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

NORTH AMERICA AT THE POLE 221
variation o gravity with latitude (Chapter IV). An equatorward
movement of such an area would cause extra subsidence
more than would occur with an area in isostatic equilibrium
at the start of the movement. And subsequently, iso-
static adjustment would re-elevate the area, but not to its
original, excessive extent. This interpretation of the rebound
of the glaciated tracts has the advantage that it can reconcile
the facts there with the point of view expressed by Gilluly,
and with the data from other parts of the world that so
greatly puzzled Daly.
While there is no evidence that the sea level rose all over
the world and to the same extent everywhere at the end of
the ice age, there is a good deal of evidence that it has fallen
somewhat since. One specialist in this field, Anderson, re-
ported evidence of a fall of sea level amounting to between
100 and 140 feet, and extending over a vast area. He made a
point of emphasizing that this could not be explained by
the postglacial isostatic rebound of the formerly glaciated
tracts of North America and Scandinavia. He is thoroughly
puzzled by what seems to him an inexplicable fact:
. . . what was the cause of a fall in sea-level at a time when it
should have been rising owing to the melting of the ice? (4:493).
This fall of sea level is a matter of very great interest. I
have already suggested that down to the disappearance of the
glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere, the melt water from
them may have pretty well balanced the growth of ice in
Antarctica, so that there was no important change of sea level.
With the disappearance of those northern ice sheets, how-
ever, the situation changed. There was now no longer a
supply
of melt water to balance the withdrawal of water to
be locked up in the form of snow in Antarctica; consequently
the sea level had to fall. Even the magnitude of the fall is in
agreement, if we suppose that by about 10,000 years ago,
when the northern icecaps dwindled away, the Antarctic
For it is estimated that if the whole
icecap was half grown.
amount of ice now in Antarctica were suddenly melted, it