Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane

Abstract

HOWEVER much conservative instincts may rebel, geologists cannot refuse a hearing to Dr. Alfred Wegener, professor of meteorology in the University of Hamburg. As an oceanographer, he looks out over the boundaries of sea and land; as a meteorologist, he is interested in changes of climate in the past. Like many scientific workers, he feels that a recognition of the Permo-Carboniferous ice-age compels him to put forward an explanation. Like them, he overlooks the fact that a century of speculation as to the causes of the glacial epoch of far more recent times has left us with a score of hypotheses amid which we wander unconvinced. The evidence of the occurrence of ice-ages becomes more and more cogent as observation spreads, and it is highly probable that they have a common cause. Prof. Wegener, in laying stress on the differences between equatorial and polar temperatures at the present day, takes up the position of greatest difficulty, and regards a regional refrigeration as necessarily connected with the poles. He does not look beyond our planet and the atmospheric conditions that now prevail. It is evident that Prof. Spitaler's laborious inquiries as to zonal fluctuations will not content him, though this author believes that he has drawn the Permo-Carboniferous glaciation into his uniformitarian net. Wegener's suggestions are far more heroic; he will shatter the outermost layer of the crust to bits, and remould it, by successive arrangements of the pieces, nearer to his heart's desire. His theme is fascinating, and his style is admirably lucid. His fondness for “hülben und drüben,” a phrase, we believe, derived from Goethe, makes us wonder if he treats the globe as lightly as it was treated in the “Hexenküche.” For him indeed “sie klingt wie Glas; sie ist von Ton, es giebt Scherben.”

Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane.

By Dr. Alfred Wegener. Dritte gänzlich umgearbeitete Auflage. Pp. viii + 144. (Braunschweig: Friedr. Vieweg und Sohn, Akt.-Ges., 1922.) 9s.