Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1892 — When New Zealand Sinks. [ARTICLE]

When New Zealand Sinks.

It was formerly, say fifty years ago, nothing uncommon for a new island to appear -above or an old one to disappear beneath the waves of the Pacific Ocean. Such occurrences were sometimes noted as often as two or three times a year, and were so common as to hardly excite comment among navigators and scientists. Of late, however, the Pacific has been “pacific” indeed. It will be thirtysix years this coming summer since the last island disappeared, and exactly a quarter of a century since the last new one popped up its head in the “greatest of oceans.” But geologists argue that this is a suspicious silence, an omen of some monstrous catastrophe; that Dame Nature is simply resting for a mighty effort. Sir Sidney Bell even goes so far as to predict that the whole of New Zealand and the greater part of Australia will be engulfed before the end of the year 1925.