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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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144<br />

EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST<br />

But we see much more: the sedimentary strata are followed <strong>by</strong><br />

volcanic rocks to the east <strong>of</strong> the hills. Some parallel the strata like<br />

flows or sheets, poured over them and tilted with them. Others break<br />

across the sandstone layers and rise steeply from below. This means<br />

that as the continent's rim was bent downward at the Lebombo hills,<br />

the crust burst, and cracks opened through which hot melt shot upward<br />

and boiled over.<br />

So the eastern margin <strong>of</strong> Africa at the turn <strong>of</strong> the Paleozoic Period<br />

was a giant hinge on which the crust bent down, to be covered <strong>by</strong><br />

the ocean. What we see here is merely a cross-section . . . one can<br />

go further north or south, and even to the other side <strong>of</strong> the continent<br />

and discover that great stretches <strong>of</strong> this unique land have suffered<br />

the same fate. <strong>The</strong> oceans sank adjacent to the continents, and the<br />

continent rose out <strong>of</strong> the ocean (85:73-74).<br />

Cloos makes it clear that in one geological period the<br />

continent was bent down so that a part <strong>of</strong> it became sea bottom<br />

(not merely continental shelf) and that at a later period<br />

it was uplifted some 6,000 feet, the sea bottom became land,<br />

and the continental margin was shoved far to the east. When<br />

we contemplate gigantic movements <strong>of</strong> this sort, it seems<br />

reasonable to take the geophysical objections to changes in<br />

the positions <strong>of</strong> the continents with a grain <strong>of</strong> salt. If a large<br />

part <strong>of</strong> a continent can be shown not to have been permanent,<br />

it is unnecessary to assume the permanence <strong>of</strong> any <strong>of</strong> it.<br />

On the other hand, such changes need to be explained, and<br />

they need to be reconciled with basic principles <strong>of</strong> physics.<br />

<strong>The</strong> fact that theories <strong>of</strong> continent formation and history<br />

hitherto proposed have failed to solve the problem reduced a<br />

recent writer on lost continents to the following confession <strong>of</strong><br />

ignorance:<br />

Since somebody can bring good, solid objections on one ground or<br />

another against all these hypotheses, however, we had better agree<br />

that nobody knows why continents or parts <strong>of</strong> continents sink, and let<br />

it go at that. No doubt a sound explanation, perhaps combining fea-<br />

tures <strong>of</strong> the older theories, will be forthcoming some day (64:161).<br />

It may be useful to consider, in juxtaposition, the African<br />

Rift with the question <strong>of</strong> the North Atlantic land mass al-<br />

ready discussed. In a sense, the two are complementary. In

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