Evening Star Newspaper, June 30, 1929, Page 89

-~ — gt THE SUNDAY STAR, Was the Moon Once a Part Of the Earthr Latest Deductions of Science Tend to Confirm Old Theories That Our Continents and Oceans Were Formed When “Tumor” Bulged on Surface of the World and Was Flung Into Space as ““Orb of Night.” BY NELL RAY CLARKE. NCE the mon was a part of the earth’s crust. That was perhaps a billion and a half years ago, long before “you were a tadpole and I was a fish.” As the molten mass which was the earth in the making spun through space, it cooled and a thin crust of lighter materials formed on its surface, like a coating of grease on a kettle of cooling soup. 8 There were tides in the thin-skinned earth caused by the attraction of the sun. It bulged from the tidal pull and swelled out in a huge tumor on the surface. The tumor grew larger and larger and finally the tidal force pulled a great chunk of this crustal ma- terial out into space. It was as if a mighty hand had torn off a plece of the rind of the slowly cooling earth, leaving the edges tatiered and torn. As a vicious dog removes the seat of a bad boy's trousers, leaving the edges irregular and rag- ged, so the tidal force tore a hole in the crust of the earth, leaving capes and peninsulas, bays and harbors on the ragged crustal edges, and dropped bits which it could not carry away back upon the earth to form islands. The material which was hurled away into space became the moon and by the force of attraction for its parent body continued to spin around the earth. AP'I‘BR the cataclysm, the earth was a bit off balance for a cosmic second. Then the remaining crustal material split apart and slid on opposite sides of the molten mass to re-establish its equilibrium. Thus the two main divisions of the continents on the earth occurred, North and South America on one side and Eurasia and Africa on the other, _with such island fragments as Australia, the “South Sea Islands, the Philippines, Japan, Borneo and Sumatra being shaken loose from the mainland in the cataclysm. And since this crustal material was light, it floated on the top of the molten mass above the elevation of the heavier or basaltic rocks, exactly as a log of light soft wood will float higher in a river than a log of heavier wood. Therefore we find that the rocks beneath the beds of the oceans are the heavier varieties— the moiten mass which lay beneath the outer, lighter crust. As the earth cooled more and more and “water vapor began to condense -and fall as rain, it naturally settled in the lower regions on the earth’s surface, forming our oceans, While arms of the oceans have invaded continental areas in times past, those arms have been shallow. The deep oceans have never been those portions of the earth now occupied by the continents. At the time that’ the tidal force on tie earth’s crust tore off the material which made the moon, the crust of the earth was probably about 30 or 40 miles in thickness. At leas§, that is approximately the accepted figure. Today the crust of old Mother Earth is twice that thickness, for the old lady has cooled off and settled down to more sedate habits and behavior, which permit man to dwell in the wrinkles and folds of her placid face. This is the hypothesis which has been re- cently assumed by Maj. William Bowie, chief of the division of geodesy of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, to explain how the moon and the continents of the earth were created. For many-years Maj. Bowie has been one of the more advanced thinkers in the field of isostasy, or the science of the equilibrium in the earth’s crust. . His theory has the backing of other scien- tists. Sir George Darwin, son of the author of the “Origin of Species,” has propounded the WASHINGITON, D. C, JUNE WU, 1929—PART 7. . Man has ever showed interest in our satellite, the moon. Above is the largest model of the moon, recently presented to the Field Museum, Chicago, by Lewis Reese. theory that the moon was thrown off from the earth by tidal action, and Osmund Fisher about 40 years ago advanced the idea that the moon was torn from the earth either by tidal action or by explosion. BU’I‘ Maj. Bowie has developed his hypothesis to cover many interesting phenomena on the earth’s surface. For instance, he thinks it offers the best explanation of why granites —the materials of which the continental masses are chiefly composed—were pushed or pulled into piles, as they are in the mountain forma- tions of the earth. ‘This is the fascinating story of the develop- ment of his hypothesis, as Maj. Bowie told it to me. “For many years I had wondered about Ber- muda—why and how it got where it is,” he said. “And how to explain Hawail and those other islands which are dropped out in the wide expanse of the Pacificc I had never found any satisfactory explanation to account Maj. William Bowie, chief of the division of geodesy of the Un ited States Coast and Geodetic Survey, who offers an explana- tion for the existence of the moon and the contour of the earth’s surface. for their existence, or, rather, for their. cree ation. The Hawaiian Islands are of vol- canic formation, of course, but I could not believe that volcanoces started from the level : of the ocean floor. It 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 a long time over a pos- sible explanation at various times whenever the islands came into my mind, I finally evolved a hypothesis which satisfied me. I wrote it out carefully and took it to one of the chief geologists in the Coast and Geodetic Survey and asked him to read it. “In a short time he was back in my office with a copy of Osmund Fisher's book, ‘The Physics of the Earth’s Crust, in which that author more than 40 years previously had set forth the same idea. I am sure that I had never previously read that part of the book which dealt with the origin of the oceans and the continents, but, of course, I had read Sir George Darwia’s theory that the moon was once a part of the earth’s crust and had been torn away by the action of the tides. “Fisher’s line of reasoning contends that the moon was torn away by tidal action or by explosion of the earth’s crust. I assume that it must have come off as the result of tidal 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 off in every direc- tion from the point of discharge. If this kind of cataclysm occurred, I cannot see what force could have brought the fragments togetheg again and welded them into the body ottfi moon. b B8 “It is rather interesting that I should ha & arrived at a similar conclusion entirely P pendent of Fisher's reasoning. ‘The more | have tested the plausibility of the h that the creation of the moon caused oceans and continents the more reasonable seems to me. Briefly it is this: 4 b ¢\/JORE than a billion and a half years agdy' as the earth was first cooling do from the liquid state, the granites, our lightest’ igneous rocks, were floating on the top of the' heavier materials, or the basaltic rocks. As' the granites on the surface cooled they formed ' a hardened crust, perhaps of from 30 to 40 miles in thickness. But that crust was a mere film in comparison to the diameter of the earth, 8,000 miles. The earth was still too hot to support life of any sort. There could as yet be no condensation of water vapor, and therefore no soil and no plant or animal life. “As the earth spun, its center still molten, the crust was pulled outward by the attraction ' of the sun. In those early days the sun 'ld} hotter and the earth was revolving on its axig: and spinning through space at a much rate than it is today. There was no moon slow its action down. The sun, which 3 causes tides in the earth, had a ter thun“ it does today. s et!ed ‘And so the earth’s crust lagged from thig tidal pulling. The crust developed a hnln": its surface. The bump grew 'until it was evident over a large section of the crust. Th>» principle of this increase in the size of the Continued on Thirteenth Page.