To demonstrate the size of icebergs, fields of ice and glaciers.
Ocean depths, different estimates of.
The character of volcanic eruptions respecting material thrown out and
final result of filling with water.
For evidences of how long heat will remain when covered after great
fires, the same as in old times when people covered the backlog, and to
show the reason for judging the interior to be molten when the heat is
developed at insignificant depths by friction leading it to a further
volcanic development, or else from an extinct volcano from long time
past.
Artesian Waters, Caverns, Earthquakes, Gulf Streams, Lakes, Springs,
Wells, Islands, etc.
This appendix is added showing cases something in harmony with the
arguments here presented on all these subjects, to which could be added
several times as many more.
While most of the points intended for a brief discussion in this book
have been hit upon, a few words, with some newspaper clippings on
mysterious things, are thought best to be added as a sort of appendix,
and of such a character as to prove of benefit to some readers that see
fit to avail themselves of a few hints to obtain water, for domestic
or irrigating purposes, in an easy way, and where they would naturally
least expect to find it.
At my old home, on the farm where I was born, our well, some thirty
feet deep, nearly every season went dry. I have lugged hundreds of
pails of water from neighbors’ wells and from a spring near the foot of
the hill, one-third of a mile away, during my early life.
The hill is little over a half mile long, and less than one-fourth a
mile wide from its furthest bases. It is shaped like a box turtle,
rising 100 feet or more. There used to be a place near the top, on the
east slope, that looked springy. The recent owner, a few years ago, dug
into this wet spot, and at a few feet found living water, which is now
piped to his house and barns in plenty.
Some years ago my cousin owned the adjoining farm on the north end of
this hill, and employed a man to blast out several large iron rocks,
scattered about on the surface of the hill. One of these rocks, nearly
a rod square, lay almost exactly on the highest part of the hill.
This big rock was full of large cracks, which, in my boyhood, I took a
young visitor to see, explaining to him that these cracks, no doubt,
occurred at the time of the crucifixion, of which pious information I
was frequently reminded in later life. This rock was some eight feet
deep in the ground. When the last blocks were hauled out the space
partly filled with clear water, so cold that it was made available for
drinking. Being in the dryest time of the year, the supply appeared to
be permanent, which induced the laying of pipes one-third of a mile to
barns for watering stock, which before had to be drawn mostly from the
wells.
A man in the town of Durham--Henry Page--for years obtained water
for his house and stock by a hydraulic ram; but, getting a new idea,
took advantage of a knoll, shaped like an inverted bowl, an acre or
two in extent, lying across a field some forty rods from his house.
He dug into the top of this knoll some fifteen feet, striking plenty
of water, which was easily piped all over his premises in abundant
supply. West of his home rose the Besek Mountain, in a gradual rise for
three-fourths of a mile, where it stopped in precipitous ledges, on the
west side, nearly 200 feet high. I have hunted up to the top of these
ledges. Near the top of the mountain is quite a section of swamp, and
nearby descending is a spring that runs a short distance, falling over
a shelving rock, and in two or three rods more is lost in the loose
stones. It is there in the dryest seasons. Similar to this is a lake
on Talcott Mountain, a short distance from Wadsworth Tower, and only
a few rods from the abrupt ledges that overlook the towns of Simsbury
and Farmington. Hundreds of such cases are in evidence all over the
country, and it is quite sure that a large majority of those interested
by reading this book will think of various similar cases that have been
a query in their minds, “Why they were so.”
While a great number of peculiar features of this kind can be recorded,
I will take time to relate a case or two farther from home.
My cousin, who took the Scripture lesson of the rock and its rendings,
spent his last days in Southern California, where springs are rare, and
orange groves and vineyards depend greatly upon irrigating for water.
He was located at Duarte, about twenty miles east of the city of Los
Angeles, in one of the finest orange and lemon groves in the State.
While they had provisions for irrigating, the lack of drinking water
was seriously felt.
Visiting at my house some twenty years ago, where he chiefly made his
Eastern home, he listened to my cranky ideas as set forth in this work.
At first he scoffed, but being a good reasoner, he afterward thought
the idea worth trying, and promised on his return to experiment and
report, as I had convinced him of several successes here. In less than
a month I got word from him that “he had struck it.” The grove lay at
the foot of the San Gabriel Mountain, not one-quarter of a mile away.
I advised him to select some place in the side of the mountain where
the tree growth was greenest, which he did, and got all the pure water
needed.
A Mr. Fitzgerald, owning a large grove about a mile west, similarly
located, took the hint and obtained quite a favorable result. When
visiting these groves in 1894, almost the first thing Mr. Fitzgerald
wanted to show me was his bountiful supply of spring water, tapped
from the side of the mountain. These hints and cases are related as
suggestions to any reader who may wish to better his water supply.
Don’t go into the low ground for it, but tap the hills and high lands,
where all the fountains of the earth are in abundance.
In Southern California three seasons out of four the plains and valley
lands become too dry for pasturage of cattle and horses and bands of
sheep, and a general hegira is made toward the mountains. While the
Winter rains swell the streams running to the coast, filling their
banks with rushing waters, by May and June a buggy can be hauled
through every stream from San Francisco to San Diego without wetting
the hubs of the wheels. The small streams are all dried up, and water
for stock rare to find. As you go toward the mountains you meet the
series of foothills like inverted bowls, the tops of which show growth
of bulrushes and fleur de lis. At the foot of the hills will be found
some of the drippings from the streams starting farther back. As these
hills rise in groups, higher and higher toward the mountains, the
green tops show more and more, and the streams increase in volume,
affording good fishing for trout. Standing on the tops of these sugar
loaf formations in the grazing season, one is reminded of Abraham’s
herds of cattle on a thousand hills, to be seen as far as the eye can
reach. In southern Minnesota is a long range of highlands thrown up,
which they term a mountain chain, but scarcely anywhere is there an
upheaval of rocks or any ledges. Over this range every Spring and Fall
season will be seen thousands of flocks of ducks, brant, wild geese
and sand hill cranes. The springs do not gush out in streams as from
rocky formations, but ooze up into great mounds, frequently involving
an acre or more, like a great conical sponge, up the side of which
you can walk, the water gushing out under every footstep, giving an
impression that you may sink in all the way to the top, where you will
find an open spring several feet across, the water from which seems to
be absorbed by this spongy mound of earth and vegetation, so that a
stream rarely runs away. This ridge being the highest land in sight,
where does this water come from? In a country surrounding which, it is
necessary to carry water in kegs for the dogs to drink when hunting
over it.
The conclusion of this work will be made up of a variety of clippings
from newspapers for several years past, of which these are a small
part. These clippings are published as seeming mysteries, but which,
by the adoption of the theory promulgated of a hollow earth holding an
ocean of fresh waters, seem easy of solution. If any other method can
be suggested to answer these puzzling questions, it is to be hoped some
genius will reveal it. If the assertions made in this book are true,
polar expeditions are and will continue to be as futile as an attempt
to signal the inhabitants of Mars, or to get up a correspondence with
the man in the moon. Not presuming to exhaust this subject in so brief
a treatise, the field is left open, and large enough for the thoughts
and observations of men of greater ability to discuss than yours truly.