Page:The origin of continents and oceans - Wegener, tr. Skerl - 1924.djvu/77

Rh chains, coming from the interior of the continent, stretch in Europe at first in a curved course towards the W.N.W., then westwards so as to form a wild jagged type of coast (the so-called rias-coast) in south-western Ireland and Brittany. Traversing France, the most southerly folds of this system appear to bend round completely to the south in the continental shelf in front of that country, and to find their continuation on the Spanish peninsula on the other side of the deep-sea rift, with its book-like opening, forming the Bay of Biscay. Suess called this branch the “Asturian Eddy.” But the principal chains obviously continue westward through the more northern parts of the shelf, and though planed down by the erosion of the waves suggest a continuation into the Atlantic Ocean. As Bertrand first stated in 1887, this continuation on the American side forms the extension of the Appalachians in Nova Scotia and south-eastern Newfoundland. A folded chain of Carboniferous age also ends here, and is folded, as in Europe, towards the north. It shows, as the former does, a rias-coast, and thence traverses the shelf of the Newfoundland Bank. Its direction, usually north-easterly, changes to practically east near the place of fracture. Already according to former ideas it was assumed that it was a single great system of folds, for which E. Suess employed the term “Transatlantic Altaides.” A great simplification of this is yielded by the displacement theory, in that in the reconstruction both portions are brought into mutual contact, whilst