424 J. D. Dana— Results of the Earth's Contraction 
. The we ee Logins chains are portions of the earth’s 
sient which have been pushed up, and often crumpled or plicated, 
by the lateral prateia resulting from the earth’s contraction, 
are the regions of greatest contraction and subsidence, and that 
their sides “pushed, like the ends of an arch, against the borders of 
the continents, therefore, along these borders, within 300 to 1000 
miles of the coast, a continent “experienced its ’profoundest oscilla- 
tions of level, had accumulated its thickest deposits of rocks, 
underwent the most numerous uplifts, fractures ree plications, 
hai 
Sten area became the most apbecs 
5. The oscillations of level that have taken place over the inte- 
rior of North America, through the geological ages, have in some 
in di ho ol 
large a part of the lateral force . have come from the special contraction and con- 
sequent subsidence of the oceanic part of the globe. 
Professor N. 8. Shaler in 1866 (Proc. Boston N. H. Soc., x, 237, xi, 8; ore Geol. 
Mag., v, 511) orion of i . babigrocsh the idea that “ mountain chains are only folds 
* In my papers in — I used the terms lateral pressure, lateral force, tension, 
elem force, force acting easy as synonyms. “Lateral pressure” rm 
the term oftenest snakes “Pie action eppeted to. ¥28 ce Rupert 
