264 W. B. Taylor — Crumpling of the EartKs Crust. 



in any degree affect the sidereal axis of rotation — or its angle 

 of obliquity with the plane of the ecliptic. Any such geo- 

 graphical change of the axis therefore as admitted by Thomson 

 and Darwin, could only be a shifting of the mass of the earth 

 (so to speak) upon an axis fixed in angular direction, with a 

 corresponding shifting within its substance of .the equatorial 

 plane of oblateness. 



Were we at liberty to imagine a translocation of the northern 

 geographical pole — in the remote past, as far as to the arctic 

 circle near Bering's Straits, the equatorial region would 

 nearly correspond with Gruyot's line of demarkation of the 

 three northern — from the three southern continents.* This 

 re-arrangement would also bring the highest portions of the 

 South American Andes and of the Asiatic Himalayas much 

 nearer to the equator, and the remarkable elevations of 

 southern Europe — the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Caucasus 

 (now all near the 45th degree of latitude), to the northern 

 tropic. This, however, is mere speculation, for which no sci- 

 entific warrant can at present be given. 



An objection urged with considerable force by Captain 

 Dutton against the hypothesis of the earth's contraction 

 through secular cooling, should not be overlooked since it lies 

 equally against the supposition here presented, and indeed 

 against any hypothesis of general contraction. He remarks: 

 " The determination of plications to particular localities pre- 

 sents difficulties in the way of the contractional hypothesis 

 which have been underrated The tendency of corruga- 

 tion to occur mainly along certain belts with series of parallel 

 folds, is not explained by assuming that these localities are 

 regions of weakness. For a shrinkage of the nucleus would 

 throw each elementary portion of the crust into a state of strain 

 by the action of forces in all directions within its own tangent 

 plane The plications of the Paleozoic rocks do not con- 

 form, either in Europe or America, to the consequences here 

 affirmed. These disturbances are localized in long and rather 

 narrow belts, and if they truly represent contraction on certain 

 great circles, then such contraction must have been enormous 

 in arcs perpendicular to the axes of plication, and very little in 

 arcs parallel thereto. Still more discordant is the contractional 

 hypothesis with the Tertiary plications. From Cape Horn to 

 the Bering's Sea is a continuous belt, very narrow for most of 

 the distance, but extremely disturbed throughout."! 



* Professor Guyot, referring to the general direction of the line of separation 

 marked out by the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas, with their adjacent 

 isthmuses, remarks: " These regions are parts of a broad transverse band whose 

 position can be traced from Bering's Straits as a center, with a meridian arc of 

 80° radius, and which we would call the central zone of fracture." — Johnson's 

 Cyclopedia, 1875, voL i, pp. 1449, 1450. 



f Am. Jour. Sci.. August, 1874, vol. viii, pp. 121, 122. 



