, is, as to its own substance, mainly a vast amount of magnetic iron. This startling conclusion is not to be lightly brushed aside. It is supported by too many facts and reasons for any such disposition of it. The book we speak of (published in this country in 1881 by D. Appleton & Co.) will satisfy most candid people of that fact, at least, if they are not wholly converted to Prof. Judd's view. One fact alone, cited by that writer, is too significant to be overlooked. The desolate shores of the island of Disko, where our whalers and Arctic navigators touch, on the west coast of Greenland, are found to be considerably made up of what proves to be in fact this magnetic iron. It is a place where once, in a geologic period of the far past, there were volcanic outbursts on the grandest scale. Careful examinations of this so-called rock by scientists show clearly that the theory at first advanced, that these strange masses were meteoric substances, was erroneous, and that they were in reality thrown out by volcanic action from the deeper portion of the earth's crust.

Louisville Courier Journal.

THERE is a curious study for some one in the chronology of the great earth-throb which made the continent shudder all over on Tuesday night. All along the Atlantic coast, from the North to the South, the first pulsation of the earth is stated to have occurred at different points at 9:48 to 9:52 in the evening. Making due allowance for necessary estimates, as no one looked immediately at his watch as soon as he felt the fluctuation of the surface beneath him, but reckoned the few minutes intervening when he did consult his watch, the average time of its arrival on that longiIt was first felt here about 9:10 p. m. The difference, tude was about 9:50 p. m. about forty minutes, with an allowance for the difference of longitude, will serve

some one as a basis for estimating the velocity of that unprecedented earth-wave which apparently sprang from some immense subterranean and submarine cataclysm away off somewhere to the southeast of the Atlantic coast. This annotation of time would imply that the shock traveled with the speed of light. The Charleston observation is that the direction of the successive throbs was to the northwest, which is probably inexact, as its line would appear to have been but a little to the north of due west. It is not exactly in our way to calculate, with any pretension to exactness, the line of direction or the velocity of movement of this wonderful throe of the continent, or to search for the cause of the internal convulsion so powerful as to shake the solid earth for thousands of miles in all directions, but only to sug. gest to the curious some of the superficial coincidences of time and movement which will serve as a basis for scientific investigation and analysis. The incidence of phenomena like this in regions where the earth's shell is comparatively thin, and where the pressure of subterranean stores of combustible matter is indicated by the flow of melted lava from active neighboring volcanoes, is taken to indicate their origin in the chemical combination from time to time between volumes of affinitive gases or fluids, the union of which produces explosions. There ore other theories, some of which refer them to electrical origin: but they are all based upon assump tions, more or less. Whatever may be the sources of such internal disturbances, variations in the composition and thickness of the earth's crust, in all directions, must necessarily produce variations in the power of conducting the vibratory waves of force produced, and they become weaker and weaker, of course, by distance and friction until they finally become imperceptible. And the more solid the earth in any direction, the further will the wave probably extend. Baltimore Herald.

THE men who positively predicted the earthquake of Tuesday weeks ago are coming forward in large numbers, but only one of them is really entitled to a hearing at the bar of science. This is Professor F. L. Capen, an earnest and con scientious student of physical phenomena, who made and published a prediction in the Washington National Republican under date of August 7, or twenty-four days before the actual occurrence of the shock. The words of the prediction are not veiled in convenient mystery or astrological jargon, but are brief, definite, and exactly to the point. On the 7th of August Professor Capen wrote: "August 22 to September 6 is a severe earthquake period." On the 21st of the same month he wrote: "We are far ahead of all others touching the closing of August and the opening of September. Your readers well know that a severe earthquake is rife with abnormal weather." Other meteorologists and weather prophets had predicted storms and cyclones, while several persons familiar with the atmospheric conditions preceding an earthquake had expressed fears, but none had accom plished what Professor Capen did undoubtedly achieve, namely, the distinct annun ciation of an earthquake for a specified time. As to the professor's methohs and data, they appear to be based on principles which, however novel and startling, are worthy of scientific attention. They are not pseudo-scientific lies, fabricated to deceive credulous persons and mere smatterers. It is perfectly conceivable that there should be tides of the air, as there are tides of the ocean, and that the attraction of the sun and moon may control the former as they do the latter. For the rest, the track of earthquake disturbance is parallel to and not widely remote from the eclipse shadow of August 29, when the moon reached perigee on the very day of the eclipse. The first shock at Charleston was felt on Friday, two days before the eclipse; the second on Tuesday, two days after it. It may result from Professor Capen's prediction and its undoubted fulfillment that new and extremely interesting discoveries may be made in the field of seismic science.

Brooklyn Union.

Ir does not add greatly to our stock of information to be told that the force which manifests itself in an earthquake is called seismic energy. That is merely what is called a parrallel proposition, expressing in one form of words precisely what is signified by another, and bringing us no nearer to an explanation. But we do come closer to an appreciation of the causes of earthquake shocks by ac cepting the theory that with the cooling of the heated center of the earth a gradual contraction of the mass takes place and there is a consequent necessity for the exterior crust to adapt itself to the lesser magnitude of the matter which it encloses. The process of contraction of the rockribbed shell of the earth must necessarily be attended with more or less violent disturbance and this is likely to be most severely felt in places where the lines of stratification are least regular or the crust is thinnest Both these conditions appear to be present in the geological conditions of a belt of country including a portion of the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. The director of the geological survey calls this a line of displacement, represented at its southern end by a seaward tilting of the rocks to the surface and about its center by a downward inclination of strata. At the head of the Chesa peake Bay the displacement has been found to be 100 feet, increasing as it goes northward till it reaches 200 or 300 feet in the lower valley of the Hudson. The movement of which this is the outcome is contemporary with the latest epoch of geological time, but Major Powell expresses a doubt whether at any period whatever the forces which change the configuration of the earth have been in more rapid parative immunity from severe earthquakes here "not so much to the absence of and energetic action than now along the Atlantic slope. He attributes our com these great earth movements, resulting in the formation of mountain chains and even the upheaval of continents, as to the possibly less profound depth of this great displacement than those of most mountainous regions, and especially to the

fact that no volcano vents have been established."

Washington Post.

THREE very interesting queries arise in connection with the earthquake. (1) Its initial point and general course. Owing to the inaccuracy of popular observation, and to the discrepancy between standard and local time, it is, as yet, impossible to say where the shock was first felt. The indications are that it was felt west of the Appalachian range before it was felt on the eastern side of that hemi-continental line, but this is not certain. It may probably be found that there was an original

disturbance of the earth's crust west of the Alleghenies, and a resultant disturbance on the eastern side of that range. Careful and scientific collation of data will be at once begun by the national authorities to settle the question of the origin and direction of the seismic wave. (2). What is the cause of the earthquake? On the day following the first shock felt in the Ohio Valley, two years ago, the Post advanced editorially the theory that the gas wells of the Ohio Valley perform, with reference to the internal pressure of the earth's crust, a similar function to that performed by a volcano in slow eruption, and that the earthquake was caused by an effort to restore the pressure equilibrium disturbed by the release of gas. This theory has since gained wide acceptance. The Post was the first paper in the United States to advance it. (3.) Will there be other earthquakes to follow those already felt, and will they be destructive? Doubtless, if the Post's theory be correct, there will be for a century to come frequently recurring earthquakes in the United States east of the Mississippi, and it is equally probable that the earthquakes will not be largely destructive of life and property, like those of volcanic regions where the local internal pressure is suddenly diminished by an eruption. The slow decrease of local internal pressure by the gas wells doubtless is the occasion of many unnoticed slight tremors of subsidence or efforts at restoring a pressure equilibrium. Occasionally the altered pressure relation of a large section of country, covering several States, to that of large adjacent tracts causes a quake like that of Tuesday evening.

Daily News, Baltimore.

THERE are two points upon which there will be much wise, earnest, and, we trust, useful discussion. One is upon the premonitory symptom of the approach of such convulsions, and the other as to the origin of those earth shudders that seem like the shaking of a planet under the heavy footsteps of deity. The first will be of practical value if it can be discovered and made known. It is claimed that animals have an instinct which tells them of the approach of such visitations. Why may we not discover some unerring law or sign which will enable those within doors to fly to the open before the crash comes? Such a discovery would be truly valuable, while the other, the origin of the convulsion itself, would be curious and instructive. There is no definite warning sign of the approach of an earthquake generally known. It is claimed that persons who have lived in the tropics and. been accustomed to these disturbances, can predict the coming of a seismic convulsion by the appearance of the skies and the temperature of the air. This may be, but it appears doubtful. We hear little of such experienced people until after the shocks are over and the harm done. What is wanted is something reliable and which will indicate the proximate hour when the quake may be expected, and, if possible, indicate it a sufficient time in advance to enable the menaced community to make some slight preparation for it. Such a discovery has not yet been made even in those districts where volcanoes abound and subterranean noises and motions have become as familiar as summer showers. And it is hardly likely that American ingenuity, backed by the experience, observation and skill of our Nineteenth century civilization, will fathom the mystery of nature's anger or disease very soon. But that it will take advantage of this visitation to make great strides in that direction cannot be doubted, and it is to be hoped that this calamity at least will contribute immensely to human knowledge in a strange and interesting department.

New York Star.

THE theory that earthquakes are the result of the contraction of the crust of the earth in cooling is sustained by the situation of this earthquake belt, girding the planet as it does on both sides of the equator, since this is the region where the rind, so to speak, of a fluent body revolving on an axis run from pole to pole would be most attennuated. This belt includes the tropics and those parts of the temperate zones which lie next to the tropics. This is mechanically the line of least resist. ance. Earthquakes seem to follow the parallels of latitude far more closely than do the isothermal lines. Charleston is in the same latitude with the islands of the Mediterranean which have been subject from classic times and far earlier to seismic disturbances, and this is also the latitude of Japan, the country in which earthquakes may almost be said to have become chronic. South of the equator, on the other hand, and some degrees nearer to it is the belt which includes both the earthquake-troubled islands of the Indian archipelago and the earthquake region of South America. Whatever science may determine to be the cause of these portentous waves in what we vainly call the "solid earth," it seems certain that science can not render them less formidable nor mankind less absolutely helpless against them. Every man who felt the tremor of the earth on Tuesday night must have felt also, with a new vividness, his own impotency. Death is said to knock with equal foot at the huts of the poor and the towers of kings, but this form of death menaces most fiercely the lofty and well-builded houses of men, and makes the hut a safe shelter in comparison. In the imminence of such a calamity as has befallen Charleston, and as might have befallen a dozen other cities, not merely to injure but to abolish them, the race that inhabits and boasts itself to have subdued the globe seems like the populace of an ant hill under which is laid a charge of dynamite with a lighted fuse. St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

EARTHQUAKES are now generally believed to be due to several causes, the principal ones being (1) the cooling of the interior of the earth and the consequent shrinking of its shell-like crust, and (2) volcanic action in the area of disturbance. Connection between volcanoes and earthquakes has been traced with a great degree of accuracy. Thus there are known to be a zone of active volcanoes extending through belts of the earth coincident with the earthquakes zones referred to above, one of which reaches from the Andes, in South America, northward through Central America and Mexico, along the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains of the Pacific coast of the United States, to Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, and thence to Asia. Another volcanic zone extends from Central America to the Lesser Antilles, under the Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea, through Arabia, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and India. Vesuvius, Etna and the other great volcanoes of Central and Southern Europe belong to this zone. Vesuvius, it will be

remembered, started into operation, after a long period of inactivity, just before the earthquake of last Saturday, in Greece and Italy. Seismologists, however, now incline pretty generally to the belief that volcanoes and earthquakes do not stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect so much as they represent different manifestations of the same subterranean force. The only active volcanoes in the United States are in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains, near the Pacific Ocean, and yet the earthquake of Tuesday night, as well as many preceding ones, was much more destructive on the Atlantic coast than in the Mississippi valley, while there is no record of any shock for weeks past on the Pacific slope. Regarding the ultimate cause of either earthquakes or volcanoes science has developed nothing satisfactory to the majority of seismologists. Charleston News and Courier.

THE reason why the shocks were more violent in the vicinity of Charleston and Summerville is that there is more of a soft, yielding nature in the superficial upper strata which conducted the vibrations, and the forward movements of the earth waves, meeting with less resistance here than from the hard substances farther in the interior, were more rapid and jerky, and shook the surface with more violence. The presence of the innumerable fissures observable in the city, and in the country as far as Summerville and beyond, is accounted for by this same soft material yielding readily to the pressure of the earth waves, which pushed up the thin crust and squeezed out, as it were, the water and sand subject to the pressure. The blue sand and the yellow sand thus ejected are found in the upper strata, and that it came from near the surface is proven by the fact that no marl is found in it, and that begins at from 65 to 90 feet below the surface, and extends to nearly 1,100 feet deep. To show still more conclusively that the wave motions were confined to a very limited depth beneath the surface, it is only necessary to state that none of the shallow or four hundred feet artesian wells are at all affected, nor is there any change noticeable in the flow or quality of the water from the two deep artesian wells, as would have been the case if the cause of the earthquake had been local or deep-seated. This statement of the communication of land waves to enormous distances is fully verified by the observations of previous earthquakes since and even before the beginning of the Christian era. The absence of a tidal wave proves conclusively that the cause of the disturbance was confined to the land, and the jerky motion communicated to vessels, as reported by their officers, was caused by the vertical vibrations intermediate between the rapid forward transmissions and the slower backward jerks.

New York Mail and Express.

SCIENTIFIC investigation has not yet made the nature of the earthquake as definitely known as it has that of some other natural phenomena, but the great outlines of the subject are clear. An earthquake is on a grander scale as simple an effect of physical force as the explosion of a steam boiler, or the collapse of an arch, when through the failure of any one point in the series of self-sustaining stones the whole arch caves in either by its own weight or by pressure from above. Indeed we might fairly regard the sections of the earth's surface as a series of flat arches-arches too flat to sustain their own weight without support beneath, and liable to be deprived of that support. In every pond on a running stream we have in the winter a miniature simulacrum of the main conditions of an earthquake. In two or three nights of extreme severity the surface freezes and there is a layer of ice six inches thick. In the milder days that follow the stream flows on beneath, and the level of the pond falls so that there will be an interval between the top of the water and the bottom of the ice, perhaps of a few inches, or perhaps of a good many. Then an accident happens. The ice is by a rainfall at once weakened and weighted, and down it all goes, splitting into long fissures, smashed into great masses, one edge tumbled over the other, pieces set up endwise or tossed out upon the bank, all in picturesque confusion. Now, comparing the frozen surface of the pond to a scrap of the earth's crust, and the reduced level to the consequence of subterranean cooling, we may see in this familiar fact a thing which with a little imagination will help us to understand how an earthquake happens.

Pittsburgh Dispatch.

THE discussion as to the causes of earthquakes will now occupy the attention of scientific men, and after they have exhausted their stock of knowledge on the subject, it will still be a subject of doubt whether their information as to the real cause is much clearer than that of the inexpert public. The most satisfactory theory of the earthquake is that elaborated by Mallet, which is broadly the cooling and shrinkage of the earth's molten center and the settling of the crust upon it. Mallet also admits that the contact of subterranean streams of water with portions of this molten mass may produce sudden explosions of steam, which is the main hypothesis of the chemical theorist. The most adequate hypothesis, so far, is that of Mallet, although it must be confessed that both scientific men and the general public are very nearly on a plane in the vagueness of their knowledge concerning the cause of these convulsions. The connection between earthquakes and volcanoes on either theory is quite intimate, and as nearly all experts refer the late tremor to more active manifestions at the volcano of Teneriffe, news from that point will be awaited with great interest in this country. It would be of undoubted value to know enough about earthquakes to be able to calculate the chances of their repetition. If they are likely to occur again, the first work for the people exposed to them is to reform their architecture.

Boston Herald.

THE recent earthquake seems to have given rise to considerable discussion as to the cause of these natural convulsions. While the gradual sinking of the earth's crust, due to the cooling of its molten interior, is a favorite theory, one of the most respected scientific authorities in Europe has recently advanced the opinion that the greater part, if not all, of these earth tremblings are occasioned by the action of superheated steam. It is his belief that water gradually works its way downward, by crevices or fissures in the earth, and, finding lodgment in some subterranean chambers, is heated so as to produce an almost inconceivable volume of