514 SEE— ORIGIN OF HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS. [April i8, 



active volcano Sangai, in the terrible rain belt at the head of the 

 Amazon, in Ecuador, has its activity about doubled during the worst 

 period of the rainy season, owing to the effects of surtace water. If 

 in South America the volcanic forces can be visibly augmented 

 by copious surface water, it is easy to understand that the terrible 

 rains of India may also operate to keep alive the earthquake 

 processes almost as well as an overlying sea. 



The earthquake belt south of the Himalayas is thus perfectly 

 explained. And the extension of this line of disturbance through 

 to the Caspian presents no difificulty, when account is taken of the 

 recent situation of the sea over a large part of this region of 

 western Asia. 



In conclusion it only remains to add that Colonel Burrard's argu- 

 ment, cited in Section i above, that the Himalayas resulted from 

 the pushing of a great mass of matter northzvard, undoubtedly is 

 correct. This fact appears to be as well established as the rising and 

 setting of the sun, and further discussion of the subject is 

 superfluous. 



The cause of this northward movement is also fully established, 

 but it is not that imagined by Colonel Burrard. In the Observatory 

 for May and June, 1912, will be found a discussion by Colonel 

 Burrard of considerable interest, but founded on the premises that 

 the earth's speed of rotation is variable and has undergone con- 

 siderable changes within the period covered by geological history. 



The writer's "Researches on the Evolution of the Stellar Sys- 

 tems," Vol. II., 1910, show that the views formerly held by Lord 

 Kelvin and Sir George Darwin are now quite inadmissible ; and 

 that the earth's rotation has not changed sensibly since the earliest 

 geological time. Thus Colonel Burrard's premise that the retarda- 

 tion of the earth's rotation might cause a flow of matter towards 

 the poles is wholly inadmissible. 



Besides, there are other means of showing that such was not the 

 origin of the Himalayas. These great mountains of India, for 

 example, should no more be due to a change in the earth's rotation, 

 than shoidd the Andes, which run almost exactly north and south, 

 and by their course along the meridian, exclude an explanation 

 founded on a change in the speed of the earth's rotation. 



