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

CAMPBELL'S MECHANISM 345
crust alone, while recognizing that the displacement of the
crust involves frictional effects with the sublayer. We have
seen that a special characteristic of the mechanism under
discussion is that it provides a constantly growing force that
will overcome this friction, rather than be absorbed by it.
3. The Wedge Effect
The problem to be solved by the calculation was to find the
quantity of the centrifugal thrust of the icecap
in terms of
pressure per square inch on the earth's crust, so that this
quantity could be compared with the estimated tensile
strength of the crust. If these quantities should be found to
be of about the same magnitude, it would follow that the
icecap had the potentiality of bringing about the fracturing
of the crust, which, because of the slightly oblate shape of the
earth, was necessary to its displacement over the lower layers.
Einstein, in a letter received during an early stage of the in-
vestigation, suggested that this necessity for the fracturing
of the crust was the only serious hindrance to crust displacements
in response to centrifugal effects. He wrote:
For your theory it is only essential that an excentrically situated
mass rising above the mean level of the earth-surface is producing a
centrifugal momentum acting on the rigid crust of the earth. The
earth-crust would change its position through even a very small cen-
trifugal force if the crust would be of spheric symmetry. The only
force that I can see which can prevent such sliding motion of the
crust is the ellipsoidic form of the crust (and of the fluid core). This
form gives to the crust a certain amount of stability which allows the
dislocation of the crust only if the centrifugal momentum has a cer-
tain magnitude. The dislocation may then occur and be accompanied
by a break of the crust. . . . (128).
Campbell, visualizing the sliding of the crust, perceived that
a bursting stress would be caused in the crust when parts of
it were displaced toward or across the equatorial region,
where the diameter of the earth is greater. It became possible
to visualize it in the manner suggested by Campbell in the