Professor Explains New Theory About the Moon's Origin

Nebraska, 1910

Prof. Swezey Gives Explanation of Idea Advanced by Scientists on Moon

Professor G. D. Swezey at convocation at the university summer school this morning delivered an illustrated lecture on the moon. He took up the theory recently advanced by some scientists that the substance of the moon was broken loose from the earth in the region of what is now the Pacific ocean and that the departure from there of this amount of matter is what has left the Pacific basin. He told the students that he would give the theory for what it was worth as he was not ready to take up the theory nor to flatly reject it.

By means of his stereopticon views he pointed out the facts that help to make the theory plausible. He mentioned the fact that the moon has a mass about one-eightieth of the earth. To obtain this amount of material would require the skimming off the crust of the earth to a depth of some thirty-five miles. It is of course known that the Pacific is not that deep, but if the earth were in a semi-plastic condition at the time the material was taken from the crust it would readily run back partially at least into the spherical shape.

The professor had a diagram showing the possibility that the continents of the western hemisphere may have torn asunder from those of the eastern hemisphere as the land moved toward the great gap left in the Pacific basin by the departure of the moon. It is found that in bringing the two hemispheres together the outline of the coast lines of South America and Africa fit each other as though they had been torn apart with a few allowances for possible readjustment and rearrangement of the continental fragments. The same is true in a less marked degree in North America and Europe.

—Lincoln Evening News, Lincoln, Nebraska, Aug. 10, 1910, p. 7.

The Instinct of Birds — A Storm Coming

1901

While a British brig was gliding smoothly along before a good breeze in the South Pacific, a flock of small birds about the size, shape and color of paroquets, settled down in the rigging, and passed an hour or more resting.

The second mate was so anxious to find out the species to which the visiting strangers belonged that he tried to entrap a specimen, but the birds were too shy to be thus caught, and too spry to be seized by the quick hands of the sailors. At the end of about an hour the birds took the brig's course, and disappeared, but toward nightfall they came back and passed the night in the maintop.

The next morning the birds flew off again, and when they returned at noon the sailors scattered some food about the decks. By this time the birds had become so tame that they hopped about the decks picking up the crumbs.

That afternoon an astonishing thing happened. The flock came flying swiftly toward the brig. Every bird seemed to be piping as if pursued by some invisible enemy on wings, and they at once huddled down behind a deck house. The superstitious sailors at once called the captain of the brig, who rubbed his eyes and looked at the barometer. A glance showed that something was wrong with the elements, and the brig was put in shape to outride a storm.

The storm came about 20 minutes after the birds had reached the vessel. For a few minutes the sky was like the waterless bottom of a lake — a vast arch of yellowish mud — and torrents of rain fell. Why it did not blow very hard no one knows; but on reaching port, two days later, they learned that a great tornado had swept across that part of the sea. — Our Dumb Animals.