1907. 



AND CONTRACTION OF THE EARTH. 275 



down in recent geological time ; and on the assumption that the 

 globe is shrinking, he thinks the whole of Asia Minor may some 

 day collapse, and thus connect the Pontus and the Caspian directly 

 with the ^Mediterranean. According to the view here adopted noth- 

 ing could be further from the truth than such an hypothesis. For, 

 in the first place, we have shown that as the effect of cooling is 

 insensible, the earth is not contracting ; and, in the second place, that 

 the movements of the crust are due to the action of a substratum 

 just beneath, which in earthquakes behaves as fluid. 



Moreover, the relative situation of the rocks about the ^gean 

 Sea will be the same whether that sea has recently sunk down, or 

 the whole of Asia Minor has been raised up. There is no histori- 

 cal evidence of the sinking of the ^gean Sea, except that furnished 

 by the disturbances due to earthquakes, and the geological evidence 

 is capable of a double interpretation. The prevalence of earth- 

 quakes in Asia Minor is a proof that subterranean movement is 

 now going on there; otherwise such places as Apamea in Phrygia, 

 Smyrna, Mitilene, Antioch and numerous other cities would not 

 have suffered so much from earthquakes within historical times. 

 The whole coast of Asia ]\Iinor and of Syria has been subject to 

 severe earthquakes since the earliest ages ; and the ruins of temples 

 at such places as Palmyra and Balbec are to be explained partly by 

 the effects of political revolutions and partly by the ravages of 

 time, but more especially by the leveling influence of earthquakes. 



In his work on " Earthquakes in the Light of the new Seis- 

 mology," Major Button gives an account of the different kinds of 

 seismic sea waves, and remarks that those in the eastern Mediter- 

 ranean have usually been characterized by a preliminary with- 

 drawal of the water before the wave returns to inundate the shore. 

 Such waves are the only kind mentioned by Aristotle, which shows 

 that they were familiar to the Greeks at an early age. 



Now if the waves are predominantly of this class, just as along 

 the west coast of South America, it follows that the sea bottom 

 sinks, and has therefore been undermined in the process of ele- 

 vating the mountains and the coasts. Asia Minor and Syria are 

 covered with mountains of a complex character, and many move- 

 ments of these mountains have been observed within the period 



