We know how a mass of sulphur which has been fused in the presence of
water in a closed boiler gives up in the form of steam the occluded
moisture upon the relief of pressure. In a similar manner we see steam
escaping from volcanic vents and cooling streams of lava. We also
know how gas escapes from the pores and cavities in a seam of coal
on the fall of the barometrical column. We also know that certain
wells increase the height of their column under like conditions. The
latter of these phenomena, resulting in an increase in the rate of
drainage of an area by its tendency to render such an area of less
weight, facilitates its rise. If we follow the views of Mr. Mallet in
considering that the pressures exerted on the crust of our earth may in
volcanic regions be roughly estimated by the height of a column of lava
in the volcanoes of such districts, we see that in the neighbourhood of
a volcano like Cotopaxi the upward pressures must be enormously great.
Further, the phenomena of earthquakes and volcanoes indicate that these
pressures are variable. Before a volcano bursts forth we should expect
that there would be in its vicinity an upward bulging of the crust, and
after its formation a fall. Further, it is not difficult to conjecture
other possible means by which such pressures may obtain relief.
Should these pressures then find relief without rupturing the
surface, it is not difficult to imagine them as the originators of
vast pulsations which may be recorded on the surface of the earth as
wave-like motions of slow period.
As an explanation of the strange movements observed on seas and lakes,
Kluge brings forward the following strange and remarkable theory. The
oxygen of the air is magnetic, whilst water is diamagnetic and the
earth magnetic: we have, therefore, in our seas and lakes a diamagnetic
body lying between and being, consequently, repelled from two magnetic
bodies. By variation in temperature, the balance of repulsions
exerted by the air and the earth is destroyed. Thus, by an elevation
of temperature the air expands and flows away from the heated area,
where, in consequence, there is less oxygen. The result of this is,
that the repulsion of the air upon the waters is less than that of the
earth upon the waters, and the waters are in consequence raised up. By
a falling of temperature the waters may be depressed, and by either
of these actions waves may be produced without the intervention of
earthquakes or earth pulsations.
The more definite kinds of information which we have to bring forward,
tending to prove the existence of earth pulsations, too slow in period
to be experienced by ordinary observers, are those which appear to be
resultant phenomena of great earthquakes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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