Earth Evolution and its Facial Expression

Abstract

THIS volume is intended to present to the nontechnical reader the author's conclusions on the form and structure of the earth's crust. The contents may be summarised as follows. The first chapter deals with some theories of world formation, Laplace's nebular hypothesis being a special object of attack. The second chapter discusses the nature of the earth's interior, after which four chapters relate to the facts and problems connected with volcanic lava. A broader viewpoint is returned to in chapter 7, which treats of the changes of figure through which the earth has passed; this subject is further developed in the following five chapters, the titles of which refer to the present regions of rapid change, the contrasted aspects of the earth's face, the migrational movements of the earth's surface, the patterns of the “facial wrinkles,” and the design of the fracture marquetry. The bearing of the composition of lavas on the question of earth physiognomy is then dealt with, and the final (fourteenth) chapter again reviews the theories of the earth. The author gives a list of references at the end of each chapter to works and papers on the subject of the chapter, but no general index of names or subjects is provided, an omission which should be supplied if a second edition is called for.

Earth Evolution and its Facial Expression.

By Prof. W. H. Hobbs. Pp. xviii + 178. (New York: The Macmillan Co.; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1922.) 15s. net.