CONTINENTAL DISPLACEMENT — SCHUCHERT 253 



the region of Bering Sea is known on the basis of fossils to have 

 been of the nature of a shelf sea, thus permitting intermigrations of 

 marine life between the Asiatic and American sides of the Pacific 

 and into the Arctic as well. Not only this, but because of the shallow 

 waters of Bering Sea there was made here from time to time after 

 the Cambrian a land bridge which permitted the land floras and 

 faunas to radiate from America to Asia or in the opposite direction. 

 Of the many criticisms made by Diener against the Wegener 

 hypothesis, this was the only one that the latter answered, saying: 



Diener's objection, " Whosoever pushes North America on to Europe breaks 

 its connection at the Behring Straits with the Asiatic continental blocl£," is only 

 met with in a Mercator's map but not on a globe, for the movement of North 

 America consists essentially of rotation. At this point the blocks were never 

 torn away from each other. 



The plasteline method shows clearly that this can not be done with- 

 out great distortion, and if the western connection is to be retained, 

 as it must, then it leaves Newfoundland GOO miles southw^est of Ire- 

 land. All through Wegener's book he insists that Newfoundland 

 must be fitted against Ireland, yet when we do this we find that 

 Diener is correct in saying that this tearing apart of Asia and 

 America is fatal not only to the tectonic structures of Siberia and 

 Alaska, but also to the very necessary migration routes for plants 

 and animals. 



Wegener's reply to all of this will be, of course, that if the nearly 

 north-south trending Cordilleras of the western United States and 

 the Appalachians had been straightened out, the required width 

 would have been obtained to close up the gap between Alaska and 

 Siberia. To which the writer counters that the mountains of Siberia 

 and Alaska trend about east and west and the same is true for the 

 northeastern end of the Appalachians in Newfoundland, so that we 

 fail to gain the required land, but what is more significant is that the 

 geology of Ireland and the Paleozoic sediments of Great Britain 

 ! demand a wide land west and northwest of Ireland. 



This and the criticisms still to follow show that our difficulties in 

 present-day orthodox geology are by no means so unstirmountable 

 as are those of Wegener's making. 



HOW LONG WILL A COAST LINE RETAIN ITS INHERITED SHAPE? 



I 



As Lake says, undoubtedly it is the fitting of South America 

 against Africa that makes the most general appeal. The corre- 

 ( spondence in their coast lines has often been noticed — in fact, the 

 philosopher, Francis Bacon, is said to have observed it in the six- 

 teenth century — and vague suggestions have been made that they 

 may have come apart from one another. This striking similarity of 



