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Show Why Dm the Xartb Quake The earthquake theory which seems most probable, and the one which has the most adherents, is the one which tell us that the "quake" Is caused by an effort ef-fort f ta.ternal heat to make its escape through a etk part of the surrounding earth crust. How thick the earth's crust is would be a hard matter to find out for a certainty. . The German government is now nt work upon a shaft (if it has not been recently abandoned), near Sohlade- bach, with the object especially 01 obtaining ob-taining trustworthy data concerning the rate of increcse in the earth' temperature tempera-ture as it oears the interior. The last statement the writer read cor.cernlng this shaft said that it was at that time 1,302 meters in depth. Iho temperature was about 48 dega. centigrade, equal to about 120 Fahrenheit. If it increases uniformly as the depth increases, as it lias heretofore, the boiling point of water will be reached at about 0,000 meters (providing the shaft could be sunk to that depth), which ' equal to about two miles. At this rate of increase the point at which platinum melts would be found to be at a depth of forty-fire miles. According to these figures the earth's crust cannot be more than one-ninetieth of its radius. Professor Newcomb, connected with the naval observatory ut Washington, said at the time of the August earthquake earth-quake in 1884: "The only common sense explanation of an earthquake, to my mind, is that down in the bowels of the earth, say from 20 to 100 miles beneath the surface, there is fluid matter, boiling at a white heat, which as it gradually becomes cooled, contracts, leaving a space between it and the solid parts, and the heavy weight of the earth abovo the vacant place causes the earth to sink, then you have your earthquake. " -St. Louis Republic |