Gambar halaman
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Sir-I observe in your paper numerous facts recorded relative to atmospheric phenomena.

I will from time to time give my mite of ob ervations upon these and some other natural appearances. Before correct deductions in such departments of philosophy can be made the verge of observation demands to be carefully enlarged.

I will in this communication describe some meteorlites witnessed by myself during the last forty years and would here remark that the paucity of meteoric stony deposits upon the earth's surface is a strong argument against the countless duration in time past of the subsisting constitution of terrene things.

If but one per annum of those enduring memorials fell, long since they ought to cover the earth's surface were the world indefinitely ancient.

In 1806 a very large meteorlite, in a bright day, exploded west of Salisbury with loud reports, setting on fire, as I was credibly informed by an eye-witness of the fact, two dead pine trees and scattering stony fragments.

Its clattering sound was heard passing from the south west and I would infer it was charged with electric properties.

In Warren county, Tenn., in 1811, at night, a meteorlite exploded with an alarming report, fragments from which were glazed with a thin coating of iron.

In the fall of 1813, 8 o'clock in the evening, in Wilson county, Tenn., an ærolite having the apparent size of a hogshead passed from the south at a low angle of descent.

The light was exceedingly dazzling, attended with countless crackling reports; it scattered stony fragments upon its explosion twenty miles off and returned a sound like distant thunder.

Perceiving the luminous appearance of my room I ran out and was surprised to see the shadows of the adjacent trees so quickly flitting around.

Col. R. E. W. Earle procured a piece of the stone which was composed of the usual ingredients of me

teorlites.

In 1835 I saw a very large sparkling phosphorescent meteor passing from the south west almost horizontally at a great height, and emitting a sound like a rushing wind and the next year another passing north eastward of nearly like appearance but without any sound.

All these meteors arrived from a course between south and west as well as another on or about Feb. 11th, 1812.

This last named descended at an angle of near 45° scattering fragments, among the trees, with several reports like a six pounder.

The light was ssparkling like white heated iron, accompanied with a strong smell of sulphur perceptible half a mile from the place as I retired from it and causing my dogs to quit a fox chase in seeming alarm. At the time some flying clouds cast down a light shower and becoming clear soon after, the sky presented a tremulous appearance resembling the vapor called "Larences" visible over sand plains, in dry sun-shine, or similar to the dark tremulous appearance above a burning brick-kiln.

This indication from the sky together with a dead calm or stillness portended to us that an earthquake would immediately occur and hastening home, the severest shock occurred of that season.

Preceding the shock cattle and horses had collected as usual near our habitation.

The earth then was slightly tremulous, and the dogs manifested much restlessness, while the cattle lowed upon the approach of the dismal sound from the west and chickens at roost clucked with alarm.

By observation for more than 12 months I can state that always preceding an earthquake in that region the atmosphere was affected apparently like it is preceding a severe hurricane in summer.

An absolute calm prevailed for a longer or shorter period, with murky tremulous spots in the air; green leaves ceased to move except that scattered clusters

would occasionally rise, trembling like the aspin, pointing upward and downward alternately.

Preceding storms, most wild fowls and birds busily prepare their feathers for flight, and when they soar high toward any quarter the storm will pass on the opposite side, or if the flights be rapid in opposite courses, the tempest will soon be upon the place they desert.

The earthquakes referred to in the valley of the Mississippi began in December on or about the 17th Dec. 1811, and the ground was more or less tremulous during the following 12 months, greatly disturbing the magnet-needle so that the labors of surveyors were arrested or very imperfectly performed over a large district for the most part of the time.

When the first shock occurred in 1811, I was awake after midnight and hearing the rumbling sound approaching I supposed it to be a hurricane, but quickly the swelling sensation of the ground as if per saltem, intimated the earthquake motion.

The gronnd always seemed to swell upwards, by arrested steps, shaking sideways like a sifting operation and then rising again so as to repeat three or four times and then the sound passing by, the surface ground, would seem to sink, by leaps gently downwards, with intervening side shaking.

I was then situated one hundred and fifty miles due east from Little and Big Praries where was the central forces of these earthquakes near New Madrid.

We at once supposed much destruction had occurred in that unsettled country and soon learned from returning hunters that many boats were lost, extensive districts flooded and sunken, new lakes formed and the bottoms of old ones made dry.

At New Madrid the river ran up stream, returning over flats before dry and the bottom of the lagoon back of the town being raised up, ancient Indian mounds appeared.

When the upheaved ground began to subside the pressure caused water to spout upward from the alluvial soil like large rain drops.

Numerous faults of geologic character were made by the cracks, one side being elevated and the other depressed.

The flats of the Mississippi river being 50 or 60 miles wide and having the upper crust suspended over timber deposits and many hundred feet in depth of white quick sands enveloped in water, allowed lengthy depressions to be made as at Wood Lake.

The green timber covered with the rising waters 10 or 20 feet, soon died and rotted off at the water surface thus leaving forests of stumps horizontal at top, which in many places are now completely covered with alluvian new deposits and at some points a new forest of cotton wood and other luxuriant timber occupies the surface above the standing remains of the former.

Some of the younger cotton woods when enveloped as described, did not die. but at the new made surface put forth a crowd of roots, whilst the center tree becoming a root, has grown but little in size aud now when the river invading the bank, developes this spectacle, it presently engulphs the uprooted tree in its

waters.

It is singular that always when earthquakes happen about this region, accounts arrive of earthquakes at Carraccas, or in the Carrabean Islands, or at some point in the Mexican Gulf immediately preceding them and yet no shocks are felt in the New-Orleans districts directly between them.

Would not this fact indicate that admitting any connection of cause and effect exists between these quaking points so remote from each other, it must act through a channel passing at a deep angle or course below New-Orleans in the interior earth?

Now we know that the pivot or ballancing point of reciprocative gravitation between the moon and the earth always rests some 1500 or 2000 miles within the earth's body, and may it be that this point of neutrality, by the necessary changes of its position, operates as an exitant upon the electro magnetic relations of the earth so that under certain recurring aptitudes chemical results arise suited to yielding earthquake phenom

ena?

At some past period the stratified rocky crust of the earth attained its cleavages and methodized stratification under a more active condition of chemico-electricity than now exists.

That lunar influence acts upon the waters, and causes tides in the atmosphere and among vapors that form clouds, no common sense observer can doubt.

It is also certain that many states of the animal and mental capacities are submissive to the changing relations that subsist between this world and the moon.

Several thousand years ago as geological science and history show, earthquakes were more frequent and destructive than in modern times.

The circle of chemical changes on which they depended has to a great extent been completed.

It is now believed the clorine material from decomposed muriates may support volcanic generation of highly elastic gases, though wholly separated from our atmospheric contact.

It is supposed too that volcanic vents may communicate with points very deep in ocean beds.

The equality of tides at the same time on opposite sides of the earth denote no less the general influences causing tides than the special chemical forces that preserve the water in its fluidity.

The laboratory of the entire atmosphere works out both special and general phenomena with strict uniformity of connections and freedom from many disabilities attaining to experimental or even theoretic chemistry.

It ought not therefore to be esteemed strange if a storm or an earthquake however caused at one place, should originate others, at a point remote, but in more direct dependency, as to those results, than other places of greater proximity.

You perceive then that my opinions would favor a generous examination of the positions you have promulgated in reference to assumed relations between earthquakes, storms und changes of temperature occurring simultaneously or in quick succession at places remotely situated.

In another letter I will give some reasons for supposing that the same laws forming areolites, under circumstances favoring such products, might under other trains of causation eventuate in giving the phenomena of earthquakes.

In doing so I will advert to the probable immediate causes of the meteoric shower of 1833. With esteem, yours, &c.

HEAT IN SICILY.

Throughout Sicily an unexampled heat and drought prevails. On the southern coast of the island, from Trepani to Massala, and even to Girgenti, all vegetation is perishing for want of water. At Trepani, a barrel of water, containing forty-eight to fifty bottles, sells for one franc and fifty centimes, while the same quantity of good table wine costs but seven francs and eighty centimes. If this scarcity of water continues all the harvest, even that of raisins, will fail.

The snow contractors of all the cities of Sicily are in the greatest embarrassment. They had agreed to furnish the population with snow at a moderate price. But last winter the temperature was so mild that very little fell, and the provision of it made at Madonia is exhausted. As snow is indispensable during the summer in Sicily, for the preservation of food, the public exacts of the contractors that they shall procure it, and the latter find themselves compelled to go to the grottoes of Etna, which can only be done at an enormous expense.-Boston Daily Advertiser, Sept. 23.

DROUGHT.

On the two last days in July we had in this neighborhood between three and four inches of rain. Since that time, we have had a few small showers; but the whole amount of rain fallen for ten weeks, has not probably exceeded half an inch. The effect of the drought is very severely felt around us. In this town, many of the wells have given out. At the Plains, six out of seven wells are dry. At the Shoals and at Newcastle, the wells have given out, and water is carried from Portsmouth for the supply. It is so scarce at the latter place, that it has been sold by the quart. It is also very scarce at Kitterey and York. In some places not far from Portsmouth, cattle are driven several miles to be watered. A letter from a lady over eighty years of age, resident at Cornish, near Claremount, on Connecticut River, to a friend in the town, states that the water in the Connecticut, at Cornish, is so low that boys ford the riv er; she never knew it as low before.-Portsmouth (N. H.) Journal, Oct. 13.

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for Judges of the Court of Appeals, 6 Supreme Court,. Weighing all offices for, abolished,... Weights and measures-standards of, how supplied,...

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STATE CONSTITUTION....ERRATA. Art. 1, Sec. 7, 6th line, before word "manner," insert word the instead of "a.'

Sec. 11, at the end of fourth line after word "heirs," should be a comma.

Art. Sec. 2, 6th line, after word "election," and before word "from," should be a comma.

Art. 3, Sec. 10, second line, after word "rule" add an s so as to read rules.

Art. 4, sec. 6, first line, after word "Governor " should be a comma.

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