Fifty years in Wall Street
banking institutions. Our merchants, I am satisfied, are ready to
respond to a movement of this character; are the bankers and the
capitalists equally prepared to provide the facilities?
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CHAPTER LIII.
EARTHQUAKE THEORIES AND WALL STREET AFFAIRS.
THE SHOCK OF EVERY CALAMITY FELT IN WALL STREET.—EARTHQUAKES THE ONLY
DISASTERS WHICH SEEM TO DEFY THE POWER OF PRECAUTION.—BECOMING A
SUBJECT OF SERIOUS THOUGHT FOR WALL STREET MEN AND BUSINESS MEN.—THE
VOLCANO THEORY OF EARTHQUAKES.—OTHER CAUSES AT WORK PRODUCING THESE
TERRIFIC UPHEAVALS.—WHY CHARLESTON WAS MORE SEVERELY SHAKEN UP THAN
NEW YORK.—WHY THE SOUTHERN EARTHQUAKE DID NOT STRIKE WALL STREET
WITH GREAT FORCE.—EARTHQUAKES LIKELY TO BECOME THE GREAT DISASTERS
OF THE FUTURE.
Wall Street is the financial centre of this country as much so as London
is recognized to be the financial centre of the world at the present
time. Hence it is really the heart of the nation, through which its
financial blood flows to invigorate and impart new life to every section
of the land. Hence, also, every section and city have an influence on
Wall Street. When the Chicago fire occurred it immediately created a
panic. When a calamity occurs at any part of the country the shock is
first felt in Wall Street. When a large failure happens, such as that of
a bank or important railway, in any other locality, the influence is at
once imparted to Wall Street. This is owing to the fact that Wall Street
is the recognized and only market for securities of every description.
All sections are dependent upon it, because it controls the money
market. It is the great connecting link of the financial transactions of
the whole country. A probable disaster through fire, like that which
occurred at Chicago, is now no longer a terror to the Street or to the
country, as was the case for a long time after that terrible calamity,
for the reason that methods have been adopted for the purpose of
restricting the conflagration and confining it within narrow limits.
Fires which occur now are soon extinguished, and it is unlikely that
they can ever play such havoc as they have done in the past. The
possibility, with our enlarged experience, of taking precaution against
those various calamities has robbed fires of most of their former
terrors. Science and machinery have furnished us with the means of
grappling with them.
But the one great, and now very alarming exception, which seems to defy
the power of science and every human precaution, is an earthquake. This
remarkable phenomenon has awakened great interest and inspired terror in
the minds of the people at the present time, because the exhibition of
its destructive powers is fresh in our memories on account of its
terrific visitation at Charleston. Hence, many people are in great fear
that some other section of the country may be stricken at any moment
with a similar overwhelming disaster. It is the insidious and uncertain
nature of the calamity that strikes the mind with awe. There is no
possibility of anticipating it or making the least provision to avoid
its dreadful consequences. The Charleston earthquake wiped out over ten
millions of property. It came, like a thief in the night, and before
morning the greater portion of the city was a mass of ruins. When we
reflect on the extent of the destruction of property, it is marvellous
how few people were killed—only about one hundred, and only two or three
hundred were wounded. One of the greatest wonders why this calamity
should have occurred in Charleston is, that part of the city has stood
for nearly two centuries, and the recent earthquake has been the first
it has experienced. Another curious circumstance is, that the disaster
should have occurred on so large a scale there, as the locality is so
far removed from the region of any volcano.
This clearly demonstrates that the old “volcano” theory of earthquakes
is thoroughly exploded, and we must seek for causes and the explanations
in other quarters. Although Wall Street has not been governed by any
known law of earthquakes, except as regards the fluctuations of the
properties in a bear market dealt in at the Exchange, yet a great number
of Wall Street habitues, as well as other business men, are beginning to
think seriously on the subject of earthquakes, and are attempting to
penetrate their causes. Reflecting upon the upheaval—or rather the
settling down of Charleston—I have come to the conclusion that similar
disasters may be looked for in other localities, hitherto not subject to
them, and considered by scientists absolutely free from these phenomena,
at least on so large a scale. These peculiar disturbances that now make
life so precarious on this planet, I attribute to the innumerable and so
largely increasing excavations going on in various parts of the country,
in the different mining operations, which displace the underpinning of
the surface and cause it to sink beneath the weight which it carries. Of
all the great mining industries which conspire to produce earthquakes, I
think that of oil plays the most important part, and is the most
treacherous in its operations beneath the surface of the earth. The
pumping of oil from the bowels of the earth has been going on for thirty
years in this country in several districts. I believe it is not too
large an estimate to state that in that time an enormous lake of oil has
been removed, that would probably fill the basin of Lake Erie or
Ontario. That fluid made its way, probably, some of it from long
distances in subterraneous rivers before reaching the place where the
nature of the soil permitted it to gush through a shaft to the surface,
as it does in such abundance in the oil regions of Pennsylvania. Some of
those undercurrents may have come from other States, percolating through
and disintegrating the soil in their passage for hundreds of miles,
until they found an outlet, on the principle that all fluids have a
tendency to find their level. There may be a great underground reservoir
of this oil, which has taken many years to penetrate through the earth
owing to the tendency stated, cleaving, in its subterraneous journey,
fissures through ranges of mountains, and thus loosening the earth and
taking away the support from the surface wherever it has penetrated. The
fluid, percolating through various strata of clay and rock, has
displaced these in its course. Owing to this displacement there must, of
necessity, be a settling down of the land in the various regions through
which the oil has passed, which will, of course, differ in degree owing
to the density of the rock or clay. If the earth should be of a pulpy,
soft nature the settling will be greater, and when it happens to be the
foundation of a town or city the catastrophe will also be greater in
inverse proportion to the degree of consistency of the earth. It is
presumable, therefore, that some of the streets beneath the foundation
of Charleston is of this pulpy, yielding character, and hence great was
the fall of that city.
When New York was visited by the earthquake in 1884, and at various
other times, there was only a moderate shaking up, comparatively
speaking. Why? Because its substructure is solid stone to an immense
depth, even lower than the depths of the ocean. Of these subterraneous
rivers of which I have spoken we have many examples besides that of oil,
and also proofs that they traverse great distances, as, for instance, in
the case of the Saratoga Springs. It is clearly demonstrated that in the
case of these and other springs the waters must come from various
sources, and pass through many varieties of minerals before they arrive
at their destination, and thus receive the combination of elements which
impart to them their medicinal qualities. Then there are numerous
instances of this remarkable power of water in the case of these
monstrous land slides in mountainous regions, such as the Alps. In the
act of attempting to find its level, too, water sometimes exerts its
influence, in breaking up rocks, equal in its manifestation to a
powerful explosive. Thus we see the great influences that are at work
everywhere capable of producing earthquakes without the necessity of
resorting to the volcanic theory and without the aid of fire.
In further illustration of this theory of earthquakes, let us suppose
that one of these immense oil lakes which must exist in the bowels of
the earth should be situated beneath a mountain, where it has been
undisturbed for ages, but through some recent disturbing cause—most
likely that of excavating, to which I have referred—it begins to find an
outlet through various fissures. When once started, this great mass of
fluid matter begins to go with a rush, forcing innumerable outlets,
until the internal lake is in a measure exhausted. This creates an
immense vacuum, which deprives the mountain of a large portion of its
support; hence there is a settling down of several inches or several
feet, according to the nature and the solidity of the support. It is
this process of settling down and the struggle of the large masses of
fluid to force their way out, that create the rumbling noise resembling
that of distant thunder, and which also cause the tremulous and
quivering motion felt at the surface of the earth, and still more
distinctly in the houses, and most distinctly of all in the upper
stories thereof. These effects may be produced at a great distance from
the original cause of action, varying, of course, in their intensity
according to that distance. Several of these effects have been
distinctly experienced in Charleston since the first great catastrophe,
but showing that the cause is weaker and further removed from the scene
of the disaster than it was during the first fearful shock.
The Charleston earthquake did not strike Wall Street with very great
force. The very fact of its weak effect upon the great financial centre
of gravity created about as much surprise in the Street as the frightful
shock itself did in a very different and opposite manner upon the people
of Charleston. The reason that the great catastrophe which overwhelmed
Charleston had so little effect on Wall Street was chiefly owing to the
fact that comparatively little loss fell upon the corporations or the
people connected with Wall Street interests. The loss of ten millions
fell mainly upon the people of the doomed city alone. Only a small
portion fell upon people located elsewhere either in the North or the
South. Had such a disaster happened in any of the large cities North,
East or West, owing to their intertwining connections with Wall Street,
a panic would have been the result not unlike the one which followed the
Chicago fire.
Earthquakes are likely to become the great disasters of the future most
to be dreaded. Our population now comprises sixty millions, which, at
the present rate of increase, will soon reach one hundred millions.
Among these is a large proportion of go-ahead, driving men, who are
constantly diving into the bowels of the earth to dig up the vast
treasures which are there concealed. Through this laudable enterprise
the underpinning of the surface of our globe is being constantly
disturbed; and though it is far from a consoling reflection, the time
may come, and may not be far distant, when such calamities as that of
Charleston may be as common as railroad accidents are now.
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CHAPTER LIV.
AUGUST BELMONT.
THE AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ROTHSCHILDS.—BEGINS LIFE IN THE