Author: Du Toit, Alexander Logie [1878-1948]
Title: Our Wandering Continents : An Hypothesis of Continental Drifting
Description: Edinburgh / London, Oliver & Boyd, 1937. orig. cloth, dustwrapper. 23x15cm, xiii,366 pages, Some chips and tears to dustwrapper edges. Some foxing. Light binding corner bumps. The first edition.. Name on flyleaf. Some cover & page-edge spotting. Good. ¶ ["...an early supporter of Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift.... In 1903, du Toit was appointed as a geologist within the Geological Commission of the Cape of Good Hope, and he began to develop an extensive knowledge of the geology of southern Africa by mapping large portions of the Karoo and its dolerite intrusions, publishing numerous papers on the subject. Subsequently, he mapped the entire Karoo System through the complete stratigraphy from Dwyka tillite to the basalt of the Drakensberg. He worked at a furious rate but was known for his painstaking meticulousness, as reflected in his book 'Our Wandering Continents'. It still bears reading for its creative and closely argued theses in the light of the geology of the day, and is soberingly consistent with modern principles of plate tectonics...In the light of his research, du Toit published a review of the stratigraphic and radioisotope evidence from those regions that supported Wegener's ideas, A Geological Comparison of South America with South Africa (1927). His best-known publication, Our Wandering Continents (1937), expanded and improved this work and, departing somewhat from Wegener, proposed two original supercontinents separated by the Tethys Ocean, a northern/equatorial Laurasia and a southern/polar Gondwanaland..." - wikipedia].

Keywords: Geology, History of Science, Plate Tectonics, Continental Drift, , , , ,