and mean heights—the best results which have yet been obtained—led
to the following conclusions.[1]
The area of the dry land was taken as 28.3% of the surface of the globe, and that of the oceans as 71.7%. The mean height deduced for the land was 2300 ft. above sea-level, the mean depth of the sea 11,500 ft. below, while the position of mean-sphere level comes out as 7500 ft. (1250 fathoms) belowAreas of the crust accord-ing to Wagner. sea-level. From this it would appear that 43% of the earth’s surface was above and 57% below the mean level. It must be noted, however, that since 1895 the soundings of Nansen in the north polar area, of the “Valdivia,” “Belgica,” “Gauss” and “Scotia” in the Southern Ocean, and of various surveying ships in the North and South Pacific, have proved that the mean depth of the ocean is considerably greater than had been supposed, and mean-sphere level must therefore lie deeper than the calculations of 1895 show; possibly not far from the position deduced from the freer estimate of 1888. The whole of the available data were utilized by the prince of Monaco in 1905 in the preparation of a complete bathymetrical map of the oceans on a uniform scale, which must long remain the standard work for reference on ocean depths.
By the device of a hypsographic curve co-ordinating the vertical relief and the areas of the earth’s surface occupied by each zone of elevation, according to the system introduced by Supan,[2] Wagner showed his results graphically.
This curve with the values reduced from metres to feet is reproduced below.
Wagner subdivides the earth’s surface, according to elevation, into the following five regions:
Wagner’s Divisions of the Earth’s Crust:
| Name. | Per cent of Surface. | From | To |
| Depressed area | 3 | Deepest. | −16,400 feet. |
| Oceanic plateau | 54 | −16,400 feet. | − 7,400 feet. |
| Continental slope | 9 | − 7,400 feet. | −660 feet. |
| Continental plateau | 28 | −660 feet. | + 3,000 feet. |
| Culminating area | 6 | + 3,300 feet. | Highest. |
The continental plateau might for purposes of detailed study be divided into the continental shelf from −660 ft. to sea-level, and lowlands from sea-level to +660 ft. (corresponding to the mean level of the whole globe).[3] Uplands reaching from 660 ft. to 2300 (the approximate mean level of the land), and highlands, from 2300 upwards, might also be distinguished.
A striking fact in the configuration of the crust is that each continent, or elevated mass of the crust, is diametrically opposite to an ocean basin or great depression; the only partial exception being in the case of southern South America, which is antipodal to eastern Asia. Professor C. Lapworth has Arrangement of world-ridges and hollows.generalized the grand features of crustal relief in a scheme of attractive simplicity. He sees throughout all the chaos of irregular crust-forms the recurrence of a certain harmony, a succession of folds or waves which build up all the minor features. [4] One great series of crust waves from east to west is crossed by a second great series of crust waves from north to south, giving rise by their interference to six great elevated masses (the continents), arranged in three groups, each consisting of a northern and a southern member separated by a minor depression. These elevated masses are divided from one another by similar great depressions.
He says: “The surface of each of our great continental masses of land resembles that of a long and broad arch-like form, of which we see the simplest type in the New World. The surface of the North American arch is sagged downwards in the middle into a central depression whichLapworth’s fold-theory. lies between two long marginal plateaus, and these plateaus are finally crowned by the wrinkled crests which form its two modern mountain systems. The surface of each of our ocean floors exactly resembles that of a continent turned upside down. Taking the Atlantic as our simplest type, we may say that the surface of an ocean basin resembles that of a mighty trough or syncline, buckled up more or less centrally in a medial ridge, which is bounded by two long and deep marginal hollows, in the cores of which still deeper grooves sink to the profoundest depths. This complementary relationship descends even to the minor features of the two. Where the great continental sag sinks below the ocean level, we have our gulfs and our Mediterraneans, seen in our type continent, as the Mexican Gulf and Hudson Bay. Where the central oceanic buckle attains the water-line we have our oceanic islands, seen in our type ocean, as St Helena and the Azores. Although the apparent crust-waves are neither equal in size nor symmetrical in form, this complementary relationship between them is always discernible. The broad Pacific depression seems to answer to the broad elevation of the Old World—the narrow trough of the Atlantic to the narrow continent of America.”
The most thorough discussion of the great features of terrestrial relief in the light of their origin is that by Professor E. Suess,[5] who points out that the plan of the earth is the result of two movements of the crust—one, subsidence over wide areas, giving rise to oceanic depressions and leavingSuess’s theory. the continents protuberant; the other, folding along comparatively narrow belts, giving rise to mountain ranges. This theory of crust blocks dropped by subsidence is opposed to Lapworth’s theory of vast crust-folds, but geology is the science which has to decide between them.
Geomorphology is concerned, however, in the suggestions which have been made as to the cause of the distribution of heap and hollow in the larger features of the crust. Élie de Beaumont, in his speculations on the relation between the direction of mountain ranges and their geological age and character, was feeling towards a comprehensive theory of the forms of crustal relief; but his ideas were too geometrical, and his theory that the earth is a spheroid built up on a rhombic dodecahedron, the pentagonal faces of which determined the direction of mountain ranges, could not be proved.[6] The “tetrahedral theory” brought forward by Lowthian Green,[7] that the form of the earth is a spheroid based on a regular tetrahedron, is more serviceable, because it accounts for three very interesting facts of the terrestrial plan—(1) the antipodal position of continents and ocean basins; (2) the triangular outline of the continents; and (3) the excess of sea in the southern hemisphere. Recent investigations have recalled attention to the work of Lowthian Green, but the question is still in the controversial stage.[8] The study of tidal strain in the earth’s crust by Sir George Darwin has led that physicist to indicate the possibility of the triangular form and southerly direction of the continents being a result of the differential or tidal attraction of the sun and moon. More recently Professor A. E. H. Love has shown that the great features of the relief of the lithosphere may be expressed by spherical harmonics of the first, second and third degrees, and their formation related to gravitational action in a sphere of unequal density.[9]
In any case it is fully recognized that the plan of the earth is so clear as to leave no doubt as to its being due to some general cause which should be capable of detection.
If the level of the sea were to become coincident with the mean level of the lithosphere, there would result one tri-radiate land-mass
of nearly uniform outline and one continuous sheet of water- ↑ “Areal und mittlere Erhebung der Landflächen sowie der Erdkruste” in Gerland’s Beiträge zur Geophysik, ii. (1895) p. 667. See also Nature, 54 (1896), p. 112.
- ↑ Petermanns Mitteilungen, xxxv. (1889) p. 19.
- ↑ The areas of the continental shelf and lowlands are approximately equal, and it is an interesting circumstance that, taken as a whole, the actual coast-line comes just midway on the most nearly level belt of the earth’s surface, excepting the ocean floor. The configuration of the continental slope has been treated in detail by Nansen in Scientific Results of Norwegian North Polar Expedition, vol. iv. (1904), where full references to the literature of the subject will be found.
- ↑ British Association Report (Edinburgh, 1892), p. 699.
- ↑ Das Antlitz der Erde (4 vols., Leipzig, 1885, 1888, 1901). Translated under the editorship of E. de Margerie, with much additional matter, as La Face de la terre, vols. i. and ii. (Paris, 1897, 1900), and into English by Dr Hertha Sollas as The Face of the Earth, vols. i. and ii. (Oxford, 1904, 1906).
- ↑ Élie de Beaumont, Notice sur les systèmes de montagnes (3 vols., Paris, 1852).
- ↑ Vestiges of the Molten Globe (London, 1875).
- ↑ See J. W. Gregory, “The Plan of the Earth and its Causes,” Geog. Journal, xiii. (1899) p. 225; Lord Avebury, ibid. xv. (1900) p. 46; Marcel Bertrand, “Déformation tétraédrique de la terre et déplacement du pôle,” Comptes rendus Acad. Sci. (Paris, 1900), vol. cxxx. p. 449; and A. de Lapparent, ibid. p. 614.
- ↑ See A. E. H. Love, “Gravitational Stability of the Earth,” Phil. Trans. ser. A. vol. ccvii. (1907) p. 171.
