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

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EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST
mass, this might mean a long continuation of the movement.
An icecap in Eurasia might move the crust a great distance.
It is obvious that a natural point for the termination of the
movement will be the arrival of an oceanic area at the pole,
so that the rearward build-up of the ice is brought to an end.
This would appear to have happened in the last movement,
when the southward shift of North America seems to have
brought the Arctic Ocean into the polar zone.
c. The question of the possible suspension of movements
if both poles should happen to be situated in oceans. This is
one of the more important objections that have been raised
to Campbell's mechanism of displacement. Yet, it appears
that it is much less formidable a difficulty than it seemed at
first glance. It might be supposed that the eventuality of
having both poles
in water areas would be certain to occur;
that is, it would have occurred early in the earth's history,
and would have stopped crust displacements by putting an
end to the formation of great polar icecaps. However, a
further examination of this objection reveals weaknesses in it.
In the first place, the very peculiar placing of the conti-
nents with respect to the ocean basins renders such an event
almost impossible. All the six continents are placed dia-
metrically opposite oceans on the other side of the globe.
Ninety-five per cent of all the land on the globe lies opposite
water. Moreover, the oceans are surrounded by continental
shelves that extend for considerable distances, and there are
island areas in the oceans where the water is comparatively
shallow. We have seen that, according to Gutenberg, any
a crust dis-
part of the earth's surface moved poleward by
placement would stand higher relatively to sea level. Any
area now near the equator would be raised considerably if
moved to a pole, by reason of the variation of gravity alone,
while other factors might add to the vertical movement
(Chapters IV, V, VI). Displacements could result in raising
the continental shelves, shallow seas, and island areas above
sea level. The two or three displacements of the crust in the
same direction that would be required to move any area from