198 T. C. CTIAMBERLIN GKOUNDWOBK OF EARTHS DIASTKOPHISM 



sufficient resources of cliastrophism support all the types of interpretation 

 that are currentl.y offered for acceptance. If the dynamic resources that 

 form the groundwork of any type of interpretation are obviously insuffi- 

 cient to actuate the great diastrophisms implied by direct evidence, the 

 deficiency, should be recognized and this mode of interpretation placed on 

 the shelf. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss the fundamental 

 sources from which energy available for actuating diastrophism may 

 arise. This necessarily leads back to the genesis of the earth, for in the 

 mode of its formation there should be found the energies it later dis- 

 played. 



Tv^^o BASAL Hypotheses 



From the dynamic point of view, two types of genetic hypotheses prac- 

 tically cover the whole field : the one, gaseous or quasi-gaseous; the other, 

 orbital. The two rest on distinctly different systems of dynamics, and 

 they inherited unequal measures of energy ; their potential resources of 

 diastrophism were thus diverse from the start. In addition to this, and 

 even more important, their modes of evolution led at once to divergencies 

 in the degrees of conservation or of dissipation of their inherited ener- 

 gies. Accepting the common view that the earth Avas once extensively 

 deployed, it is quite clear that its material carried sufficient energy to 

 actuate any diastrophism that has been disclosed or is likely to be dis- 

 covered in the earth, whether its substance was distributed gaseously or 

 orbitally. An orbital deployment must have carried much the greater 

 potentialities, but both should have carried sufficient energy, if well con- 

 served and brought into service. In this sense, either of the two hy- 

 potheses may be regarded as competent potentially. The vital difference 

 lies in the extent to which the two modes of descent conserved their 

 original energies, or wcbsted them before the lime for diastrophism came. 



The collapsing Type 



Gaseous organization is an ideal type of a failing structure. If matter 

 is removed from any point within a gaseous mass, the whole collapses on 

 the vacancy, because the support of the mass depends on the repellancy 

 of the molecules at all points Avithin it. So, also, Avhensoever radiation 

 of heat or any other influence is brought to bear on any part of a gaseous 

 body, or on the whole, so that its energy is reduced, the body proportion- 

 ately collapses and reorganizes itself to fit the new status of its energy. 

 In so far, then, as there was opportunity for the radiation of heat or for 

 other losses of energ}^, during the formative history of a gaseous earth, 

 it promptly collapsed to a smaller spheroid of similar form, and thus 



