32 A. BLTTT. [NO. L 



Pacific Ocean, from Cape Horn to the Aleutian Islands, and 

 downwards along the east coast of Asia to the Sunda islauds, 

 immense ranges extend, accompanied by series of volcanoes; and 

 from the Himalayas through the Caucasus, the Balkans, the 

 Alps to the Pyrenees, and Mount Atlas, there extend, frequently 

 through volcanic regions, a similar series of immense ranges. 

 These, the loftiest mountains of the Earth, are also its youngest; 

 they have as yet suffered least from the tooth of time. 



But those strongly folded regions are of only slight extent 

 in proportion to the rest of the surface of the Earth. On both 

 sides of these folds there lie great plateaux and lowlands, 

 quite," or nearly so, without folds, and altogether with undis- 

 turbed level layers. These are Suess's tables (Tafeln): Africa, 

 Western North America (in the Eastern we have no foldings 

 younger than from the coal period), Brazils, Australia, Ara- 

 bia, Persia, India, Siberia, Russia, and similar tables, where 

 the crust is much less disturbed. Without doubt the same is 

 the case in regard to the sea-bottoms, at any rate in respect of 

 most of them. 



When the sidereal day becomes lengthened the sea 

 accommodates itself immediately to the change. It sinks in 

 lower latitudes and rises in the higher ones. According as 

 the internal strain on the crust rises towards the poles, 

 the resistance of the sea-bottom in the same regions also 

 rises, because the sea rises. But the portions not covered by 

 sea are only exposed to the increasing internal pressure, without 

 any external resistance being created. And in the lower latitudes 

 . the process is the same. According as the crust increases in 

 weight the sea sinks, and the internal strain rises more rapidly 

 on the continents where nothing is removed, than in the sea 

 where the column of water sinks. Therefore I believe that the 

 continents are weaker points. The movements of the sea diminish 

 the effect of the decreasing centrifugal force, in all places 

 covered by sea, but the strain acts with undiminished force 

 everywhere on the dry surface of the earth, both in lower and 

 higher latitudes. 



