OUR THREATENED PERIL FROM THE ANTARCTIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11854, 4 January 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

OUR THREATENED PERIL FROM THE ANTARCTIC.

We are momentarily threatened with a great glacial deluge. So says the eminent geologist, Mr. Leon ; Lewis, and he ;■ claims to be no alarmist. v His latest . work is entitled :, "The Great Glacial Deluge :". and Its Impending Recurrence," and in it he shows that the inevitable disruption of the fifty million cubic miles of ice which coup the South Pole must result iu a. wild rush of the fragments, with all the\Waters which surround it, towards the Norf\ Pole, by way of the Atlantic Ocean, one of the incidental " effects" being that we shall be ice-bound in England. Not only does the scientist say these disagreeable things, but, as though our sluggish flcshsrefused to creep at such suggestions of peril, he coolly invokes as proofs of his theories a host of remarkable and undoubted facts. The situation turns, it appears, upon alleged migrations and cataclysms of the ocean which have come again and again in the world's history, and this awful natural phenomenon is again due. ■ THE BEGINNING OP THE TROUBLE. Indeed, at any moment a cablegram from Monte Video or Buenos Ayres may, tell us that the great glacial deluge is on its way northward ho! , There are no rains or thaws at the South Pole, so that all the snow, that falls almost constantly is converted into ice under pressure?, and the whole mass thickens and widens constantly, despite the losses to which it is subjected by the breaking off of the immense tabular icebergs which have presented themselves to the notice of Lord Kelvin and all navigators in those regions. ' The waters of the surrounding seas are below the freezing point,-as was first noted by the- famous circumnavigator, Captain Cook; and hence there is a constant accretion from this source to the vast bulk resulting from the unwonted snowfall. And now, what are- the consequences of this state of things? Why, during many thousands of years the so-called " Antarctic Continent," or "ice cap," which is simply a huge mountain'of ice, has been getting bigger and : bigger, until it is now as large as North America, and is estimated to possess a surface of eight million square miles. Dr., Croll ("Climate and Time") and Mr. H. B. Morton (Popular Science Monthly, October, 1879) speak of it as being 2800 or 3000 miles is diameter. ' . From a thickness of two or three miles at its edges the slope of this ice continent ascends gradually to the centre at the pole, where, it is estimated by Dr. Croll and many others, the ice is at least twelve miles thick, and is more likely fifteen or twenty. The total bulk or this great accumulation, therefore, cannot be less than fifty million cubic miles of ice. "'.'.; During the whole period of its growth, say twenty-five thousand years, or ever since*the latest of these recurrent floods, 'this vast ice continent has been drawing the ocean from the Northern Hemisphere across the Equator into the Southern. This movement, says Mr. Lewis, accounts for the present situation of affairsthe land in the Northern Hemisphere and the water in the Southern; the flooding of the. Southern Hemisphere and the draining of the Northern. This migration of the waters southward has kept pace perfectly with the growth of the ice cap, and the consequence is that three-fifths of the waters of the globe have been drawn almost a mile to the southward of the earth's former centre of gravity, and are held in this precarious position by the gravitational " pull" of the ice continent— literally suspended almost a mile above our headsin readiness to be let back upon our low-lying lands at any moment. , , Our situation as residents of the Northern Hemisphere is not merely precariousit is one of the most perilous that can ever menace us. All there is between us and destruction, says - Mr, Lewis, ;is the cohesion- of these 50J000,000 cubic miles of, ice. '•■-;.. THE INEVITABLE. Just so long as the great ice cap at the South Pole remains whole just so long will things remain as they now are, with the ''present distribution of land and sea. But the instant the ice cap is broken up that instant we are lost. The disruption of the ice. cap will cause the " pull" of gravitation to be instantly transferred to the northern half of our globe, and the fragments of the ice cap, with all the waters which have been drawn around it, will enter immediately upon a wild rush for the North Pole by way of the Atlantic. There is sure to come a time soon when the cohesion of this great ice mountain will be subjected to a Strain it cannot possibly resist. No one can say how soon the event will take place, but lit is just as sure to come in the near future, says Mr. Lewis, as that two and two make four. But why would this glacial deluge come up the Atlantic? Because the gravitational " pull" of the whole world has hold of it because the line of disruption is midway between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, and for forty other reasons given by Mr. Lewis but into which we need not enter.- ■ -■ i ■ A GLOOMY OUTLOOK. . In coming away from the South Pole the huge icebergs of the flood tear, tremendous furrows in the floor of the ocean, and these furrows have been discovered by recent explorers. . ■ ■:-.,-'; , , Grinding along the coast of Brazil, the deluge would cross the Equator, reaching the coast of Africa at Cape Verde. Here it would be subjected to such a " pull" from the Eastern Hemisphere that it would hug the coasts of North-west Africa and Western Europe, overwhelming Great Britain. Jutland, the Netherlands, South-Eastern Sweden, Finland, and North-Western Russia, and destroying all-life and all the works of human hands throughout those regions. Nor this alone; for when the flood reaches the northernmost regions it will be turned back again, and, we shall be subjected to a second dose of glacial flooding. Indeed, the whole of the Northern Hemisphere will be buried beneath hundreds of fathoms of water and ice.Daily Express. : ••' -