Page:The origin of continents and oceans - Wegener, tr. Skerl - 1924.djvu/94

68 of Java-Wetter, striking west-east, curves spirally at its end past the Banda Islands to the Siboga Bank, successively north-east, north, north-west, west and south-west. The Timor chain of islands lying in front of it testifies by its disturbed and varying direction to the collision with the Australian shelf, for which H. A. Brouwer has given the geological reasoning in detail. This chain in addition bends back in another similar energetic spiral to Buru. A very interesting supplement to this process is to be seen on the eastern side of New Guinea. Coming from the south-east, this island has grazed the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago, grasped the island of New Britain by its former south-eastern end, and, dragging it along with itself, has turned the long island round more than 90°, bending it into a semi-circular form. A deep channel remained behind it, and testifies to the violence of this process, since the sima has not yet been able to fill it.

To many it will seem bold to draw such conclusions merely from a depth chart. But practically everywhere this is found to be a reliable guide to the movements of the blocks, especially in the later geological periods. It is also certainly worth noticing, in support of our hypothesis, that the Dutch geologists who are working in the Sunda Archipelago were the first to take up the displacement theory. As a matter of fact,