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

THE SHAPE OF THE EARTH 185
justment is proceeding slowly; no doubt the triaxial bumps
are now the reduced remnants of those that existed at the
end of the last movement of the crust.
If all anomalies in the crust cause centrifugal effects, then
these vast triaxial protuberances must do so. These must, as
I have pointed out, be balanced across the equator, or have
been so at the termination of the last movement. Since then,
isostatic adjustment has probably been proceeding, and
therefore the balance of forces established when the crust
stopped moving may now no longer exist. The instability of
the crust may have been thereby increased, and the effects of
its instability may supplement the increasing thrust of the
growing, eccentric icecap. This suggests
that the balance of
the crust in its present position may be only a "trigger bal-
ance."
5. The State of Matter Below the Crust
The theory presented in this book depends upon the relationship
between three factors: the quantity of the momentum
transmitted to the crust by the icecap, the tensile
strength of the crust, and the degree of weakness prevailing
in the subcrustal layer, or asthenosphere. In Einstein's opin-
ion, the existence of sufficient weakness in the asthenosphere
to permit the displacement of the crust was the only doubtful
assumption of the theory. However, we find that one and the
same is assumption required for this theory, and for the
whole theory of isostasy. It is my opinion that the theories
stand or fall together.
In conceiving of the asthenosphere, we should not imagine
a layer of soft rock distinguished from the crust and from the
inner shells of the earth by sharp
lines of demarcation. In-
stead, one grades off insensibly into another, and in all prob-
ability inequalities in thickness exist from place to place.
It is the general opinion of geophysicists that at a certain
depth in the crust increasing heat and pressure bring about a