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

NORTH AMERICA AT THE POLE 217
rebound of the areas after the ice left is, however, fallacious.
Let us consider, first, the question as to how far the melting
of ice, raising the sea level, can solve the problem.
The new radioelement data from Antarctica, as we have
seen, strongly suggest that the huge total quantity of ice
supposed to have existed during the ice age is an illusion. It
now appears that while the glaciers were at their maximum
in North America a large part of Antarctica was ice-free.
This is the only reasonable interpretation of the Antarctic
data. It is therefore doubtful that the amount of ice then was
very different in amount from that existing now. We have
noted that for about 10,000 years the Wisconsin ice sheet was
growing thinner, until its final disappearance. If this was the
result of the southward movement of the icecap if North
America was then moving southward Antarctica must, at
the same time, have been moving into the Antarctic Circle.
Therefore, as the ice sheet gradually thinned in North Amer-
ica, as it withdrew in Europe, the Antarctic icecap must have
been in process of expansion. The water released by the melt-
ing in North America may have been mostly locked up again
in the gathering Antarctic snows.
It follows from this that the process, during a period of
perhaps 10,000 years, was simply one of transfer of ice masses
from the Northern Hemisphere to Antarctica. It is difficult
to say whether the tempos of melting in North America and
of accumulation in Antarctica were always closely in line,
or which may have been faster. No doubt alternations took
place. In consequence, there may have been minor fluctuations
of sea level, without a major universal rise.
Yet such a rise of the sea level in some parts of the world
did take place. It has already been pointed out that such
changes must accompany a displacement of the crust. We
have merely to decide which method of accounting for the
facts is most reasonable.
If the rise of the sea was due to melting ice, it should, ad-
mittedly, have been quantitatively proportional to the quantity
of the ice that is assumed to have melted. It should, of