Page:The origin of continents and oceans - Wegener, tr. Skerl - 1924.djvu/205

Rh free from them. In North America still undeveloped beginnings of the formation of festoons can perhaps be detected in the separation of islands between latitudes 50° and 55°, the bulging of the coast near San Francisco, and the separation of the Californian coastal ranges. In the south West Antarctica might possibly be claimed as a festoon (in this case probably a double festoon).

As a whole, the phenomenon of the festoons points to a displacement of the continental masses west of the Pacific Ocean, directed towards the west-north-west, therefore about due west for the position of the poles in Pleistocene time. This direction also coincides with the long axis of the Pacific (South America-Japan) and with the dominant direction of the ancient Pacific island rows (Hawaian Islands, Marshall Islands, Society Islands, etc.). The ocean deeps, inclusive of the Tonga deep, are arranged as rifts perpendicular to this displacement direction, and thus parallel to the festoons. There can certainly be no doubt that all these phenomena are in causal connection with one another. If we take a circular