Page:The origin of continents and oceans - Wegener, tr. Skerl - 1924.djvu/121

Rh it is not to be wondered at that the suspicion arises that the assumption of a shifting of the poles is built upon a fallacy. Such systematic attempts were undertaken in particular by Löffelholz von Colberg, Reibisch and Simroth, Kreichgauer and Jacobitti. Unfortunately, Reibisch clothed his ideas, quite correct from the Cretaceous onwards, in the singular straight-jacket of a strict “pendulation” of the poles in an “orbit of swings,” which is probably false from the point of view of the laws of revolving bodies. In any case, it is without sufficient basis, and therefore leads to numerous contradictions of the observed facts. Simroth has collected a comprehensive amount of biological data which contains good evidence for the shifting of the poles, but which, however, is unable to prove the supposed strict regularity of the backward and forward swing. The purely inductive method is certainly the more correct, that is, to determine the position of the poles from fossil evidence of climates without any preconceived opinions on the subject. This method is adopted by Kreichgauer in his very exhaustive and clearly written book, even although he also relies on an insufficiently established dogma as to the arrangement of the mountain systems. Nearly all the investigations give practically