212 SEE— FURTHER RESEARCHES ON 



[April 24, 



Such an inference seems justified by the study of the mountains 

 and plateaus of the world, and also by the movement of the strand 

 line which Professor Suess has so carefully traced in every country. 

 Almost everywhere the level of the sea has been lowered in recent 

 geological time. 



During his travels in South America, Darwin recorded many 

 observations to show that Patagonia and the whole end of the 

 continent south of the La Plata had been recently elevated above 

 the sea ; and he mentions a channel in the Andes quite a distance 

 north of the Straits of Magellan which gave evidence of the former 

 passage of the sea through it. In view of these well-established 

 facts, can any one doubt that the Straits of Magellan will eventually 

 become dry and Tierra del Fuego be added to Patagonia? This 

 whole region shows vast walls of rock towering vertically thousands 

 of feet above the sea; evidently they were uplifted by earthquake 

 forces from beneath, sometimes working quietly, and again spas- 

 modically. 



As surely as Calabria in Italy has been uplifted from the 

 Mediterranean, by that sea, just so surely has the southern end of 

 South America been raised up by the southern ocean. And if an 

 end of a continent can be upraised, obviously whole continents can 

 be uplifted. Accordingly in the leakage of the oceans and the relief 

 taking place under the land which bounds them we have the true 

 cause of continent-making. 



Some original inequalities of surface may have existed after the 

 detachment of the moon from the consolidating globe, but these 

 have since been enormously increased by the effects resulting from 

 the leakage of the oceans. As the earth gets older, the lithosphere 

 becomes more diversified, and the face of the earth more and more 

 wrinkled. 



The situation of the great plateaus of the world facing the largest 

 oceans gives a clear indication of the nature of the forces at work 



account of radium, the effect of which would be to diminish this calculated 

 shrinkage, or do away with it entirely. By such comparisons as these, 

 placed along side of the large horizontal and vertical movements noticed in 

 earthquakes near the sea, which sometimes amount to from 30 to 50 feet at a 

 single disturbance, we see the utter untenability of the old theories heretofore 

 current in works on geology and the related sciences. Note added July 28, 

 1908. 



