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

74
EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST
fossil corals, that many total displacements of the earth's
whole outer mantle must have taken place. I did not become
aware of Professor Ma's work until I was introduced to it by
Dr. David Ericson, of the Lament Geological Observatory, in
1954. Dr. Ericson has, in fact, taken a leading role in introducing
Professor Ma's work to American scientists.
For about twenty years previous to the time I mention,
Professor Ma had intensively pursued the study of living
and fossil reef corals. He very early noticed that characteristic
of reef corals referred to by Dr. Bain, but hitherto ignored
by writers on corals. He saw that, at distances from the
equator, there were seasonal differences in the rates of coral
growth, and that the evidences of these were preserved in the
coral skeleton. Specifically, he observed that in winter the
coral cells are smaller and denser; in summer they are larger
and more porous. Together, these two rings make up the
growth for one year.
Studying living coral reefs in various parts of the Pacific,
comparing, measuring, and tabulating coral specimens of
innumerable species, making photographic studies of the
coral skeletons, Professor Ma established that the rates of
total annual coral growth for identical or similar species
within the range of the coralline seas increased with proximity
to the equator, and that seasonal variation in growth
rates increased with distance from the equator.
Other writers on corals have pointed out that there are
numerous individual exceptions and irregularities in coral
growth rates, deriving from the fact that the coral polyps feed
upon floating food, which may vary in quantity from place
to place, from day to day, and even from hour to hour (125:
20-21; 298:52-53). Professor Ma, however, has guarded him-
self against error by a quantitative and statistical approach.
In several published volumes of coral studies (285-290) he
has compiled tables running into hundreds of pages, and his
studies have involved thousands of measurements.
When this indefatigable oceanographer had worked out
these relations of growth with latitude, he possessed an effeo