Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453, by Various

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Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453
Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852

Author: Various

Editor: William Chambers
Robert Chambers

Release Date: August 1, 2007 [EBook #22199]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 453. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2_d._

A POSSIBLE EVENT.

Occupied as most of us are with our respective worldly concerns, and
accustomed to see the routine of common events going on smoothly from
age to age, we are little apt to reflect on natural events of a
tremendous character, which modern science shews might possibly
happen, and that on any day of any year. We think of the land as a
firm and solid thing--as _terra firma_, in short--not recollecting
that geology shews how it may rise or sink, so as to pass into new
relations to the enveloping sea; how it may be raised, for instance,
to such an extent as to throw every port inland, or so far lowered as
to submerge the richest and most populous regions. No doubt, the
relations of sea and land have been much as they are during historical
time; but it is at the same time past all doubt, that the last great
geological event, in respect of most countries known, was a
submergence which produced the marine alluvial deposits; and when we
find that Scandinavia is slowly but steadily rising in some parts at
this moment, and that a thousand miles of the west coast of South
America rose four feet in a single night only thirty years ago, we
cannot feel quite assured, that the agencies which produced that
submergence, and the subsequent re-emergence, are at an end. We
likewise forgot, in these cool districts of the earth, that we are not
quite beyond the hazard of su