144 NE W YORK STATE MUSEUM 



retardation of rotation. Likewise one might find evidence of a 

 neutral zone in the belt with little distinct trend lines which we 

 saw suggested by the conditions in Bohemia, southern Asia, etc. 



The progressive tension due to the expansion of the earth beyond 

 the neutral zone would lead (op. cit., p. 50) to persistent Assuring 

 or gaping radial from the poles, and "if to escape the difficulties 

 arising from exceptional tension in high latitudes, it be assumed 

 that the whole shell of the lower latitudes crowded toward the 

 poles, this would involve meridional crowding and the formation 

 of a system of folded ranges pointing to the poles, while east and west 

 ranges should be absent proportionately, and thus the effects should 

 be expressed in a distinctive manner." It is further inferred by 

 Chamberlin that the earlier formations should show the most 

 evidence of tension, the Archean most of all. "As a matter of 

 fact," however, " the Archean of high latitudes, as of low latitudes, 

 shows abounding evidence of compression," as Chamberlin himself 

 could observe in Greenland in 1894 in latitudes as high as 77 , 

 when he found " the same evidences of crumpling, contortion, 

 foliation and thrust stress generally as are commonly shown by the 

 Archean rocks in lower latitudes." There is, thus, everywhere 

 evidence of pronounced tangential thrust in the Precambrian ter- 

 ranes of high latitudes, as of Canada, Scotland and Scandinavia, 

 instead of the postulated tension effects, and further, as we have 

 seen in the first part of this chapter, the Precambrian folds show 

 a distinct east-west component instead of the postulated north-south 

 directions. 



Professor Chamberlin from his investigation concludes that there 

 is no geologic evidence of a retardation of rotation from the beginning 

 of Archean time onward; the evidence of the Precambrian trend 

 lines, brought forward in this paper, which in the north-south direc- 

 tions of the folds of the Precambrian of the equatorial belt suggests 

 the influence of retardation of rotation, is vitiated by that of the 

 trend lines of the Precambrian beyond the neutral zones. 



As Chamberlin arrives at the important result that neither the 

 friction of the present water tides nor the tides of the lithosphere, 

 which are chiefly elastic strains, would be sufficient as retardative 

 agencies to have a noticeable effect on the earth's rotation, it appears 

 safe to assume that the north-south trend lines of the equatorial belt 

 of the Precambrian are due to another agency than the retardation of 

 the earth's rotation. 



