ON TIIH MOVEMENTS OF TTTK KARTIl's CRIT8'l\ 329 



Jictiug verticiilly from below is most decidedly rejected by Sne.ss. lie 

 and Heim have shown, by their investigations of the Alps, that the 

 foldings of the Alps are caused by lateral pressure, and that such lat- 

 eral pressure is sufficient to lift great chains of mountains into the air. 

 But Suess goes still further, for in a memoir, " Ueber die vermeiutlicheu 

 siicularen Schwankungen einzeluer Theile der Erdoberfliiche" (in Verh, 

 K. K. Geol. EeicJis., 1880, pp. 171 et seq.), he even denies any elevation by 

 forces acting vertically from below; — neither mountain nor continent is 

 elevated in this manner. He says (/. c. p. 180) : " There are no vertical 

 movements of the solid ground, with the excei)tion of those which pro- 

 ceed directly from the formation of folds. We shall have to resolve to 

 abandon the doctrine of secular oscillations of continents." 



A. de Lapparent, who sharply criticises Suess's, theory of " Horste" 

 {Bull. Soc. Geol. France, ser, 3, tome xv, pp. 215 et seq.), nevertheless 

 agrees with him that the cooling of the earth has formed great folds in 

 the crust, and denies that any elevations are not caused by foldings. 

 Thus he says [l. c. p. 217) : " It is no longer necessary to oppose to the 

 doctrine of absolute elevations produced by forces acting directly from 

 below upwards, a protestation which has lost its object. For the par- 

 tisans of vertical impulsions are nowadays more than scattered, and with 

 the exception of a very few belated persons no one would now venture 

 to ascribe to such an action an important part in the formation of 

 mountains." As he makes no limitations, it must be assumed that he 

 will not recognize any forces acting from below to elevate whole land- 

 masses. 



According to a statement of Suess's, in his AntUts der Erde (1885, Bd. 

 I, p. 741), he seems to find an essential reason for denying elevation by 

 forces acting perpendicularly from below, in tliat we are quite iguor.int 

 of any force which could be capable of causing such an elevation. 



The theories of Hutton and von Buch as to the action of such forces 

 seem therefore to be rejected by geologists of the present da3^ Nev- 

 ertheless there are still a few who hold similar opinions. Thus J. 

 C. Russel (U. S. Geological Survey, Fourth Annual lleport, Washing- 

 ton, 1884, pp. 452, 453,) says that the fractures in " the Great Basin" 

 are not iu consequence of any lateral i)ressure, but are caused by an 

 extension in a horizontal direction : " The fractures are closely related 

 to an extension of the strata by upheaval." It seems to me improba- 

 ble that such a relation should be explicable by a folding. C. E. Button 

 also (U". S. Geological Survey, Sixth Annual Report, 1885, p. 198,) at the 

 same time that he recognizes that many chains are folde<l by lateral 

 ])ressure, says, with regard to the mountain-masses in Western North 

 America: "The mountains of the West have not been produced by 

 horizontal compression, but by some unknown forces beneath which 

 have pushed them up."* 



"The current doctrines with re<fard to refrif^eration aud compression are discussed 

 by Pierce in a discourao before the American Academy on the llth»May, 186!.) (see 



