220 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1924 



plating the full earth, " round and shining " in the midst of black 

 space. Would this observer always have under his eyes an orbit of 

 the same aspect, as a child learning geogi-aphy turns in his hands one 

 of those globes prepared for teaching and finds again and again be- 

 fore him the same contours and the same colors ? 



Would this observer always see the same America extending from 

 north to south, gradually contracting from top to bottom, divided 

 in two parts by a large indentation, the lesser being strongly re- 

 fracted toward the east? Would he always see the same mass — 

 Europe, Asia, the Eurasia of Edward Suess, extending parallel to 

 the Equator and broken by long and high mountain chains; then, 

 separated from Eurasia by a zone of indentations, the Mediterranean, 

 the Red Sea, the seas of the Malay Archipelago with their numerous 

 islands, two other great masses, Africa and Australia, which re- 

 semble each other in their massive form, and simple contour with 

 their blunt southern terminations, Australia having Tasmania, a 

 blunt point to the south, and both refracted toward the east in their 

 southern portions after the manner of America? Would he always 

 see between these two great continental systems the same oceans, 

 stretehing out infinitely toward the south, narrowed and almost 

 closed toward the north ? Would there be the same islands — islands 

 on the eastern side of Asia, arranged in garlands parallel to the 

 curve of the coast; islands of Oceania in long archipelagoes which 

 have the form of arcs and which seem from afar like light strokes 

 of the brush on the immense and monotonous painting of the Pacific? 

 The Sunda Islands extending along Asia, first in a regular and or- 

 derly fashion and then mixed as in a kind of whirlpool in the Celebes 

 and the Molucca Seas, finallj'^ becoming united at the north of New 

 Guinea, with one of the insular arcs of Oceania ; the Antilles form- 

 ing a semicircle open to the west; the islands of the extreme south 

 of South America presenting also this arrangement, a semicircle 

 open to the west, a semicircle whose diameter, extending from north 

 to south, reaches from Cape Horn to the South Pole? Has there 

 been for a million years the same geography? Or, indeed, if our 

 observer fell asleep for a moment, if he closed his eyes for some 

 dozens of millions of j^ears, would he have been surprised on awaken- 

 ing to find before his eyes a new and rejuvenated earth, continents 

 with other outlines, different mountains, seas which he did not know, 

 conditions in short which give this suppositional being the sensa- 

 tion of having been inattentive, a feeling of progress, of change, in a 

 word, a sense of time which was before lacking in him? 



All geologists, without hesitation, would respond to a question 

 put in these general terms, that the face of the earth is not unchange- 

 able. All teach that the outlines of the seas vary; that the continents 

 are terra firma only in appearance ; that they are rooted perhaps, but 



