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

THE SHAPE OF THE EARTH 173
the crust, and under the weight the crust has bent down
slightly, but it has not given way. This is the more remarkable
since the islands appear to be several million years old.
It indicates that at this point the earth's crust is strong
enough to bear a very considerable weight without yielding.
The Great Rift Valley of Africa, which we have already dis-
cussed, is uncompensated, despite its great age (97:221).
There are also enormous anomalies in the East Indies. Ac-
cording to Umbgrove, Vening Meinesz found that the nega-
tive anomalies (that is, the deficiency of matter) in the great
ocean deeps in that area and the positive anomalies on each
side caused a total gravity deviation of 400 milligals. One
milligal, according to Daly, would amount to about 10
meters of granite (97:394), so that the total deflection of the
crust from gravitational balance here would amount to 4,000
meters of granite, or, roughly, three miles of granite, which,
in turn, would be the equivalent of an ice sheet about nine
miles thick. And the crust has borne this enormous strain,
apparently, for some millions of years. According to Daly,
the Nero Deep, near the island of Guam, has deviations from
gravitational balance of the same magnitude (97:291). Among
uncompensated features on the lands are the Harz Mountains,
in Germany (97:349), and the Himalayas, which stand
about 864 feet higher than they should (97:235). A particu-
of consid-
larly interesting case is that of the island of Cyprus,
erable size, which stands about one kilometer, or 3,000 feet,
higher than it should, and yet shows no signs of subsiding.
Daly says:
From Mace's table of anomalies and from his map, it appears
that we have here a sector of the earth, measuring more than 225
kilometers in length and 100 kilometers in width, and bearing an un-
compensated load equal to one kilometer of granite, spread evenly
over the sector. . . . (97:212-13).
These facts would appear to argue a very considerable
strength of the crust to resist the pressure toward establishment
of gravitational, or isostatic, balance. However, in all
the cases so far mentioned it is true that the deviations have