REASONS FOR EARTHQUAKES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3121, 23 February 1909, Page 4

REASONS FOR EARTHQUAKES.

Professor Little, of the University of Pennsylvania, recently lectured to the students of that institution on the "Causes of Earthquakes." He said in part:—"Until twenty years ago it was believed that the co<e of the earth was a molten ball. Darwin demonstrated that this could net be so, and it has come to be believed that this core is as hard as steel. With this new belief came a new jnderstanding of the causes of earthquakes. It is no longer believed that the lava from a volcano is belched from this ball, following: the breaking of the crust of toe earth. Volcanoes occur in mountainous districts, and mountain chains follow the sea. The mountains are regarded as rockformations pressed up through the earth by the pressure of the sea upon the earth's surface. The mountains, in their pressure upon the substance which supports them, develop intense heat at their hidden bases, creating molten masses th#>re. When the strain of their weight reaches a certain point balance is disturbed and the earthquake results, with perhaps a discharge of this molten upon the surface of the earth as it seeks a vent. A multitude of elements may cause an earthquake. The sea may press upon the * earth, the strain of its weight falling upon some subterranean spot weakened by pressure, and cause a quake in the redistribution of this weight. The sediment which is brought down to the sea by rivers i 3 an element to be considered, changing/the force of gravitation at the spots at which the deposits are made."