94 B. K. EMERSON — TETRAHEDRAL EARTH : INTERCONTINENTAL SEAS 



Indeed, I have tried to explain the great equatorial notch in the At- 

 lantic coastline of the Americas and the similar one in the Pacific coast- 

 Line of the Asia-Australia mass, which prevents them taking the con- 

 densed tetrahedral shape of Eur-Africa, and the great elongation of the 

 continents meridionallv as a distant echo of this force. 



The series of oblique and curved feature lines in Mars and less dis- 

 tinctly in Jupiter and Venus, with the probability that these planets 

 may still be plastic at or near the surface, renders it possible that the 

 similar lines on the earth may have had a similar origin. It must be 

 borne in mind, however, that the mountain chains and great depressions 

 which are among the important features here considered are of much later 

 date, a few Paleozoic, the most and most important Tertiary. 



.V 



Figure 7. — Prinz's Map of main Structure Lines on the Earth. 

 Showing the indications of torsion. 



I should search for remains of direct tidal wrinkles or fluidal struc- 

 tures in pre-Cambrian rocks, and the structures in all these areas should 

 be studied for this purpose. It is quite generally true that the prevail- 

 ing strikes in Archean beds are to the northeast north of the equator and 

 southeast south of the equator. Von Richthofen cites the prevailing 

 northwest strike in Shantung in China and northeastwardly into Corea 

 as an exception to the rule, but there is even here a second pre-Cambrian 

 folding present with northeast-southwest strikes.* 



The purpose of this section is to show that the cause adduced by Dar- 

 win, conjoined with the cause which has produced the Mediterranean's, 

 may explain the constriction of the continents, especially Asia-Australia 



* Von Richthofen : China, vol. ii, pp. 220. 233-23G,'244 (1882). 



