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

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

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142<br />

EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST<br />

This extraordinary case is <strong>by</strong> no means unique, for Umbgrove<br />

has pointed out that the sediments composing much<br />

<strong>of</strong> Spitsbergen and Scotland come from the ocean west <strong>of</strong><br />

them, while those composing the west coast <strong>of</strong> Africa come<br />

from a former land mass in the present South Atlantic. Most<br />

interesting <strong>of</strong> all, he indicates that the deepest <strong>of</strong> the world's<br />

deep-sea troughs (east <strong>of</strong> the Philippines), about seven miles<br />

deep, gives evidence that it was once part <strong>of</strong> a very large continent<br />

(430:38).<br />

that a conti-<br />

<strong>The</strong> evidence produced <strong>by</strong> Coleman, showing<br />

nental ice sheet once invaded Africa from the sea, and that<br />

the Indian ice sheet must have extended on land far to the<br />

south <strong>of</strong> the present tip <strong>of</strong> India, is to the same effect. It<br />

serves to answer conclusively the argument about continental<br />

shelves. You can put just so much on a shelf.<br />

evidence <strong>of</strong> re-<br />

According to Umbgrove, there is ample<br />

and downward oscillations <strong>of</strong> the floor <strong>of</strong> the<br />

peated upward<br />

entire Pacific (430:236). In a kind <strong>of</strong> rhythm, the great ocean<br />

has become alternately shallower and deeper. In the absence<br />

<strong>of</strong> any explanation <strong>of</strong> this phenomenon, Umbgrove becomes<br />

geopoetic. <strong>The</strong>re seems to him to be something almost mystical<br />

in this slow pulsation <strong>of</strong> the living planet. He finds that<br />

the unexplained upward and downward movements are not<br />

limited to sea areas:<br />

... It should be noted that blocks that were first submerged, then<br />

elevated, and then once more submerged and elevated, are also met<br />

with on the continents. <strong>The</strong> sub-Oceanic features and the similar<br />

continental characteristics cannot be explained at present, for our<br />

knowledge <strong>of</strong> pre-Cambrian history and terrestrial dynamics<br />

yet extensive enough. . . . (430:241).<br />

is not<br />

Comparatively radical vertical changes in the positions <strong>of</strong><br />

land masses are evidenced <strong>by</strong> a considerable number <strong>of</strong> ancient<br />

beaches (some <strong>of</strong> them, however, not very old) which<br />

are now found at great elevations above sea level, and some-<br />

times far inland from the present coasts. Thus the geologist<br />

P. Negris claimed to have found evidences <strong>of</strong> beaches on<br />

three mountains <strong>of</strong> Greece: Mt. Hymettus, Mt. Parnassus,

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