logical processes involves, they have been going on in a manner consistent with the laws of nature as we know them now. We seldom realize the magnitude of that assumption. A philosopher of the would-be absolute school once said to me, in effect: "You geologists have an easy way of solving difficult questions: you account for the structures of the earth's crust by assuming that time and processes have been going on for millions and millions of years in the past as they go on to-day; but how do you know that time did not begin only a few hundred thousand years ago after the earth had been suddenly created in imitation of what it would have been if it had been slowly constructed in the manner that you assume?" The answer is as easy as the question: We do not know; we merely make a pragmatic choice between the concept of such an imitative creation which seems to us absurd, and a long and orderly evolution which seems to us reasonable. We might, to be sure, were we disposed to be disputatious, turn upon the wouldbe absolutist and ask him what he is going to do about it; but we have better use for our time than that.

The more clearly the immensely speculative nature of geological science is recognized, the easier it becomes to remodel our concepts of any inferred terrestrial conditions and processes in order to make outrages upon them not outrageous. The more definitely it is understood that the concept of a shrinking earth is based upon certain anterior concepts as to the status of its unobservable interior, the more readily can we entertain the concept of an expanding earth, based upon certain other concepts as to the status of its interior; and it is that particular outrage upon our standardized beliefs that I propose we should contemplate, calmly if possible, and patiently at any rate. To encourage our patience, let me recall another outrageous idea of recent introduction, which in itself is only a sort of reaction from an outrage of somewhat earlier invention and a return toward a more primitive view; namely, the recent idea that those topographical features which we call mountains owe their leading feature, namely, their height, not as has been until lately supposed to a vertical movement of escape from the horizontal thrust by which their rocks have been crowded together, but to an uplifting force which acted long after the rocks were crowded together, and in which, as was thought when the view of a mobile earth crust was first promulgated, no component of horizontal thrusting is necessarily involved. A chief difference between that primitive view and its revival in the recent outrage is that the first view took little account of erosion and implied that each individual ridge and peak was the result of an individual or localized uplift; while the second view takes great account of erosion, not only

in ascribing the present intermont valleys to the long and slow action of that patient process during and after recent uplift, but still more in ascribing the destruction of the surface inequalities, that must have been earlier produced when horizontal thrusting forces crowded the mountain rocks together, to a vastly longer action of erosion before the recent uplift of the worn-down mass was begun; for where in the whole world can we find mountains that to-day owe their height to an upward escape from horizontal thrusting; in other words, where in the world can we find any existing mountains that are still in the cycle of erosion which was introduced by an upward escape from the horizontal thrusting that deformed their rocks, and not in a later cycle of erosion which was introduced by uplift alone after the inequality of surface form due to earlier thrusting had been greatly reduced, if not practically obliterated!

The conventional phrase, horizontal compression, has been avoided in the preceding paragraph and the alternative phrase, horizontal thrusting, has been used in its stead, in order to prepare the way for the rather mild idea that the same terrestrial forces which produce great overthrusts may also, if somewhat differently applied, produce rock folds, slaty cleavage, and various other phenomena ordinarily explained under the earlier phrase; and thus to prepare the further way for the altogether outrageous idea that overthrusts do not result from the effort of the outer crust to adjust itself to a cooling and shrinking interior, but from the effort of an in-any-way warming and expanding interior to rearrange the outer crust. Of course, this is "impossible"; that is, it is impossible in an earth of the kind that we ordinarily imagine the earth to be; but it is not at all impossible in an earth of the kind in which it would be possible. Our task therefore is to try to discover, as judicially and as complacently as we may, what sort of an earth that sort of an earth would be; and then to entertain the concept of that sort of an earth as hospitably as we can and to examine the behavior of such an earth at our leisure.

If an earth with an expanding interior had nothing more to do than to stretch its crust, there would be little trouble in our endeavor; but the concept before us compels the expanding earth to do various other things also; and especially to produce great crustal overthrusts, the cross-country advance of which is measured in tens or twenties of miles. Hence the outward radial push of the expanding interior must somehow be turned into an almost tangential thrust; and how that is to be done it is difficult to imagine. However, there is no reason for immediate discourage ment on that account; it is very natural that our imagination to-day should fall short of conceiving all the possible behaviors of a warming and expanding

earth, because we are not practised in imaginingthat is, in making an image of—that sort of an earth, although a good beginning in that direction has been made in such an essay as that by Boucher on "The pattern of the earth's mobile belts." But we surely have yet much to learn as to what may be all the various reactions of an expanding earth-interior on the shell that encloses it, even though many possible reactions may be now conceived.

i For example, let the enclosing shell be defined as that part of the whole sphere which is exterior to i the depth at which the next inner shell is warming more rapidly than any other. If that depth be great, the chief thrust of the expanding interior will be exerted on a thick shell; if small, on a thin shell; and the effects of interior expansion visible on the surface will surely be different in the two cases. It seems conceivable that the total thrust of expansion may, in so far as it produces batholithic movement, be slowly concentrated at the weakest part of the shell, and there permit the interior movement to be locally increased by the conversion of cubic expansion into linear expansion or intrusion; this being the converse of the process by which an unduly heavy and therefore isostatically subsiding part of the crust may slowly distribute its local movement through the whole of the interior and there produce a diminished spherical extension, as Lawson has suggested. It seems also conceivable that the movement of a localized batholithic introduction may find advantage in making an outward escape from compelling interior pressures, by changing the direction of its ascent from vertical to oblique, and thus diminishing the rate at which it has to raise the overhead crust. Whether an obliquely ascending mass of this kind could eventually, as it approaches the surface, drive along a slice of crust ahead of it and thus produce what we call on overthrust, is evidently problematical; but if an overthrust could be produced in that way it would be gratifying in certain respects.

If an obliquely ascending batholithic intrusion works its way through a heavy shell toward the surface and there drives ahead of it a crustal slice which we recognize as an overthrust, the oblique emergence of such an overthrust slice will cause an underdrag of the covering rocks in the rear of thrusting advance, and thus displace them with more or less extensional jostling so that they will cover a greater breadth of surface than that which they occupied before being underdragged. Surely the need of some such underdragging ought to have been recognized long ago when the prevalence of so-called normal faults which indicate superficial extension, over other faults which indicate compression, was inductively established; and the need is still greater to-day when great faults, such 2 Journ. Geol., xxxii, 1924, 265–290.

as those of the Basin Ranges, have been found to dip at moderate angles, such as 50° or 40° to the downthrow; for such was the conclusion reached by Gilbert in his latest season of field work in the Great Basin a little over ten years ago. It is true that some geologists maintain the possibility of producing socalled normal faults as an indirect effect of horizontal compressional forces; but even if so contradictory an effect may thus be possibly produced, it by no means follows that such faults can not also be produced much more directly by extensional forces; and the possible cause and working of extensional forces should therefore be investigated; for there is no generally accepted mechanism, like an underdrag, adequate for the strong extensional dislocation of crustal blocks with diverse displacements, to be found in the usual schemes of dynamical geology; and in the lack of such a mechanism, any process, even a fantastic process, that will cause a strong underdrag seems worthy of at least an hour's consideration.

But let no one imagine that I here put forth the idea of an expanding earth interior, with its imagined consequences of an obliquely out-and-overthrust mass exerting an underdrag on the superficial crust in its rear, as an idea to be believed. I do not believe it myself, and am therefore doubly far from asking any one else to believe it. The idea is set forth simply as an outrage, to do violence to certain generally established views about the earth's behavior that perhaps do not deserve to be regarded as established; and it is set forth chiefly as a means of encouraging the contemplation of other possible behaviors; not, however, merely a brief contemplation followed by an off-hand verdict of "impossible" or "absurd," but a contemplation deliberate enough to

3 Since giving the address on which this article is based I have had opportunity of seeing several Basin Ranges, some in southeastern California, in company with that most competent of guides, Dr. L. F. Noble, of the U. S. Geological Survey, and some in Utah in the helpful company of Professors Schneider and Mathew, of the State University at Salt Lake City, and of Professor M. O. Hayes, of Brigham Young University at Provo; and the evidence then found for the occurrence of slanting fault surfaces seems to me indisputable, not only in the Basin Ranges themselves but also in the much longer bounding ranges of the Wasatch mountains on the east and the Sierra Nevada on the west. Far from the Range blocks being vertically uplifted without compression, as Gilbert first proposed in his report on the Wheeler Survey fifty years ago, still farther from their being the crowded blocks of a collapsed arch, as others have supposed, the Basin Range blocks seem to be the irregularly uplifted and diversely tilted blocks of a former lowland of erosion which has suffered a pronounced extension of its former east-west breadth, as I have briefly stated in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for July, 1925.

seek out just what conditions would make the outrage seem permissible and reasonable.

Let me close this address by explaining to this hospitable and sympathetic conclave why it seems peculiarly appropriate for me, an easterner, to set before the westerners here gathered the particular outrage with which I have detained them. It is because my contacts with the geology of the Pacific slope during the winter of 1924-25-very unconformable contacts, because of my preconceptions-have been outraging the views that I have more or less unconsciously gained on the Atlantic slope as to the demure quietude of the later geological periods. In the east, the Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene have witnessed only leisurely processes of degradation, deposition and deformation, all of small relatively measure; but here on the Pacific slope those periods have been characterized by an extraordinary activity; deposits of enormous thickness have been laid down, and those deposits have been deformed and eroded on a scale that is really rather disconcerting. Is it not fair, therefore, that in return for the incredible stories that have been told me here as to what has happened lately in Californian geology, I should take a turn at telling some outrageously impossible stories myself? In any case, there stand the Basin Range fault blocks, just beyond the eastern skyline of California, displaced in such a manner as to extend over a greater breadth of country than that which they previously occupied; and if it is not possible to explain their extension by underdrag, as an indirect reaction of a passive exterior crust on an expanding earth interior, then we must ask by what other outrageous process it is proposed to explain them.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

W. M. DAVIS

OPPORTUNITIES FOR RESEARCH AT THE OCEANOGRAPHICAL INSTI

TUTE OF MONACO

THE original plan of Prince Albert I was to establish at Monaco a museum especially devoted to the collections made by him in the course of his scientific cruises, pursued each year from 1885 until the outbreak of the war. Later this plan was enlarged and the museum as it now exists is devoted in a general manner to all phases of oceanography. As a point of interest to its tourists who throng its Riviera each year it is second only to the Casino of Monte Carlo. The number of visitors has increased considerably in recent years and is now approaching one hundred thousand annually.

In addition to its popular interest as a museum and aquarium, attention should be called to its importance as an institution for original research and for its pub

lication of both biological and physical oceanographical investigations.

Unfortunately, since the death of Prince Albert in 1922 the resources and activities of the institution have been somewhat curtailed. The successor of Prince Albert, not having the same interest in science as his father and not caring to assume the expense of maintenance of his father's steam yacht, the Hirondelle II, promptly sold it to an American moving picture corporation. Consequently, further data and material for research obtained by annual cruises are no longer supplied to the institute. The amount already on hand is, however, very great and is sufficient for many years' work. In accordance with an arrangement made by the prince before his death the publication of the results of his cruises is to be completed without cost to the institute. The seventieth volume is now in press and it is estimated that a total of about one hundred will be required for the complete publication. The rapidity with which the remaining volumes are issued will depend of course upon the rate at which work can be pursued, but that they will eventually appear seems without question.

In a letter addressed by Prince Albert I to the minister of public instruction of France, dated April 25, 1906, the foundation of the Oceanographic Institute is described in the following words:

Having consecrated my life to the study of the oceanographical sciences I have recognized their importance to many facts of human activity, and I am prompted to secure for them the place they deserve in the solicitude of the government as well as in the consideration of scientists.

Many countries have already sent scientific expeditions to all the seas of the world and these furnish to oceanography a solid basis for its development, but France, in spite of the special interest which the science of the sea holds for her, has not shown it the same interest, as it has other branches of science. However, I have given at Paris during several years lectures attended each time by a more numerous and attentive audience, for which public powers, in the person of President Loubet and members of the government, have by their presence exhibited a certain interest.

Accordingly, I have desired to fill a void by myself creating and establishing at Paris a center of oceanographical studies, closely connected with the laboratories and collections of the Oceanographical Museum of Monaco, where I have assembled for twenty years the results of my personal investigations and those of eminent collectors who have come to me from all countries of Europe.

In addition to the original four millions the prince left to the institute another million at the time of his death. The income derived from this foundation, together with that obtained from the admission fee of

Pr

of the

seventy-five francs paid by each visitor to the museum, is divided between the institute at Paris and the mu

seum at Monaco. The diminishing purchasing power

of the franc makes it increasingly difficult to carry on The the excellent work so well done on their part by the int institute.

It is to be regretted that no part of the large profits derived from the Casino of Monte Carlo goes to the institute, and also that the present Prince of Monaco does not emulate the example of his father in contributing freely to its needs. Thus a period has been reached at which the rate of growth of this important institution has been temporarily diminished.

A detailed description of the museum at Monaco has been published by Dr. Charles Atwood Kofoid in a bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Education (1910, No. 14, whole Number 440) entitled "The Biological Stations of Europe." Especial attention is given in this article to the facilities obtainable at the museum for research.

A

Although a fairly large number of students and scientists from various countries availed themselves of the hospitality and opportunities offered for weeks at Monaco before the war, there have been very few since i that time. To those who may be interested it should be mentioned that the invitation to work at the museum still holds good and every possible aid will be furnished to competent investigators who may find it possible to come to Monaco. It is interesting to know that in addition to five well-equipped laboratories in which there are accommodations for from eight to ten visiting scientists, there are also four completely furnished lodging rooms located in the institute which are offered without charge to those who would prefer to be near their work. Excellent meals can easily be obtained in Monaco for less than one dollar per day. This should prove especially attractive to those of limited means who may desire to pursue studies in a European laboratory. It is evident that with the present rate of exchange and the special arrangements made by the steamship lines for the cheap transportation of students to Europe a sojourn of several months at Monaco might cost even less than a similar stay at a less well-equipped laboratory in the United States.

The collections of this museum embrace thousands of carefully preserved specimens for which accurate and detailed information in regard to their source is available. The museum operates a small steam yacht for collecting material for the aquaria, and by means of this vessel living specimens for research may be easily obtained. The museum possesses a wellequipped chemical laboratory in which studies of chemical nature may be pursued. The library is rich in publications pertaining to all branches of oceanography and is ample to permit all necessary searches of the literature.

The present staff consists of the director and some

five scientists and fifteen mechanics, attendants and guards. It is unfortunate that the time of this staff is occupied for the most part with details of maintenance and editorial work in connection with the publications of the institute rather than with research. It is particularly for this reason that Dr. Richard would welcome scientists who desire to take advantage of the facilities offered by his institution. Any one who may be interested in working at the Oceanographical Museum of Monaco should write to M. le Dr. Jules Richard, Musée Oceanographique, Monaco (Principauté). They should state the problem which it is desired to pursue and the particular material or apparatus required.

PASTEUR INSTITUTE, PARIS

D. ATHERTON SEIDELL

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

AWARD OF FELLOWSHIPS BY THE CHARLES A. COFFIN FOUNDATION FIVE persons-four graduate students and one still an undergraduate-have been awarded fellowships for the year 1926-1927, by the Charles A. Coffin Foundation. These fellowships, awarded for one year, will enable the recipients to undertake research work at institutions of their own choosing. In addition to awarding the five new fellowships, the committee granted one renewal, and appointed one alternate. The Charles A. Coffin Foundation, by which these fellowships were granted, was established in 1922 in honor of the first president and chairman of the board of directors of the General Electric Company. The object of these fellowships is to give financial assistance to a carefully chosen group of research men who would be unable to carry on their work without financial assistance. A sum of $5,000 a year is devoted to this purpose.

The committee by which the awards are made is composed of three members, not connected with the General Electric Company. The three making this year's awards were: Dr. Michael I. Pupin, representing the American Institute of Electrical Engineers; Dr. George B. Pegram, representing the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education; and Gano Dunn, representing the National Academy of Sciences.

The awards are as follows: Hubert N. Alyea, for research work at Yale and Princeton on the inhibition of chemical reactions, studied photochemically and thermally. Bernard D. Holbrook, for investigating some phase (not yet determined) of the general problem of the reactions between radiant energy and matter, as investigated by the cloud-expansion chamber. Thomas J. Killian, for work in thermionic currents from absorbed films and conduction

in gases and vapors, to be pursued at Princeton. Lloyd P. Smith will study at Princeton during the coming year, and has taken the broad field of ionization as his subject. James E. Taylor, assistant professor at Wittenberg College, will engage in research work at Ohio State University, and will attempt a partial resolution of the isotopes of lead. Harold N. Rowe, who has for the past year been working at the University of Chicago under this foundation, has been granted a continuation of his fellowship for another year. During the forthcoming year he will engage in a test of the quantum theory of X-radiation. Warren F. Busse has been appointed an alternate. Mr. Busse is at present a research assistant at the University of Wisconsin, and proposes to study the relation of the chemical effect produced by the cathode rays outside the tube to the ionization produced.

GIFTS TO THE CASE SCHOOL OF APPLIED

SCIENCE

DR. CHARLES S. Howe, president of the Case School of Applied Science, has announced details of the progress of the campaign to raise funds for a new mechanical building and for additional endowment for the school.

An original gift of $500,000 was made on condition that the alumni raise $300,000, which with another gift of $200,000 would make a grand total of $1,000,000. Half of this amount was to go to the building of a new mechanical building and the other half for endowment. The campaign opened April 9 and ended April 16. Case School of Applied Science has roughly twenty-three hundred alumni. To date fifteen hundred and five subscriptions from the alumni, which means that more than sixty per cent. have already subscribed, have been received-subscriptions are still coming in. Instead of raising $300,000 the alumni have raised to date $404,000.

The original gift of $500,000 was given by Charles W. Bingham and when his name was announced an additional gift of $500,000 from his son, Charles W. Bingham, II, was also announced. The grand total to date therefore is approximately $1,625,000. The school will proceed immediately with the erection of the new mechanical building and undertake some other projects of progress which this gift has made possible.

THE NEW SOLAR OBSERVATORY IN
SOUTHWEST AFRICA

WITHIN a few months the Smithsonian Institution expects, for the first time in history, to receive daily reports on solar radiation from the Eastern Hemisphere as a result of the establishment of a new solar observatory in Southwest Africa by the National Geo

graphic Society's expedition headed by Dr. Charles G. Abbot, the solar expert of the Smithsonian Institution, who has just returned to Washington.

Construction on this new sun observation post, which is to operate in conjunction with other solar observatories in taking daily measurements of the solar constant, in an attempt to obtain data for long-range weather forecasting, has begun on the arid mountain of Brukkaros, in the center of a Hottentot reservation, with the assistance of the Public Works Department of the government of Southwest Africa.

The observatory and living quarters for the scientists are being built in natural caves, enlarged and improved, to obviate heating in winter and obtain cool rooms in summer. A reservoir of nearly 3,000 gallons capacity is being built to catch the infrequent rains in that part of Africa.

The two American scientific men who will be stationed on Brukkaros will have no easy access to their observatory. The nearest spot to which they will be able to take their supply automobile will be an hour's walk from the mountain.

The outstanding merit of Brukkaros as an observatory site is the clearness of the atmosphere. The place is seven miles north of Berseba, a Hottentot village with a white population of two persons.

Daily communication of solar radiation values probably will be by radio signals to Berseba, whence they will be relayed to Keetmanshoop and cabled to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington.

THE MILLS COLLEGE MEETING OF THE PACIFIC DIVISION, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION

THE tenth annual meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will be held June 16 to 19, 1926, at Mills College, California. In accepting the invitation of Mills College to hold the 1926 meeting there the executive committee have been governed by the fact of its central location with respect to the large membership in the San Francisco Bay region and by its desire to recognize the outstanding character of Mills College, which has achieved notable importance on the Pacific Coast and now ranks among the best institutions of its class in the country.

Ample accommodations are assured and in the delightful surroundings of the college guests will find much of interest for the employment of their time between sessions. Mills College is within the city limits of Oakland about five miles from the city hall. It may be reached from San Francisco in one hour and a quarter and from Berkeley and the University of California in a half hour.

A special committee has been appointed to provide entertainment for visiting ladies who may not