1906.] 



SEE— THE CAUSE OF EARTHQUAKES. 



315 



is to claim that the sea, because of its fluid nature, flows into the 

 depressions in the earth's crust, which are due to subsidence or 

 collapse ; and when these depressions are filled up they are bound 

 to be surrounded by higher regions of hills or mountains, due to 

 wrinkles in the crust. This method of reasoning ignores the exact 



Fig. 10. 



parallelism to the seashore, which held for every mountain chain in 

 the world at the time of its formation, and still holds for nearly all 

 the principal ranges, though in a few cases the lapse of ages has 

 modified the direction of the shore of the adjacent sea. 



The result here established is, therefore, a fundamental law of 

 nature, and it gives the key to the leading phenomena of the earth's 

 surface. 



