万物简史 第247期:大地在移动(1)

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　　第十二章 大地在移动

　　In one of his last professional acts before his death in 1955, Albert Einstein wrote a short but glowing foreword to a book by a geologist¹ named Charles Hapgood entitled Earth's Shifting Crust: A Key to Some Basic Problems of Earth Science. Hapgood's book was a steady demolition² of the idea that continents were in motion. In a tone that all but invited the reader to join him in a tolerant chuckle³, Hapgood observed that a few gullible⁴ souls had noticed "an apparent correspondence in shape between certain continents." It would appear, he went on, "that South America might be fitted together with Africa, and so on... It is even claimed that rock formations on opposite sides of the Atlantic match."

　　1955年，阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦办了生前最后一件专业方面的事──为一本书写了个短小而生动的前言。该书的题目是《移动的地壳：解答地球科学中的一些问题》，作者是一位名叫查尔斯·哈普古德的地质学家。哈普古德在书里坚决驳斥了关于大陆在漂移的观点。他以逗大家与他一起发笑的口气指出，少数容易上当受骗的人认为“有些大陆的形状显然吻合”。他接着说，似乎“南美洲可以和非洲拼在一起，如此等等，有人甚至声称，大西洋两岸的岩石结构完全一致”。

　　大陆漂移说

　　Mr. Hapgood briskly dismissed any such notions, noting that the geologists⁵ K. E. Caster and J. C. Mendes had done extensive fieldwork on both sides of the Atlantic and had established beyond question that no such similarities existed. Goodness knows what outcrops Messrs. Caster and Mendes had looked at, beacuse in fact many of the rock formations on both sides of the Atlanticare the same—not just very similar but the same.

　　哈普古德先生断然摈弃了任何这类观点，并且指出，地质学家K.E.卡斯特和J.C.门德斯已经在大西洋两岸进行了大量实地考察，毫无疑问地确定这些相似之处压根儿就不存在。天知道卡斯特和门德斯两位先生考察了哪些地方，因为大西洋两岸的许多岩石结构确实是一样的──不仅非常类似，而且完全一样。

　　This was not an idea that flew with Mr. Hapgood, or many other geologists of his day. The theory Hapgood alluded⁶ to was one first propounded⁷ in 1908 by an amateur American geologist named Frank Bursley Taylor.

　　无论是哈普古德先生，还是那个年代的许多别的地质学家，这个观点怎么也听不进去。哈普古德提到的理论，最初是由一位名叫弗兰克·伯斯利·泰勒的美国业余地质学家在1908年提出来的。

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