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

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

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32<br />

EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST<br />

5. New Proposals <strong>of</strong> Polar Shift<br />

Since truth cannot be suppressed forever, it was inevitable<br />

that accumulating facts should eventually bring the polar<br />

issue again into the foreground. Gutenberg suggested that<br />

while continents cannot drift, perhaps they can creep (194:<br />

211). <strong>The</strong> British astronomer Gold postulated that the earth's<br />

wobble on its axis could cause a plastic readjustment <strong>of</strong> its<br />

mantle sufficient to move the poles 90 degrees in a million<br />

years (176). <strong>The</strong> French geographer Jacques Blanchard suggested<br />

the possibility <strong>of</strong> extensive polar changes due to more<br />

pronounced wobbling <strong>of</strong> the earth in the past (38). Ting Ying<br />

H. Ma, <strong>of</strong> Formosa, raised the idea <strong>of</strong> a combination <strong>of</strong> conti-<br />

nental drift with displacement <strong>of</strong> the outer shells <strong>of</strong> the<br />

earth (285-290). Bain thought <strong>of</strong> displacements <strong>of</strong> the crust<br />

to account for facts <strong>of</strong> ancient plant geography and fossil soils<br />

and suggested a mechanism to try to account for them (18).<br />

Pauly (342) revived the suggestion made <strong>by</strong> Eddington (124)<br />

that the earth's crust may have been displaced <strong>by</strong> the effects <strong>of</strong><br />

tidal friction. Kelly and Dachille, in a provocative work on<br />

collision geology entitled Target Earth, <strong>of</strong>fered the hypothesis<br />

<strong>of</strong> displacements <strong>of</strong> the earth's crust as the result <strong>of</strong> collisions<br />

with planetoids (248).<br />

<strong>The</strong> most important recent contribution to the controversy<br />

has certainly been the evidence produced <strong>by</strong> geophysicists in-<br />

vestigating terrestrial magnetism.<br />

This new evidence is so im-<br />

pressive that it has brought about a reversal <strong>of</strong> opinion in high<br />

geological quarters on the question <strong>of</strong> the permanence <strong>of</strong> the<br />

poles. One <strong>of</strong> the leading specialists in this field, Dr. J. W.<br />

Graham, has recently remarked:<br />

. . . Within the past couple <strong>of</strong> years there have appeared a num-<br />

ber <strong>of</strong> serious papers dealing with the subject <strong>of</strong> polar wanderings <strong>by</strong><br />

which is meant a shift <strong>of</strong> the geographic features <strong>of</strong> the earth's surface<br />

with respect to the axis <strong>of</strong> spin. Classical geophysical treatments <strong>of</strong><br />

the type pioneered <strong>by</strong> Sir George H. Darwin early in this century<br />

have been re-examined in the light <strong>of</strong> our more recent knowledge <strong>of</strong>

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