SUESS ON DEFORMATION OF STRAND-LINES 223 



shorter than the equatorial diameter. If the present phase of oscillation 

 is one in which, as Suess says, there is an accTimulation or positive excess 

 of water at the equator and a negative excess at the poles, then the 

 climax of the next preceding phase was one in which the positive excess 

 was at the poles and the negative at the equator, and the degree of ob- 

 lateness was less than it is now. Suess does not give a name to the oscil- 

 lation, which he describes, but he might as well have done so, for obviously 

 it is merely an oscillation of the oblate figure — that is, a change from 

 one degree of oblateness to another and back again, repeated time after 

 time. The latest change, according to Suess, was an increase of oblate- 

 ness. 



The case could not be more clearly or forcefully stated than it is by 

 Suess, so far as relates to the ocean. But he stops there. Yet, how is it 

 possible to confine a force which changed the figure of the sea to the sea 

 alone? The same force must have been exerted at the same time and 

 with the same power upon the land — ^that is, on the lithosphere or solid 

 globe. And if it were, what would be the nature of the stresses set up 

 and what movements might be expected when those stresses were relieved ? 



Manifestly, on Suess^ idea the present surface of the ocean is lower in 

 the polar regions than it was some time in the relatively recent past and 

 higher at the equator. The new figure intersects the old on a parallel a 

 little below the 45th in both hemispheres. The lands in the far north 

 therefore stand relatively higher above the sea, or rather above the ideal 

 mean surface plane of the solid globe,^ than before and at a slightly dif- 

 ferent angle to this plane at all points, excepting at the poles and the 

 equator. In middle latitudes there is a slight change of angle, but no 

 appreciable change of altitude. 



Any imaginary plane or surface which before the change lay parallel 

 with the surface of the sea in northern latitudes would now have the 

 appearance of slanting slightly downward toward the south. It would 

 seem certain that such a change as this would be fraught with tremen- 

 dous consequences to the solid globe, for the relative increase in altitude 

 of all lands in high latitudes would disturb the preexisting equilibrium 

 and increase the stresses in those lands tending to subsidence. But the 

 earth being solid from its surface to its center, and more rigid than the 

 hardest steel, the tendency to sink directly toward the center could not 

 be realized. The more rigid central body would resist effectively, and 

 the forces would consequently be deflected from inward radial to tan- 

 gential forces radiating from the pole and affecting only a relatively 



"Estimated by Gilbert, on data collected by Sir Tohn Murray, to be about 9.000 feet 

 below sealevel. In his International Geography, H. R. Mill puts it at about 7,500 feet, 



