DIASTROPHISM AS BASIS OF CORRELATION 693 
Erosion in one area and deposition in another has been assigned as 
an initial agency in deformation. While some influence of this kind 
may be conceded, I think it is rather a localizing influence than a 
fundamental one. If wrinkling must take place from other causes, 
quite possibly previous erosion here and deposition yonder may 
localize the wrinkling. But that is quite apart from fundamentally 
causing the wrinkling. Reasons are growing yearly in cogency why 
we should regard the earth as essentially a solid spheroid and not a 
liquid globe with a thin sensitive crust. I think we must soon come 
to see that the great deformations are deep-seated body adjustments, 
actuated by energies, and involving masses, compared to which the 
elements of denudation and deposition are essentially trivial. Denu- 
dation and deposition seem to me clearly incompetent to perpetuate 
their own cycles. It seems clear that diastrophism is fundamental 
to deposition, and is a condition prerequisite to epicontinental and 
circum-continental stratigraphy. 
Diastrophism thus seems to me fundamental both to stratigraphic 
development and life development. Diastrophic action seems to be 
the forerunner of both these standard means of correlation. It there- 
fore seems to be the ultimate basis of correlation. ‘The criteria of 
this correlation include at once its own specific criteria, the criteria 
of stratigraphy as dependent on diastrophism, and the criteria of 
paleontology as modified by the direct and indirect effects of diastro- 
phism. 
