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



One is attracted by the comparison of the Mediterranean zone of 

 torsion to a plane of twinning, as if* the earth were a great hemitrope, 

 and we may recall that Dana compared the northeast and northwest 

 structure lines of the earth to crystalline cleavage. 



Some things are very interesting, even if they are not true. 



APPENDIX 



Asymmetry of the Northern Hemisphere 



by e. suess* 



During the last decade much new information has been gathered 

 concerning the structure and distribution of the great folded mountain 

 chains of the earth. While before this a synthesis of such information 

 could have been ventured upon at best for single large areas, as, for ex- 

 ample, Europe, it is today possible to recognize, at least in their principal 

 traits, the mutual relations of the mountain chains around- the whole 

 earth. 



The following lines contain the essential result of such an attempt, 

 which includes the whole northern hemisphere. The quantity of the 

 material employed is, however, so considerable that I must wholly abstain 

 from giving here the proofs of the conclusions. This and the presenta- 

 tion of all particulars are withheld for another occasion. 



I have felt compelled, at least in the first part of this article, to omit 

 mention of any one of the many observers to whom I am indebted for 

 instruction and to whom, if these comparative studies be found to have 

 value, the merit alone belongs ; for on one side stands the labor, the 

 privation, often the danger, and almost always the giving up of the best 

 years of one's life, and on the other only the gathering of the fruits. 



From the present position of the observations, so far as I have been able 

 to master them, the following distribution of the axial lines (Leitlinien = 

 guide lines = axial lines of the mountain chains) seems to result: 



1. The peninsula Kanin, with the Timan mountains ; Nova Zembla 

 and Waigatsch ; the Ural, with the Mugodja, form a natural group of 



*Sitz. Ber. k. Akad. d. Wiss. in Wien, Bd. cvii, Ab. 1, Apr., 1898. 



Note.— I have translated, and by the kind permission of the author reprint here, the interesting 

 article several times referred to in the preceding pages. It is an interesting indication that these 

 thoughts are "in the air" that the part of my paper concerning the mountains of Europe and Asia 

 was written before I had knowledge of this paper, and that a large share of the paper was written 

 before I came on the lecture of Doctor Gregory, which I have used freely, while the interesting 

 life of Green and abstract of his theory, by Professor Hitchcock (American Geologist, vol. xxv, 

 1900, page 1), I received, by the kindness of its author, since this paper was read. — B. K. Emerson. 



