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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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172<br />

EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST<br />

to start a movement <strong>of</strong> the crust, it will simply continue to<br />

grow, drawing upon the endless resources <strong>of</strong> the oceans until<br />

it is big enough.<br />

3. A Suggestion from Einstein<br />

From the foregoing, it is clear that there is a basis for the<br />

presumption that the Antarctic icecap is largely<br />

an uncom-<br />

pensated mass (an extra weight on the surface <strong>of</strong> the earth),<br />

that it has grown continuously since the disappearance <strong>of</strong><br />

nonglacial conditions in the Ross Sea area only<br />

a few<br />

thousand years ago, and that it is growing now. Einstein<br />

recognized, in the Foreword to this book, the centrifugal<br />

momentum that such an uncompensated mass, situated eccen-<br />

trically to the pole, would create when acted upon <strong>by</strong> the<br />

earth's rotation, and he saw that the centrifugal momentum<br />

would be transmitted to the crust. But he also raised, in the<br />

last paragraph <strong>of</strong> the Foreword, another interesting question.<br />

If an icecap can have such an effect, so can any other uncom-<br />

pensated mass. It is necessary to investigate any existing distortions<br />

within the crust itself and to learn whether it may<br />

contain uncompensated masses <strong>of</strong> a magnitude comparable to<br />

the Antarctic icecap, and thus capable <strong>of</strong> causing comparable<br />

centrifugal effects. For the inference is obvious: if such masses<br />

are in existence, but have not moved the crust, it follows that<br />

the crust may be anchored too solidly to be moved <strong>by</strong> the<br />

centrifugal effect <strong>of</strong> icecaps.<br />

One <strong>of</strong> the troubles with the theory <strong>of</strong> isostasy is that the<br />

failures <strong>of</strong> the crust to adapt to gravitational balance have<br />

been found to be more numerous and more serious than ex-<br />

pected. Daly lists and discusses a large number <strong>of</strong> them. It<br />

that the whole chain <strong>of</strong> the Hawaiian<br />

appears, for example,<br />

Islands, with their undersea connecting masses <strong>of</strong> heavy<br />

basalt, are uncompensated (97:303). <strong>The</strong>se islands rise from<br />

the deep floor <strong>of</strong> the Pacific, and their peaks tower two and a<br />

half miles above sea level. <strong>The</strong>ir gigantic weight rests upon

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