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

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EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST
not due to the fact that it is a strong, rigid body, for it is not.
Its roundness is due primarily to the force of gravity, which
in fact holds the earth together. The earth as a whole is a very
weak body, and if it were not for the effect of gravity the centrifugal
effect of the rotation would disrupt the earth and
send all its component masses hurtling outwards into inter-
stellar space.
There is also a difference between the equatorial bulge of
the earth and a weight attached to the surface of a model
globe at its equator of spin. This difference consists in the
fact that the earth's equatorial bulge and the flattenings at
its poles have been produced by the yielding of the earth's
body in response to the centrifugal effect of its rotation. The
amount of the yielding has been determined by the ratio of
the forces of rotation and gravity. The shape of the earth
thus represents a balance of these two forces, a balance that
is perfect, theoretically, at every point of the earth's surface.
It therefore follows that any unit of material in this balanced
surface will be at rest. For this reason, such a surface has
been called an equipotential surface.
The balance of the forces of rotation and gravity at every
point
of the earth's surface can be understood also in this
way. The shape of the earth, as we have pointed out, is ob-
late. This means that as you go toward the equator you are
getting farther from the earth's center. In a sense, therefore,
you are going uphill. Likewise, when you are going toward
the poles you are getting closer to the earth's center and
therefore you are going downhill. But we can all see that
it takes no more energy to move toward the equator than it
does toward a pole. Also, water in the ocean does not run
downhill toward the poles. The earth's surface acts as if it
were perfectly level. The reason for this is that as you go
toward the equator, going uphill, the centrifugal effect of
the earth's rotation increases just enough to compensate for
the gradient, while, if you move toward the poles, the cen-
trifugal effect declines in proportion. The forces of gravity
and rotation are therefore balanced, and no centrifugal e-