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

EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST
mammoth. This fat is thought to have provided insulation
against the bitter cold of the Siberian winter.
The best opinion of physiologists is opposed to the view
that the storage of fat by animals is a measure of self-protection
against cold. The consensus is, on the contrary, that
large fat accumulation testifies chiefly to ample food supply,
obtainable without much effort, as, indeed, is the case with
human beings. Physiologists agree that resistance to cold is
mainly a question of the metabolic rate, rather than of insulation
by fat. Since the length of capillaries in a cubic
inch of fat is less than the length of capillaries in a cubic
inch of muscle, blood circulation would be better in a thin
animal. We might ask the question, Which would be more
likely to survive through a Siberian winter, a man burdened
with fifty or a hundred pounds of surplus fat or a man of
normal build who was all solid muscle, assuming that winter
conditions would mean a hard struggle to obtain food? Dr.
Charles P. Lyman, Professor of Zoology at Harvard, re-
marked, regarding this question of fat:
It is true that many animals become obese before the winter sets
in, but for the most part it seems likely that they become obese
because they have an ample food supply in the fall, rather than
that they are stimulated by cold to lay down a supply of fat. Cold
will ordinarily increase the metabolic rate of any animal which means
that it burns up more fuel in order to maintain its ordinary weight,
to say nothing of adding weight in the form of fat. The amount of
muscular activity in the daily life of either type of elephant is
certainly just as important as the stimulus of cold as far as laying
down a supply of fat is concerned (284).
This statement suggests that there is no basis for the as-
them to an
sumption that the fat of the mammoths adapted
Arctic climate. On the other hand, it is quite true that the
storage of fat in the fall may help animals to get through
the winter when food is scarce. The winter does not, how-
ever, have to be an Arctic winter. A white* such as we have
in temperate climates is quite cold enough to cut the avail-
able food supply for herbivorous animals. It seems that under