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The Truth about Tidal Waves

Paradoxical as it may sound, tidal waves have caused some of the most terrible disasters in history, yet they occur twice daily without serious results. Here is an explanation of these oceanic upheavals.

by CALVIN FRAZER

ANY kind of an upheaval of the ocean’s surface has generally been called, particularly by newspaper writers, a tidal wave, but according to the strict definitions of science this designation has been a grevious error. The error, unfortunately, has crept into the working vocabularies of scientists themselves, and now tidal wave has come to denote any kind of oceanic disturbance in which the waters of the sea rise up in their might and work havoc on ships at sea and inhabitants of the littoral.

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How Will the World End?

WHAT will the end of the world be like ? In the Fels Planetarium of the Franklin Institute at Philadelphia, recently, thousands of persons witnessed a preview of this spectacle, the most gripping that man will ever see. “Canned” sound effects from great electrical storms added realism to the thrilling images of cosmic cataclysms thrown on the planetarium dome by a giant projector to dramatize four possible ways in which life on our planet may be destroyed—by burning, collision, freezing, and explosion. Paintings reproduced in these pages show the tragic scenes they suggest. Sometimes a star becomes a “nova,” or mysteriously flares up in brightness.

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MODERN ARK IS BUILT TO ESCAPE TIDAL WAVE

Fearing that the tidal wave that swept Yokohama also would destroy the city of Iloilo in the Philippine. Islands, Chinese residents there hastily constructed a raft of bamboo and were prepared to flee to it if the inundation occurred. The rude craft was 84 feet long and 33 feet wide, and in three hutlike cabins were stored provisions for several days, and bolo knives with which the owners expected to fight off anyone else seeking to climb aboard. The feared inundation did not take place.

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Will Polar Waves Swamp America?

Engineer Brown fears the vast Antarctic icecap may upset the world and drown us in a great flood at any moment!

By West Peterson

FARMER Williams was plowing the field back of his red barn in central Indiana shortly before noon. A few more furrows and he could quit for lunch. Then above the regular clatter of his tractor he heard an ominous, ground-shaking rumble. He turned on the tractor seat— and saw a towering mountain of water roaring down upon him.

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