Evening star., 1929-06-30

for their existence, or, rather. for their cre-
alton. The Hawaiian Islands are Of vol
canic formation of course, but could not
believe that volcanoes started from the level
of the ocean floor. 1t seemed more probable
that they were formed somewhere in the
crustal material Of the earth, near or on the
surface of the ocean.
Therefore a satisfactory explanation of the
islands had to take into consideration their
existence as crustal material, before volcanic
action began.
after pondering for long time over q pos
sible explanation at various times whenever
the islands came into my mind, finally evolved
q hypothesis which satisfied me. I wrote it
out carefully and took it to one of the chief
biologists In the Coast and Geodetic Survey
and asked him to read it.
I'm a short time he was back In my Office
with copy of Osmund Fishers book, The
Physics of the Earth's Crust in which that
author more than 20 years previously had set
forth the same idea. am sure that had
never previously read that part of the book
which dealt with the origin Of the oceans and
the continents. but, Of course, had read Sir
George Darwtn's theory that the moon was
once part OF the earth's crust and had been
torn away by the action of the tides
Fishers line of reasoning contends that the
moon was torn away by tidal action or by
explosion of the earth's crust. assume that
action rather than as the result of an ex-
plosion, because the latter explanation does
not seem tenable to me. You know from
photographs what happens when an explosion
occurs Material is thrown of in every direc-
ton from the point of discharge. If this kind
OF cataclysm occurred, cannot see what force
could have brought the fragments together
again and welded them into the body of thu
moon. 4,
1T is rather interesting that I should hav6
arrived at similar conclusion entirely indek
pendent of Fishers reasoning The more n.
have tested the plausibility of the hypothesi3s
that the creation of the moon caused th@'
oceans and continents the more reasonable M
seems to me. Briefly it is this -
"MoRE than billion and half years agdss
as the earth was first cooling dow2
from the liquid state, the GRANTEES our iehtesks
igneous rocks, were floating on the top Of the
heavier materials or the basaltic rocks. Al :
the GRANTEES on the surface cooled they formed
a hardened crust, perhaps of from 80 to 4O
miles In thickness. But that crust WAS q
mere film in comparison to the diameter of the
eartn' 5000 miles. The earth was stii too
not to support life Of any sort. There couId
as yet be no condensation Of water vapor. and
therefore no soil and no plant or animal life.
AS the earth spun, its center stiil molten
the crust was pulled outward by the attraction.
OF tne sun. In those early days the sun was
hotter and the earth was revolving on its axii
and spinning through space at much fasterS
rate than it is today. There was no moon ts1s
slow It's action down. The sun, which stiITt
causes tides In the earth, had greater effecA
than it does today
And so the earth's crust Jagged from thiS
tidal pulling. The crust developed q bun,u On
its surface. The bump grew until It was
evident over large section Of the crust. Tn.
principle of this increase in the size Of the
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