Editorial 



The great success which has attended the application of 

 photography to the determination of the positions and move- 

 ments of stars may well stimulate geologists to attempt a similar 

 application to earth movements. It is a not uncommon belief 

 among mountaineers that peaks which were formerly not visible 

 from certain points of view have recently come into sight, and 

 conversely that points formerly in view have disappeared from 

 sight. There is nothing incredible in this if warping is in active 

 progress, and it would seem worthy of being put to the test of 

 exact observation. It would not be difficult to take photo- 

 graphic panoramas from selected points of view, and to record 

 with precision the positions of the camera, so that views could 

 be taken from exactly the same points at subsequent dates. A 

 comparison of such views would serve to show whether any 

 appreciable warping of the crust is in progress or not. The 

 effect of degradation on the one hand, and of snow accumula- 

 tion, on the other, could easily be eliminated, and the influence 

 of refraction might be avoided by taking the photographs in 

 precisely similar conditions of atmosphere and light, or the 

 proper correction could be made. As this method is probably 

 applicable only to serrate alpine tracts, it is to be hoped that 

 some of the geologists of those regions will interest themselves 

 so far as to take and duly register a first series of photographs 

 so that comparison may be made at some future time. 



T. C. C. 



The doctrine of alternate quiesence and readjustment of the 

 crust of the earth serves such a radical function in the inter- 

 pretation of ancient peneplains, sea-shelves, and epicontinental 

 seas, and in the elucidation of expansional, repressional, and pro- 

 vincial epochs of life evolution, that a precise conception of what 



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