MOONSTRUCK?

Evening Star, Issue 20592, 18 September 1930, Page 9

MOONSTRUCK?

THE PACIFIC OCEAN LUNAR HISTORY. LONDON, August 31. Is the Pacific Ocean a sort of scar showing where the moon was torn out from the side of the earth? This apparently fantastic theory has been supported by the late Sir Gregory Darwin and other eminent physicists, but 1 rofossor J. W. Gregory, the eminent geologist, told the Geological {society that figures of size and density upset the theory. The specific gravity of the moon is 3.4, against 2.5 for the continental crust of the earth. Therefore, the moon is too heavy to be composed of matter from a continent formerly uniting America and Australia. The moon is much too big to have fallen from the Pacific. Professor Gregory, however, considers that the Pacific is not a permanent feature of the globe, and that the area has been occupied repeatedly by isolated land-blocked.' seas, usually with a main extension from east to west, sometimes continuing across Asia to Europe, or across America., to the Atlantic. Land extending right across the present site of the Pacific provided routes by which animals migrated between Australia, South America, Asia, and North America. Professor Gregory considers that there is much evidence in favour of the origin of mammals in a southern continent, which inclirted Australia, South America, and Africa. Certain frogs found in Australasia and America are infested with minute parasites almost, if not absolutely, identical.