DROWNED AMERICA

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 34, 10 February 1933, Page 7

DROWNED AMERICA

A SARGASSO SEA

A vast Sargasso Sea spreading over half the country, th© retreat of a glacier island froii. the eastern seaboard, and the hunting of mastodons by postglacial Indians were subjects of interest at tho joint conventions of the American Geological, Mineralbgieal, and Palaeontological Societies, says the New York "Times."

Describing the Sargasso Sea as existing several million years ago, Dr. Budolph Buedemann, New York State paleontologist, said that its greatest depth was in the Mississippi Valley and that it expanded so far east as to flood Western New York.

Fossilised evidences of the ancient sea in the rocks of many parts of this country, he said, showed that seaweed and sponges and living creatures of a primitive typo existed in forms almost identical with those in the four, present grassy seas, including one off the Bahamas.

Irving B. Crosby, a > Boston' geologist, and Richard J. touges, Columbia University graduate student, presenting results of their survo/ of "the ancient coast lino of New England, draw the conclusion that but, for the Wisconsin Glacier, which rctoeated from New England about 30,000 years ago, there would perhaps never liave been a liberal supply of seaford off the north-eastern coast.

They showed that as the- ioe melted back the. crust of the earth, released from an enormous weight, bulged to its original elevation, in places aa much as 500 ft above normal sea level. Great volumes of water pouring from the melting icepack produced some of the present river valleys whose deltas now form tiny islands or rounded drumlins. .

They traced this prehistoric shorelino from Capo Ann Island through Rochester, New Hampshire, and into Central Maine, where elevated beaches wore found. They estimated that the melting of the glaciers raised the level of the ocean by 300 ft. Three Illinois geologists—F. P. Shcpard, J. R. Trefethen, and G. V. Coliee offered evidence that the formation of the Georges Bank, the nearest groat fishing ground to New England, was produced by tho^ terminal moraine, or great glacial dump of tho ice sheet."The soft slope and smooth shelf of the hank provides a fine breeding floor for iish. Since the ice cap of 30,000 years .ago has receded to Greenland, the scaentists wore interested in whether it would continue its northerly rctpeat or again start an invasion!■■southward. Tho_ concensus wag that too many climatic and geological factors are involved for a glacier again to crush tho North American continent for at least 300,000 years.