316 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PAL/EONTOLOGY. 



detailed comparison with the phenomena of crust-fracture 

 in nature. Daubree also elucidated the influence of such 

 fractures on the subsequent surface conformation of the earth, 

 and especially on valley erosion. 



Reyer in his Theoretische Geologic, published in 1888, 

 discusses the causes and phenomena of crust-ruptures. He 

 refers fractures to differences of tension arising from various 

 causes, inequality of the superincumbent weight or in the 

 rate of gain and loss by chemical changes, and inequality in 

 the access or abstraction of heat in the rocks of adjacent 

 areas. Dr. Reyer cites numerous examples of step-faults, 

 trough-faults, and fault-nets, in order to show that areas of 

 subsidence bounded by fault-fissures are frequently strength- 

 ened by the injection of eruptive masses, and are rendered 

 so much the more resistant in subsequent crust-disturbances. 



The first volume of Suess's Antlitz der Erde appeared in parts 

 during the years 1883-85 ; the second volume followed in 1888; 

 and the third and last volume has recently been completed. 

 The author incorporates in this work many ideas which he 

 had enunciated in skeleton in the Entstehung der Alpen. 

 But the later work is not limited to the consideration of the 

 origin of mountains and continents, it .surveys the whole 

 history of terrestrial change in the course of the geological 

 epochs. In the hands of the most accomplished of foreign 

 geologists, and one of the strictest logicians of any age, crust- 

 tectonics may be almost said to have been elevated into a 

 new inductive philosophy of earth-configuration. 



The leading purpose of the work is to explain the present 

 conformation of the earth's surface upon the basis of the 

 previous changes in the oceans and continents of the earth. 

 And first the movements in the solid outer framework of the 

 earth are considered. 



Suess begins by discussing the Deluge of the Scriptures, 

 as one of the last grand geological events, which visited 

 Mesopotamia with a devastating inundation, probably the result 

 of an earthquake or a cyclone from the Persian Sea. In 

 addition to the Mosaic account, the Izdubar Epic of the 

 Babylonian Berosus serves as the historical basis of this 

 chapter. 



A second chapter treats of Earthquakes, and a third 

 elucidates the various kinds of dislocations associated with the 

 contraction of the earth's nucleus. The movements are 



