SMS 100 Chapter 3: Chapter 3 book notes
8 Aug 2016
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Continental drift was accepted around the 1960s. After christopher columbus" voyage, maps of the new world started to show. People were noticing that south america seemed to fit against africa. The philosopher francis bacon speculated on this in writing in 1620, and benjamin franklin is said to have pondered the nature of this fit in the 1700s. Earlier than either of them, abraham ortelius not only recognized the fit, but also proposed the movements of continents as an explanation for it in is publishing. One of the first to come close to proposing continental drift was edward suess, a geologist. Remains of fossils were found on south america, africa and india (as well as antarctica and australia later). Suess" explanation for this was that widely separated southern hemisphere land masses had once been united in a single supercontinent, which he named gondwana-land. Frank bursley taylor proposed actual movements of the continents.
