The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

THE MOUNTAINS
There is still one definite direction, such as northeast-south-
west, in which the compression operates on the crust.
4. The Mountain-Building Force
An apparently formidable objection that has been raised to
this theory of mountain formation is that the force provided
by the icecaps cannot be sufficient. When you look at
the towering summits of the Sierras from your speeding
plane, and your eye takes in the numberless peaks fading
away into the far horizon, you are impressed by the thought
of the enormous force that must have been required to raise
this great chain of mountains. How could all this have been
the result of a gentle pressure applied to the crust of the
earth by distant icecaps?
Campbell has shown that the apparent discrepancy between
the cause and the effect, here, is the result of a misap-
prehension as to the identity of the actual force responsible
for the mountain folding. His calculations (given and dis-
cussed in Chapter XII) show that the thrust transmitted to
the lithosphere by the icecap is of the right order of magni-
tude to bring about the fracturing of the crust. The icecap
may therefore be responsible for the movement of the crust;
yet it is not the force directly responsible for the folding of
the mountains. The latter is a much greater force. Mr. Campbell
shows that the mountain-folding force is none other than
the force of gravity itself. He suggests that the icecap per-
forms the function merely of sliding the crust horizontally
to a place where the force of gravity can act it. upon When
an area is moved toward a pole, where the radii of the earth
are shorter, circumference is shorter, and surface required is
less, there is a surplus of surface, and this, being pulled down
by gravity, must fold. From this point of view, it appears that
the mountains are not pushed up at all, and therefore, no
lifting force is required; instead, it is the surface of the earth
that is pulled down, by gravity, nearer to the earth's center,