very little thought or attention is paid to the insidious changes produced by water on the earth’s surface.
not a day passes, or has gone by, but that a large quantity of material is transferred from one locality to another. every shower carries from some higher point to a lower, and a certain amount of drift goes toward some ocean. small streams contribute to the larger ones, and all lead to the great ocean reservoirs. in going across our country many important evidences are to be seen of the immensity of work accomplished by water, in the removal of vast areas and depths of land.
one of the most noticeable and apparent seen by the writer is in the valley of the rio grande, in passing through new mexico and at some other points. for more than 100 miles through[89] this valley in the spring and summer you seem to be following an ordinary creek that gives little idea of the importance attached to such a stream as the rio del norte. you see a stream, only thirty or forty feet wide, with steep, abrupt banks, of a sort of adobe soil, some six to ten feet high.
at various places, if you observe, in the bends of the stream these perpendicular banks of earth will be caved off into the water, at frequent intervals. when the next annual freshet comes this loosened earth is carried away toward the gulf of mexico, and portions of it reach there while other parts will be lodged at different points on the way.
now this visible, and natural process, has been going on for ages, and the effect of this incessant work and stupendous result is to be seen far as the eye can reach for hundred of miles.
here follow the proofs of this long and diligent labor. in all directions you see hills, or immense mounds of land, like inverted deep pans, with flat bottoms, of all sizes, so that their flat tops would include from one acre to hundreds. these mounds all have quite precipitous sides, subject to the wash of every rainy season. as you study the character of these high mounds you will soon be convinced they are not upheavals, as their[90] tops in all directions seem to have a common level. among these mounds will be occasional ones that have been washed away to a point, and here and there one reduced to half its original height. these hill-tops, if they may be so called, were beyond doubt, at some very remote time in the past, the common level of the country for hundreds of miles, and as they will average 100 feet high or more, it is beyond the power of conjecture to estimate the time required to wash all the vast area away that once existed to make up the level of this valley.
another similar exhibition is at and near river falls, in wisconsin, a town on the east bank of the mississippi, some thirty miles east of st. paul. here the same occurrence seems to have taken place, of a washing away of the greatest bulk of the land, and leaving similar mounds with their flat tops, on many of which are quite extensive farms, approached by very precipitous roads at some favorable point on their sides. these mounds seem to have different strata of soft rock, on which they stand, the lowest and thickest of gray sandstone, quite soft, and must, with the others, be gradually wasting away by frosts, and other agencies to disintegrate. only one yellowish stratum is strong enough to be used for some building purposes.
[91]while there are hundreds of these mounds that must have once been the level of the whole country, that which is now left is a very level and fertile soil, producing some of the finest wheat, and best quality of potatoes in the state.
these instances are only two out of thousands of a similar nature in this country and all over the world.
the tendency of this drift is mostly as the streams of water run toward the equator or center of greatest motion.
the vast deserts and other accumulations of sand on the earth are only the deposits of ancient rivers into then existing seas, which by later surface upheavals, by interior hydraulic forces, have been transferred to other beds, and the deserts like sahara, atacama, mojave, and the steppes of asiatic tartary, remain as evidences.
by these enormous changes of soil it seems rational to believe the uniform and unvarying revolution of the earth could hardly be possible, and that more or less change during great length of years must be made in form as well as time of revolving. have not both occurred? riding down the quinnipiac valley to new haven, conn., a man is likely to inquire in his mind where those sand plains came from. some think the connecticut once flowed there, some the[92] niagara or st. lawrence; if so, where did they bring the sand from?
think of the change bound to come in the future, when the falls of niagara cut their way back to lake erie, thus letting out its waters, enough to construct it into a large river.
some channel has evidently been lowered to settle the surface of lake michigan, as can be plainly seen in leaving chicago by boat, that the waters on the western banks were once twenty or more feet above present level. either the lake has settled or the land has risen. as deserts are nearly all below the ocean surface, is it not presumable that this enormous accumulation of sand has had the effect of such depression, while the transference from other localities has thinned earth’s crust enough to make easy the internal water pressure to lift up the hills and mountains, through which the great water courses of the earth are supplied? think of the transportation of soil to the deltas of the mississippi, amazon, ganges and other rivers amounting to millions and millions of tons every year, and imagine when the time will come when the earth approaches the form of a wheel, or ring, nearer than a globe, and become a small imitation of saturn.
assuming that this is, and has been one cause of the great upheavals, is it not suggestive that[93] the original of the earth’s surface in its formation millions of years past, was nearly or quite free from hills, and mountains, and the inside as well as exterior has been undergoing radical changes?
great masses of earth on the outside accumulated by floods and washed from higher points have dammed up and smothered the flow from inside, while the sections of the earth that have contributed to this mass have been thrown up into exterior mountains, and the depressions made inheavals to a corresponding extent.
from this reasoning it might appear why africa and australia, with their vast area of deserts, are less supplied with rivers and lakes proportionally to other continents; the same deficiency of mountains being noticeable. on the other hand, the rest of the continents and islands abound in mountains, lakes, springs and rivers. the great present groups of islands of oceanica, will, perhaps, in the distant future, all be joined to one mass, and while they may rise higher, others in present use may sink.
the legend of atlantis may be repeated in some coming age, and perhaps a new bible story will record the seagoing experience of another noah; but if so, it is hoped he will have a bigger ship, and better provided with modern improvements[94] and other sanitary arrangements than the old boat seemed to be for so long and important a voyage. from what has been written on surface influence of water is it not reasonable that polar variations must have occurred through the millions of years mother earth has been whirling through space? the writer does not assume to know all claimed in this discussion, being an agnostic in this as well as in spiritual knowledge; but if some full-grown scientific giant will rise up and give any more plausible reasons for why things are as they are, i shall be delighted to sit on some little stool and let him thrust the information into my bewildered cranium.
