Page:The origin of continents and oceans - Wegener, tr. Skerl - 1924.djvu/140

114 the continents, we can obtain without much difficulty an approximate value for the annual displacement to be expected. Unfortunately, these figures are very uncertain, for the exact moment at which the blocks have separated can only be estimated at the best in a very inexact manner. It is therefore only to be expected that many of these figures will undergo much alteration in the future. Meanwhile I have obtained the values which are grouped in the following table:—

The greatest variation is thus to be expected in the distance from Greenland to Europe. The movement in this case is an east-west one, so that the astronomical position can only give an increase in the difference of longitude, not that of latitude.

The increase in the difference of longitude between Greenland and Europe has, as a matter of fact, already been noticed. J. P. Koch has compared, in the sixth volume of the results of the Danish Expedition,