134 
FOURTEENTH REPORT. 
pression anywhere except ice- or mountain-weighting and sedimentation, 
and these are available over but a comparatively small part of the area. 
No amount of deformation of the lithosphere under the oceans alone 
can alter the case; the only way to raise the general level is to submerge 
something that was not submerged before. Oscillations, as distinguished 
from alterations of general level, will receive attention in a moment. 
So, in conclusion, it may be said that while one may sympathize with 
Suess' reluctance to accept change of ocean level as the cause of the 
world wide drownings and may freely admit the necessity for caution 
in venturing to follow where that explanation leads, still, there are only 
two alternatives, land-movement or water-movement, and between the 
two one cannot be blamed for accepting the latter. We need not fail, 
at the same time, to recognize that land-movement is an actual observed 
fact. 11 is merely that it is not a satisfactory explanation of the greater 
phenomena of altitude of land and sea, over great areas, such as the 
deep drownings we have noticed, the great continental depressions, all 
apparently closely related in point of time. 
CHANGE OF SEA-LEVEL, THE VOLUME REMAINING CONSTANT. 
Accepting the doctrine that the world-wide loss of elevation on the 
part of the land as compared with the sea, which occurred at about 
the end of the Glacial Period, is to be accounted for mainly, not by 
vertical movement of the land, but by change in the level of the water, 
we have again two lines which we may logically pursue. Did the 
volume of water remain constant or did it change? Was it a displace- 
ment, or a phase of oscillation, or what? 
The formation of ocean basins, as Suess remarks, is productive of 
lower level, and their obliteration by sedimentation or by crustal wrink- 
ling under any form of the theory of the contraction of cooling must 
lead to the reverse effect. The worst objection to the wrinkling is that 
it is wholly inadequate for any such values as the evidence imposes. 
It is entirely presumable that in the earlier geologic times, as dis- 
tinguished from the Tertiary and recent, sedimentation played a more 
important role. As tin? land wore down, the seas, more of epicontinental 
type than now, and shallower, were displaced. Even then, however, 
one naturally wonders how such diastrophic processes would operate. 
The denuded lands ought presumably to rise, and the heavily sedimented 
marine areas ought to sink, and a permanency of the greater depressions 
is the logical result. Chamberlin* favored this idea in his theory of 
the formation of the now existing ocean beds, but there are the gravest 
sort of objections to the present day application of the theory however 
acceptable it may be, say for Mesozoic time and even then we have 
seen how Suess points out its inadequacy to account for the greater 
marine features. 
Under present conditions diastrophism cannot possibly be the domi- 
nant cause of any such great rise of sea level as is indicated by our 
observed drownings, the continental areas to furnish the materials are 
only about a third of the area of the oceans. 
Suess has discussed the attraction which the lands exert upon the 
marine waters,* and the piling up of glacial ice, though this is very 
♦Chamberlin, T. C., and Salisbury, R. D., "Geology,” 1906. 
