Davis — Framework of the Earth. 233 



senting an essential truth, is vividly illustrated by the 

 case of a post standing just beneath the ice of a frozen 

 pond, so that as the water is drawn off the ice above 

 the post remains at a higher level than that of the sub- 

 siding ice around it. This illustration is so striking 

 that the unwary reader might fairly regard the doc- 

 trine it represents as having been decisively demon- 

 strated; yet a careful search fails to disclose any valid 

 proof of it whatever. The reason for its adoption was 

 simply that Suess, as he frankly states, could not con- 

 ceive of any telluric mechanism by which an upheaved 

 mass could be long sustained in its upheaved position: 

 hence he settled down upon the doctrine of no upheavals, 

 instead of leaving the question unsettled, as it should 

 have been left in the absence of deciding evidence. 



One of the most illegitimate applications of this very 

 questionable doctrine is found in a chapter on the Pacific, 

 in which the occurrence of high- standing atolls is con- 

 sidered. It is there concluded from the scanty records 

 available thirty years ago that all such atolls have essen- 

 tially the same altitude, and hence that their emergence 

 must be due to the subsidence of the ocean; and con- 

 firmation of this is thought to be found in the occur- 

 rence of certain terraces of about the same altitude on 

 the Atlantic border of the continents. Yet as a matter 

 of fact, not only are the high- standing atolls very unlike 

 in altitude, but they are also very unlike in the amount 

 of dissection that they have suffered since emergence; 

 hence it must be inferred that their emergence took place 

 at different dates as well as by different measures ; and 

 emergences thus characterized are evidently not so well 

 explained by repeated subsidences of the ocean — and of 

 all the islands and continents that did not then emerge — 

 as by local upheavals of ocean-bottom areas in the region 

 of the emerging atolls at different times and by different 

 amounts. As to the terraces on the Atlantic borders of 

 the continents, the records concerning them are by no 

 means sufficient to prove that they have all been emerged 

 by the same amount and for the same length of time; 

 yet without such evidence they are incompetent witnesses 

 to the doctrine of no upheavals. 



In still another respect the whole treatment of moun- 

 tains is inadequate, as has often been pointed out by 

 Suess 's reviewers; namely, in the omission of the 



