PAN- 
AMERICAN GEOLOGIST 
VoL. XXXVII March, 1922 No. 2 
ISOSTATIC THEORY; AND APPLIED GEOLOGY 
By Charles Keyes 
Had the Duttonian conception of buoyant mountains found even 
partial substantiation in those shadowy desert ranges of the Great 
Basin the whole future of mining might have been fundamentally 
changed. A few imperfect impressions in place of some mature 
reflections prostrated the hugest mining project of the ages. That 
Isostasy should be the end of Cyaniding Science needed only the 
movement of a little dust, and an unseasonable gust of wind 
sufficed for abruptly ending a dream of supremest avarice. 
In the past decade or so determination of the prevailing occur¬ 
rence of ore-veins in the desert ranges of western America proves 
to have a curiously critical bearing upon the verity of that most 
brilliant geological musing of our century, known as the theory 
of isostasy. It is a wholly unexpected circumstance that such a 
practical activity as mining should put such abtruse speculation 
to its severest test. So diverse are the two fields apparently that 
any direct association between them seems entirely out of question. 
Yet, as in the case of so many other branches of science, it is not 
always from the nearest basic principles that strongest support 
is forthcoming. First quantitative evaluation of the hypothesis 
through strictly mining figures is worthy of close examination. 
As is well known the hypothesis of isostatic compensation in the 
earth’s crust is reputed originally to find its best surface expression 
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