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

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EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST
places, finally boiled over, and resulted in a number of new
theories for polar change. New proposals were .frequently advanced
in the i88o's and iSgo's and later, but they were met
by the unyielding resistance of the highest authorities, basing
themselves on the positions taken by the persons already
mentioned. Moreover, it was easy to show defects and contradictions
in these various theories, and to discredit them, one
after another. All the assaults were successfully beaten back,
except one.
2. The Wegener Theory
The exception proved to be the theory of Alfred von We-
gener. The latter was a good scientist, though not a geologist.
He was unwilling to be satisfied with theories that would
account for only a few of the facts. He had a passion for
broad, inclusive principles supported by tangible evidence.
He found quantities of evidence that could not, in his opin-
ion, be reconciled with the present positions of the poles.
Inasmuch as the doctrine of polar permanence (and it was a
doctrine any challenge to which evoked remarkable fury
from recognized authorities) forbade any thought that the
poles themselves had moved, or that the earth had shifted on
its axis, Wegener suggested that the continents had moved.
This would have precisely the same effect, for it would mean
that, at different times, different areas would be found at the
poles. And this was, in effect, a third way to account for shift-
ings of the geographical locations of the poles.
Wegener imagined that the continents, formed of light
granitic and sedimentary rocks, had once composed a single
land mass, but had been split and set in motion, drifting over
a plastic substratum of the continents and oceans. He thought
of this sublayer as really plastic and viscous, rather than
rigid and strong. From a vast amount of fossil evidence of
the plant and animal life of the past, he imagined that he
could reconstruct the actual paths of the continents over