Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1913-09-05
Mass Of Motion Matter Made
Room for Our Oceans.
According to Learned Scientists Some
5000, o0o, 900 Cubic Miles Of Mat
ter Was Hurled From Earth
100000 Years Ago.

For the origin Of our moon La
places majestic nebular hypothesis
needs slight modification, says the
Kansas City Star. Sir George H. Oar,
win, in his theory Of tidal evolution,
traces back the earth-moon system to
a hot, oblate sphere covered with q
solid crust some thirty-five miles
thick. This as yet moonless planet
may be pictured as whirling upon it.
self with terrific speed in period OF
five of our hours. Tides created by
the sun and the acceleration Of rota.
ton caused a weakening of the GEN.
trifugal force, and at a critical point
this instability overcame gravitation
and some 5,000,000,000 cubic miles of
molten matter was sundered from the
earth and hurled outward to revolve
In close proximity to the parent
planet.
Now, when we scan the earth atten-
lively for indications that may con-
firm this origin we are confronted
with many instructive facts. Prof. w.
II. Pickering has shown that II the
earth be viewed from distance in
space, directly above point 1000
miles northeast of New Zealand, the
land areas that compass this waste Of
waters are disposed in an almost per-
feet circle. This roughly circular
chasm, the Pacific, is more eloquent
OF the creation epic OF our moon than
written volumes.
In his inaugural address delivered
at Columbia university, New York, in
1908, Prof. Albrecht F. K. Penck spoke
on the geographical and geological
similitude between the eastern coast
of North America and the western
coast of Europe, as follows:
in very remarkable way these
two sides of the Atlantic repeat the
same structural features; there is an
astonishing symmetry, as Edward
Suess has shown clearly. In Sweden
and Finland we find the same round
ed and glaciated surface, the same
numerous lakes, as in Canada. 1t Is
very interesting to see how the Appal-
achian region ends at Newfoundland
forming the projecting eastern corner
of North America, and just opposite
In south ireland, in south Wales and
Cornwall and in Brittany the belt Of
the old Hercynian mountains Of Eu-
rope begins. Marcel Bertrand main
tanned that we have here to deal with
the two ends Of one very extensive
belt of mountains which extended
through the north Atlantic ocean"
Commenting on this part of the lee
ture, Prof. Andrew H. Patterson Of
the University of North Carolina said:
Prof. Penck is evidently not consid-
ering this (tidaD theory at all in his
lecture, and yet it seems what he has
to say lends greater probability to
the theory
That the great oceans which cover
the earth are permanent In place is
evident from the fact that the average
height of the land above sea level is
about $3.50 feet, while the average
depth of the seas and ocean is 1850
feet. Thus the average depth of the
water IL over six times the mean ele-
walton of the land.
A strong argument for the perma-
nence of the continents is the fact
that no marine deposits of any geol.
ogic period extend over an apprecia-
BILE portion of each continent. This
should have been the case If they
were once covered with oceans for
any length Of time, and the failure Of
such continuity of marine fossils Is
proof of the immunity Of the land
from past submersion.
Osmond Fisher has shown that OBJ
servations made with the pendulum
on islands proved the suboceanic crust
to be both thinner and denser than
the crust dnder the continents. After
the moon had been hurled from the
present ocean basins these latter
would be thinner than the continental
crust, but would solidify and become
compact when the water vapor in the
air condensed and ran into the basins.
10 the silvery orb that illumes
earth's dark nights, then, we owe not
oceans themselves. To her we owe
also the more important continental
areas on which high types Of NAM
malta could evolve. For without the
latter habitat we must ever have re-
NAMED collectively as we'll as indi-
vidually-of a very low order of men
tai developm ent. a race Of cold blood
ed fishes, or at best amphibians. .
The ancient dwellers In Already
boasted that their beatif1c race came
into existence before the moon her
self, but they were probably ignorant
Of the period they claimed for their
ancestry. They must needs have
mounted back in time some 100000
years, in which case their race would
be hallowed, indeed, by prelunar anti
guilty. t.5a. .~a,#
:, Unconventionalities. ~ -