VI B. K. EMERSON — TETRAHEDRAL EARTH : [NTERCONTINENTAL SEAS 



earth, and a pendulum swinging in a second at the equator must be 

 lengthened to heat seconds elsewhere. 



In figure 5 is given Steinhauser's map, showing how many millimeters 

 must he added to the pendulum that beats seconds at the equator to 

 make it beat seconds at other stations north and south. 



The pendulum has to be elongated less rapidly southwardly than 

 northwardly, showing that the earth is elongated southwardly. If the 

 piling up of the waters in the southern hemisphere is due to the greater 

 density of the latter, then the top-like elongation is all the greater. 



Bessel's ellipsoid, calculated in Europe, agrees best with gravity deter- 

 minations in Europe. Clark's ellipsoid, calculated in Asia, agrees best 

 with facts in Asia. Both may be equally correct. The larger deforma- 

 tion of Asia makes it a segment of a different ellipsoid from that of 

 Europe. 



The great deficiency of gravity in the United States, in western Russia, 

 and in India agrees with their greater distance from the earth's center 

 on the tetrahedral continents. The great excess of gravity on oceanic 

 islands agrees with their lesser distance from the earth's center on the 

 tetrahedral oceans ; and this meets the approval of Mr E. D. Preston in 

 his report on the study of the earth's figure by means of the pendulum. 

 He says : 



"If we admit the tetrahedral system, these ocean areas are really nearer the 

 center of the earth, and hence should show increased gravity, while the conti- 

 nental masses would tend to increase the effect still further by elevating the sur- 

 face of the sea in their immediate vicinity. It has been shown that the attraction 

 of the Himalayas would elevate the surface of the ocean immediately under them 

 1,000 feet. Nothing is more in accordance with the action of physical laws than 

 that the earth is contracting in approximately a tetrahedral form." * 



S. 0. Listing found the island Maranon sunk 1,858 feet below the normal 

 surface of the spheroid, Saint Helena 2,778 feet, and the Bonin islands 

 4,294 feet.f M du Ligondes has found that discrepancies between values 

 derived from equations for the density of the earth's interior and from 

 the theory of precession were reconciled hy assuming a tetrahedral form 

 for the earth. J De Lapparent has suggested that the discrepancy be- 

 tween the geologists who have based their value of the polar flattening 

 1 : 294 on measurements in the northern hemisphere and astronomers 

 wdio obtain the value 1 : 297 from the precession of the equinoxes may 

 be reconciled if the southern polar protuberance be admitted. § 



*Am. Jour. Sci., 3d series, vol. xli, 1891, p. 451. 

 fNachricht d. k. Akad. zu Gott., 1S77, p. 749. 

 \ Compte Rendu, January, 1899, p. 100. 

 I La Nature. Quoted in Nature, vol. 5C, 1897, p. 37. 



