The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. I., No. 2, April, 1889Various
History
The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. I., No. 2, April, 1889
Various
Geography -- Periodicals
the computation is certainly interesting and we may hope will not be
lost sight of in future discussions, however it may share in gaining
support or opposition. It is based upon an assumption of the
temperature when the earth began to cool, to assume a lower temperature
draws the belt nearer to the surface and a higher temperature is
believed to be inconsistent with our knowledge of what heat may effect.
This belt is stated to be gradually sinking, however, and the
computation, therefore, involves a term representing time, and I
venture to suggest as estimates of Geologic time are generally
indefinite and seem to be inexhaustible, an abundance can probably be
supplied to sink the belt deep enough for all theoretical purposes.
[Footnote 1: In the American Geologist for February, 1888, Prof. Reade
protests against the construction of the theory of a "belt or level of
no strain" placing the foci of earthquakes and other disturbances in
the strata above the belt.]
More interesting to Geographers are the conceptions of ancient forms
suggested by the views recently advanced by Prof. Shaler in a late
number of Science (June 15, 1888), on "The Crenitic Hypothesis and
Mountain Building." To let the imagination have full play, we may
conceive that where we now have extensive mountain ranges, there were
formerly great plains of sedimentation, and where we see the process of
sedimentation active to-day there may be great mountains in the future.
And also in his inquiry into the "Origin of the divisions between the
layers of stratified rocks" (Proced. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol.
xxiii), we may be carried away with the immensity of the changes
suggested. The recurring destruction of submarine life to contribute in
the building of the rocks of the Continents: the apparently endless
cycles of emergence of the land and subsidence of the waters, to leave
the Geographical conditions we see to-day, furnish additional evidence
of the wonders of the past and force upon us anew the realization of
how little in the great evolution is the epoch in which we live.
American Geologists have advanced the knowledge of the world; only
recently the American methods of Glacial study have enabled Salisbury
to interpret the terminal moraines of Northern Germany (Am. Jour.
Science, May, 1888), and that the Science is active among our
countrymen is evidenced by the formation of a Geological Society and
the establishment of a magazine devoted exclusively to its interests.
America, too, contributed largely to the Geologic Congress recently
held in London, and it is pleasing to note that the next session of the
Congress is promised for Philadelphia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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