ADVENTURES OF THE MIND 18.

The EarthsShiftin Crust

By CHARLES H. H.4PG00D

Science may be about to rewrite the story of the earth.Geophysici.sts and geologists are currently examiningwith new interest the startling idea, first advanced in the

nineteenth century, that the earth's erust may be loose andthat from time to time forces may cause it to slip over the layersbelow. Such crustal shifts would literally change the face of theearth, subjecting the areas affected to climatic changes thatwould determine the fate of all living things.

It has recently become apparent that many of the estab-lished and hitherto accepted principles of geology are not lead-ing us to a solution of the basic problems of the earth. Theassumption of crustal displacements provides many of theanswers for which science has long been searching.

I shall summarize these problems and the evidence for suchcontinuing shifts, and present a theor\'—worked out in collab-oration with James H. Campbell —to account for these shifts.

One of the long-standing mysteries of the earth is the originof mountains. It was originally suggested that mountainscould be explained by the cooling and shrinking of the earth,in the same way that an apple, as it dries up and shrinks, pro-,duces skin wrinkles. However,, Clarence Dutton, the geologispointed out more than forty years ago that this would not ex-|plain mountains. He showed that the patterns of folding that|would result ft otn such shrinking, if it really occurred, woul̂ ear no resemblance whate\'er to the patterns of existiimountain ranges. He pointed out that in that case the rangwould run in all directions and would not form long, narro«belts such as the Appalachians, the Rockies or the Andes.body was ever able to contradict Dutton. Geologists now agreethat the force responsible for the folding of the rock strata didnot operate in all directions on the earth's surface, but wa.-̂exerted horizontally as a CO.KTINUED O.N PAC,Er>i>

About the Author

Charles H. Hapgood, a graduate of Harvard Col-lege, the Harvard Graduate School of Arts andSciences and the University of Freiburg, has spe-ciülized in intellectual history and. during recentyears, the history of science. Professor Hapgood isassociate professor of history and anthropology atKecne Teachers College in New Hampshire,

James H. Campbell, who has collaborated withProfessor Hapgood on the crustal-shift theory, is a

mathematician, chemist and electrical engineer. Mr.Campbell built the first model of the Sperry Gjscopic CompHss, worked closely with George Welinghouse and collaborated with Fessenden in thedevelopment of wireless telegraphy. Mr. Campbell isnow eighty-five years old.

The theory developed by Messrs. Hapgood andCampbell was presented at length in their book.Earth's Shifting Crust. Photograph by OIlie Atkins

t II E S A T 11 U I» A Y t V li N t N I' O S I

The Kartli's Shifting C\(CiinUniK\t from l'ugi: 22)

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been

- Jireciion, But a satisfactoryof sucli pressures has never

VolciUiocs arc phcriomcn;i often ;issoci-¡itcd with nnountiiins. Miuiy mountiiiiis,iuid c\cn whole island systems, hiive beenbuilt up by volcanic action. But to thisdiiy there is no generally accepted theoryof volcanlsm. There is no agreement as tothe source of the magma—the moltenrock—that tills thousands of cracks andfissures in the earth's crust, and occa-sionally erupts at the surface.

Another OfKin question about the earth'scrust IS whether the present continentsand ocean basins have been permanentfeatures of the earth's surface. Thereis a vast amount of geological and bio-logical evidence for former land connec-tions between the continents, for "landbridges." but there has been no way ofexplaining their appearance and disap-pearance.

If we turn to the history of climate, weIind other unsolved problems. More than100 years ago geologists made the dis-covery, which at first appeared unbe-lievable, that floods of ice had in the pastswept down over great areas of NorthAmerica and Europe, invading the tem-perate zone. Since that time at least liftytheories have been produced to explainthese ice ages, but none of them hasbeen satisfactory.

One of the special mysteries connectedwith ice ages is the location of formericecaps on the earth's surface. Theoreti-cally, one would expect a great ice sheetto spread out in all directions from acenter at or near one of the poles. But itappears that the last North Americanicecap had its center two thousand milessouth of the North Pole, and spreadnorthward as well as southward andwestward. Long ages ago another greatice sheet had its center in the AfricanCongo, on the equator. Still anotherformed in Southern India, and may havespread southward to the equator on landnow under the Indian Ocean. These factshave defied explanation.

The reverse climatic situations areequally inexplicable. There have beenmany cases of warm, temperate climatesprevailing near the present poles. Luxuri-ant forests have existed in areas now ter-ribly cold—in Spitsbergen and on BearIsland in the Arctic Ocean, and on thelofty sides of Mount Weaver, within twohundred miles of the South Pole.

1 hese climatic puzzles are connectedwith unsolved problems in the theory ofevolution. It is still widely supposed thatthe principle of natural selection explainsthe origin of new forms of life. The truthis, on the contrary, that the impossibilityof explaining evolution through naturalselection, without the assistance of someother factor, became obvious to geneti-cists about the year 1900. Statisticalstudies by J. B. S. Haldane and othersshowed that the amount of time thatwould be required for new traits to be-come established in a species by naturalselection alone was so immense that evenwhole geological periods would not suf-fice to produce new species. As a way outof the difficulty it was suggested thatmutations might account for more rapidchanges in life forms. It soon became evi-dent, however, that the very great ma-jority of all mutations, since they arerandom, must be harmful and will beeliminated, in due course, by the processof natural selection itself. The net resultof mutations, therefore, must be to slowdown, rather than to accelerate, the proc-e:M of evolution.

•ust

The time element is by no means theonly problem left unst>lved by evolution-ary theory. Anotlier is the frequent recur-rence through theearth's history of simul-taneous extinctions of many forms oflife, witli whole groups of species suc-cumbing together. In many cases paleon-tological evidence shows that these speciesdid not succumb to the competition ofsuperior forms, but left their life zooesempty—or were succeeded by inferiorspecies.

One of these periods of wholesale de-struction of life occurred at the end of thelast ice age. At that time the mastodonand the mammoth, the giant beaver, thegiant sloth, the saber-toothed tiger, andmany other species, were destroyed,while others (like the horse in NorthAmerica) were displaced from their orig-inal habitats and driven to the ends ofthe earth. It was a natural disaster which,according to one writer, destroyed some40.000,000 animals in North'Americaalone. And this occurred when the climatewas improving—at the end rather thanat the beginning of the ice age. In a fewthousand years life on earth assumed aradically new aspect. There has been noacceptable explanation of this.

One of the most astonishing facts ofthis mass destruction of animals is thecomplete preservation of the remains ofmany of them in the frozen ground ofnorthern Siberia and Alaska. For manycenturies mammoth tusks in huge num-bers have provided a supply for the ivorytrade in China. Bodies of mammothshave been found so completely preservedthat their meat has been edible. Summerflowers and grasses have been found,almost perfectly preserved, in theirmouths and stomachs.

It is apparent that millions of animalsonce nourished in areas now bitterly cold.

Furihermorc. there is plentiful evidencethat the bodies of hundreds of ihnusandsof animals of all kinds were entrapped inthe great ice sheet thai covered so muchof North America in the last ice age.There was thus tremendous mortality atthe beginning of the ice age as well as atthe end. How did animals of a temperateclimate become entrapped in the mile-thick ice sheet in North America? Whatsequence of events preserved the Siberianand Alaskan animal remains at a laterperiod—for it is known that ivory, as wellas meat, changes its structure rapidly ifexposed to the air at normal temperatures','

These circumstances require an agencythat can change climate rapidly, and notmerely over extended periods of time. Ashift of the crust of the earth can provideboth gradual and abrupt climatic changes,for the reason that it must inevitably setup intense strains and stresses in thecrust. These strains can be expected toincrease the rate of volcanic eruptions,in which vast quantities of volcanic dustwill suddenly cloud the earth's atmos-phere. The meteorologist, Humphreys,showed years ago that one great erup-tion (that of Mount Katmai in Alaska in1912) temporarily cut off 20 per cent ofthe sun's radiant heat from the earth'sentire surface.

We can thus hazard that the mam-moths were killed by deep snowfalls andburied in freezing mud following a sud-den and catastrophic weather changecaused by some distant volcanic holo-caust and its proliferating dust. We mayfurther suppose that many of the animalswere preserved for thousands of yearsbecause the area in which they lived wasthen being shifted poleward by the mov-ing crust.

With regard to the last ice age, we haverecently come into possession of new in-formation that deepens its mystery. SinceWorld War II new methods of datinggeological events have been made avail-able through nuclear physics. One of

iiiLs II, Cjiiipbcll, a prominuiu iiivciilur, chcmisi and engineer,helped foniiulate Hapgood's new theory of earth-crust movement.

these uses a radioactive isotope of carbon(Carbon 14) and is able lodate geologicalevents of the last 30,000 years with con-siderable accuracy. Another, using threeradioactive elements found in se¡i water,gives dates for the last million years. Byuse of the first method, scientists revisedthe date of the end of the last ice age,making it only 10,000 years ago, insteadof 30,000 years. A still more startling dis-covery was that the first known phase ofthis ice age (called the "Farmdale Ad-vance") occurred only about 25,000 yeanago, instead of more than 100,000 yearsbefore the present.

Ihis discovery challenged the funda-mental principle of the system establishedby the nineteenth-century geologist,Charles Lyell, He supposed that geologi-cal processes In the past always proceededat their present rates: processes such asrainfall, snowfall, erosion and the deposi-tion of sediment. However, in Í955,geologist Leland Horberg showed that,unless the radiocarbon method was en-tirely fallacious, there was a very markedacceleration of the rate of these geologi-cal processes during the last part of theice age. Some factor must, therefore,have been operating that is not operatingnow. It is clear that volcanic dust, by pro-ducing sudden falls in temperature and,at the same time, providing nuclei aroundwhich moisture could ¿ondense, couldincrease the rate of rainfall. Therefore,we are sure that a movement of theearth'scrust would accelerate all these processes.

The other new method of dating, whichwe call the ionium method, has also pro-duced a major upset. Applied to date thesediments obtained in cores from thebottom of the Ross Sea in Antarctica, iihas revealed that during the last millionyears Antarctica has several times beennonglacial. When these cores were datedit was found that the most recent "iceage" in the Ross Sea began only 6000years ago! It appears from this that thegrowth of the ice in Antarctica actuallyoccurred simultaneously with the meltingof the North American icecap. 1 had theopportunity to discuss this matter withEinstein, and he expressed his opinionthat only a shift of the earth's crust, si-multaneously moving North Americaaway from the North Pole and Antarcticatoward the South Pole could explain thesefacts.

The importance of all these problemscompels us to admit that we do not nowhave an integrated, effective theory of theearth we live on. If we are going to lookfor a better understanding of it, we mustturn to one of the basic principles thatunderlie the sciences and that have en-abled people to surmount crises of sciencein the past. This is the principle of sim-plicity. In the history of science we seehow again and again, a new basic solu-tion has taken the form of some simpleidea, an idea that made it possible torelate many different problems and ex-plain them simply.

To accomplish this we looked for acommon factor linking the different, ap-parently separate, problems. The key tothe theory was the discovery of this com-mon denominator. In our examination ofgeological literature we found that therewas one conjecture that kept cropping upin controversies about earth problems.Sooner or later, it was always suggestedthat the problem under discussion mightbe solved if we assumed shifts of theearth's poles. These suggestions were al-ways dismissed, however, because no onecould explain how the poles could beshifted.

My collaborator and i have now pro-duced a new theory of polar shift. Wehave taken the old idea that the earth'scrust can be shifted, thus changing the

Jnnuiiry lo , 1Í»,'>J»

geographical locations of lhc poles, ;indwe have added to this ;in idea we bor-rowed from the noicd engineer, llugbAtichincloss Brmvii, to provide ;i Ibrce lormoving the crust. In two ways iliis theoryis in accord with tbe principles 1 havementioned: ll is based on a few simpleassumptions, and it appears able to ex-plain and intejirate many questions.

^ Let me delinc our iissunipiions. Theeartiiislhoiiglit to be composed of an innerliquid core, made up of either iron or ofrock materials under great compression,with a radius of about 2000 miles. Aroimdthis core are Ihree layers. Tlic lowest andthickest of these is called the mésosphère,meaning "middle sphere." This is a solidshell, several hundred miles ihick, keptsolid by the pressure at that depth. Theshell aboul this is called the astheno-sphcre, from the Greek word for weak-ness. This, supposedly, is a viscous andplastic layer with little or no strength. Itsthickness is uncertain. It is overlain by theearth's crust, from twenty to forty milesthick. Our first assumption isthat the crustcan be displaced over this weak layer. Thedeepershellsofthe earth are not involved.

This assumption is supported by a massof geophysical evidence. The late Prof.Reginald A, Daly pointed out that thetemperature of rocks observed in mmeshafts and oil wells increases with depth,and that this leads to the conclusion ihatat some point between twenty and fortymiles below the surface the rocks mustreach their boiling points. This wouldmean that their crystalline structurewould be destroyed, and we know thatthe strength of rocks depends upon theirstructure of interlocking crystals. Theasthenosphere, in Daly's estimation,must then yield easily to any pressureexerted over a prolonged period of time.Daly maintained that only a weak layerbelow the crust could explain volcanic

Einstein on Hapgood's Theory• During an t'arly pcriud of his work on tlic sliirtinti-crusitheory Prol'cssor Hapgood outlined his linding.s to Albert Ein-stein. Excerpts from Professor Einstein'sanswering lcttcrfoUow:

"I find your arguments very im-pressive iind have the imprensionthat your liypothe.iis is corrcit. Onecan havflly doubt that significantshift.s of the crust uf the earth havelakcn pliitr repeatedly and within ashort time. The empirical materialyou have compiled would hardlypermit another intt-rjjrctation,

"It is certainly true, too, tliat ieciscontinually deposited in the polarregion^. These depusiis must lead toinstability of the crust wben it issufficiently strong not to constantlykeep in balance by the adjustmentof the polar regions.,

"The thickness of the icecap atihe polar regions must, if this is thecase, constantly increase, at leastwhere a foundation of rock is pres-ent. One should lj(r able to estimateempirically the annual increase ofthe polar icecaps. If there exists atleast in one part of the polar regionsa rork foundation for the icecap, one

should Ix" able lo ealculatr howmuch time was needed to depositthe whole of ihe ifciap. 'I he amountof the ice ihat llowtd oil should benegligible in this calculation. Inthis way one could almost proveyour hypothesis.

"Another striking circumstanceappears in connection with theellipticity of the meridians. If, ac-cording lo your hypothesis, an ap-proximate folding of the meridionalvolume takes place . . . this eventwill have to be accompanied by afracture of the hard crust of theearth. This also fits in very well withthe existing phenomena of the vol-canic coastal regions with theirmainly north-south extension andthe narrowness in the east-westdireciion. Without your hypothesisone eould hardly find a halfway rea-sonable explanation for these weakspots of the present-day crust of theearih. . . ."

action or make possible ihe folding ofmountains. He pointed out that in moun-tain building the crust folds to its fulldepth, and that this must require con-siderable horizontal shearing movementof the crust over the asthenosphere, amovement that would be impossible ifthe sublayer had any strength.

Perhaps the most important argumentadvanced by Daly for a weak astheno-sphere was that this alone would makepossible the observed degree of gravita-tional balance of the crust. Geologists usethe term isostasy to refer lo this principleof balance. According to this principle, ifa sector of the crust becomes overloaded

with sediment (or ice) it sinks until itreaches gravitaiional balance. It is like aniceberg sinking into water to reach equi-librium. The sectors of the earth's crustare in this sort of hydrostatic equilibrium,more or less, but the erosion, depositionof sediment, accumulation of icecaps,voleanic action, and other factors, forceconstant readjustment. This readjustmentrequires that plastic rock under the crustmust flow from the overloaded regionsto the unloaded regions. This flow wouldobviously be impossible if the rock hadmuch strength. Thus, the whole theory ofisostasy depends upon a weak astheno-sphere. There is. therefore, good reason totake our first assumption seriously.

The problem of a force to move thecrust was solved through the suggestionmade by Brown. He pointed out that inengineering it is highly important to cen-ter a rotating flywheel accurately, becauseif it is ofl'-center there will be a disruptivecentrifugal efl'eet—a sidewise heave sopowerful that it may shatter the flywheel.Now, said Brown, if we look at theearth, we find that an off-center weighthas accumulated at one point on it:namely, at one of the poles, where we findthe Antarctic icecap. This icecap, hepointed out, covers about 6,000,000square miles and is thought to average amile in thickness. Tbis makes for a veryformidable weight indeed, twenty-fivequadnllion(25,000,000.000.000,000)tons!Our measurements indicate that the cen-ter of this enormous mass is about threehundred miles from the pole, so that it isnot centered at the axis of rotation, anda centrifugal efl̂ eet must result.

When I consulted Professor Daly, andthe physicist. Prof. Percy W. Bridgman,at Harvard, about this idea of Brown's,they agreed it was a good one. ProfessorDaly, however, said that it was an Ideathat had never been investigated by

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science, and his statement was later sup-ported by Harvard's gtxnit historian ofscience, the kite Dr, George Surton.

In order to apply this principle of cen-trifugal cflcct to the icecap we had tomake our second assumption. For ouriheory lo be valid, it was necessary thatlhe icecap should have accumulated fasterIhan the crust could sink under it. Thereason for this is that if ihe crust shouldsink as fast as the snow accumulates onan icecap, then no surplus weight will becreated on the crust to exert a centrifugalelTecl. Fortunately, geologists agree thaticecaps have accumulated faster than thecrust of the earth can give way, A lagresults, partly from the resistance of thecrust, which has some strength, andpartly from the stiffness of the viscousrock under lhe crust, which takes timeto flow oui from under the area where theicecap is accumulating. Our second as-sumption, therefore, appears to bestrongly based.

Let us now test our theory by what it isable to explain.

First, the theory provides us with areasonable explanation of the foldingof the mountains and for vtjlcanie zones.The earth is oblate—or flattened at thepoles—so that the difference between itsdiameter through the poles and throughthe equator is about twenty-six miles.This means that if a section of the crustis moved poleward it will be slightlycompressed and must fold, whtle onemoved equakirward will be stretchedand musl crack. Volcanoes will tend toform along such cracks, which in someeases may become volcanic zones. Mr.Campbell has shown that in areas ofcompression the patterns of folding to beexpected from a crust displacement agreeclosely wilb ihose of existing mountainranges.

The theory that accounts for moun-tain building also, of course, accountsfor land bridges between continents,for a mountain range formed on thebottom of a shallow sea might wellcreate a land bridge between two landmasses, A subsequent movement of thecrust might later destroy the land bridge,by moving the sector equatorward. Inthis case there would be subsidence of theland relattve to sea level.

Wben it comes to ice ages, the assump-tion of crust displacements makes it easyto explain the wrong location of past ice-caps, including those that once existedin the tropics. The theory explains themby assuming that these areas were for-merly located near one of the poles, andthat later movements of the crust shiftedthem away. The same assumption alsoexplains former warm climates at thepoles. Furthermore—and this is mostimportant—the theory explains the ac-celeration of the rates of geological proc-esses at the end of Ihe last ice age. on theassumption that a crust in movement willproduce turbulent conditions on theearth's surface.

With regard to evolution, the theorysupplies the missing factor, a factor toaccelerate the process. Biologists havealways recognized that the most powerfulevolutionary force must be climaticchange. The irouble, hitherto, has beenthat climatic ehange has supposedly oc-curred too slowly to account for the quan-tity of evolutionary change. Now, if ourtheory is correct, the rate of climaticchange is suddenly multiplied five or tentimes. Our evidence indicates three dis-placements of the earth's crust in the last150.000 years. If we are correct, tbis musthave involved great pressure on plantsand animals to adapt to changing condi-tions. It can also explain the extinctionsof species unable to adapt or to migrate.

Oddly enough, our theory even seems

to throw some light on the affairs of oursister planet. Mars, Dr, Harold Urey. inhis book. The Planets: Their Origin andDevelopment, noles that Mars has nomountains on ils surface. Likewise, it hasno icecaps, except forthin layers of hoar-frost around the nol*-'̂ '" "'inter. Olher-

wise, the composition of Mars closely re-sembles that of the earth. The absence ofgreat icecaps, of course, is due to the lackol" water, but could ihere nol be a relation-ship of cause and effect here; no greaticecaps, therefore no crusl displacement!,therefore no folded mountains','

Cross scciion of ihc earth. The mound at top is lhe Antarctic icecap, a tre-mendous weight which (I) creates a centrifuga! furce that unbalances earthrotation and (2) exerts pressure on ihc earth's crust and its weak underlayer.

,\s iliL- layer {black band) under the earth's crust gives way, the icecap shifts.The force of this great, relatively quick movement would cause compen-sating changes—in animal life, land and climate—Ihroughout the world

There are special rensons for insistinglhat icecaps mo the most likely agents lor:nusing crust displacement. In the firstplncc. (liey provide u mechanism thiit:an overcome friction in the sublayer andL-iin displace Ihe crusl to very great dis-fancts, Tliis is the result of the fact thatlhe centrifugal effect increases mathe-miiiically with increased distance of theccnicr of the icecap from the pole (orrather from the axis of rotation). Theicecap is rotating with the earth on anever-increasing radius of eccentricity.Then:fore, the force builds up and cannever be absorbed by friction.

This is not enough, (lowever. We have10 explain not only how (he crust couldbe displaced to great distances but alsowhat factor limited the displacements to afraction of the total distance from pole toequator. According to mechanical prin-ciples, the centrifugal effect would notdeclitie until the excess weight on thecrust that caused it approached the equa-tor. The geological evidence, however.suggests that the latest movement of thecrust stopped when Hudson Bay (whichtheoretically lay at the pole during thelast ice age) had been moved only onethird of the way lo the equator. We must.therefore, have a weight that will dis-appear en route. Ice is the only sort ofmaterial that can disappear with its jobone third done—by melting in the tem-perate zone !

Any new theory can, of course, be ex-pected to encounter objections. We haveencountered many of them in the last few

yeiii-s. and I hiivc answered ii good manyof them in our book. One of the mosttroublesome Mr, Campbell and I haveencountered is the question : What if bothpoles hiippen to be located in oceans?Won't the process of displacement thenstop, since no thick icecaps ciiii form inwater?

This objection became less formidableas we investigated it. First. Mr, Campbellshowed through a map study thut be-cause of the way the continents arc placedit is almost impossible for both pok-i tohe located in water areas and far enoughaway from the nearest land mass so thatno icecaps can form. Then, my workshowed that as a water area is movedpoleward, the sea bottom rises relativelyto sea level, and in many, if not most,cases the uplift would be sufficient tobring it to the surface. Finally, in my owninvestigations of the geological record Ihave found that changes at short inter-vals drastically affecting conditions on theearth's surface, and explainable by crustdisplacements, have been a feature ofmost geological periods.

Another frequent inquiry is: What ofthe future? It is reasonable to supposethat if there have been crust displace-ments in the past there will be more in thefuture. Our calculations suggest that theAntarctic icecap is nearly larsie enoughnow to start a movement of the erust. Ifthat turns out to be correct, then man-kind will have lo divert its attention fromdestructive conflict long enough to con-trol the icecap.

There huve been a few earthquakes,notably the l'í50 earthquake in Assamand the vast upheaval in December, 1957.in Mongolia, that suggest Ihe imminenceof a new displacement. If iind when such amovement does start, we have a basis foran educated guess as to i tí* likely direction.From the location of the Antarctic ice-cap's center of gravity, at latitude K5south and longitude 96 east, we can de-duce Ihe direction of thrust of the icecap.This will determine the direction in whichthe crusl moves. The nincly-sixth merid-ian bisects central North America, thePacific west of South America, Antarcticaand East Asia. From the direction of thepresent thrust in this meridian we expectthat the next movement will pull theWestern Hemisphere southward (in verymuch the same direction in which it ap-parently traveled last time) and push theEastern Hemisphere northward. We maythen expect that an icecap will form inSiberia, and that many species of animalsin India, having no land to the south toescape to. will become extinct. TheUnited States, moving into the semi-tropics, will subside relatively to sea level,perhaps a thousand feet or so. However,besides being necessarily somewhat doubt-ful, these disagreeable prophecies will notbe realized for a long time, for our move-ment, once it starts, will require manythousands of years for its completion.

Readers interested in knowing moreabour ihe crustal-shift theory arc referredto:

Hapgood, Charles H.EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST.

Pantheon.S6.50.

Contains a bibliography of 465 titles.

Pauly, Karl,THE CAUSE of Tut GRLAT ICE AGES.

Scienlific Monthly.August, 1952.

Bain, George.MAPI'INCÍ THE CLIMATIC ZONES

OF THE GEOLOGIC PAST.Yale Scienlific Magazine. February, 1953.

Dillon. Lawrence.WISCONSIN CLIMATE AND LIFE ZONES

IN NORTH AMERICA.Science. February' 2, 1956.

Horberg, Leiand.RADIOCARBON DATES

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So You're Flying J e t to Europe (Continued from page

about S16.000 per trip. In a month's timeone such plane making a round trip toParis every twenty-four hours could showan operating profit of almost SI ,(X)O,O(X).The net profit, of course, would be muchshialler.

My jet flight to Paris began at a familiarportal, the dingy, crowded "temporary"Pan American departure terminal at NewYork International Airport—Idlewild—where in the jet age the struggle for aplace at the ticket counter and, later, atIhe seat-assignment counter, is worsethan ever.

A Pan American official informed meIhat the company was moving at nearsupersonic speed to improve its groundoperations. Under construction at Idle-wild, and scheduled for completion nextfall, is a futuristic $8,000,000 jet-agedeparture terminal. It will have high, can-tilever roofs, under which planes can parkwhen it is raining or snowing; a total offorty-eight cheek-in counters, all within astone's throw of the plane itself, and afive-minute maximum wait for baggage(it says here). The terminal is designed toload or unload one t65-passenger jetliner every fifteen minutes, American Air-lines is building a similar terminal at Idte-*ild at a cost of S14.(XX),000.

Our flight was called—Pan American114, scheduled to depart every evening atseven P.M.—and, after a long hike through'he sheep run, we reached the airplaneloading area. There, bathed in floodlightsand looking like something out of a pressagent's dream, was a Boeing 707. the firstUnited States jet transport to go into reg-ular service and. until the Douglas DC-8IS certified, the work horse not only forPan American but domestic airlines as*ell. Like the other passengers around^^. I slared transfixed. Squatting on its"̂ n giant wheels, the blue, white and silverswepuwing plane looked twice the size ofthe DC-7C. one of the largest propeller-•Iriven transports in service.

The 707 is a 55,500,000 civilian versionof the Air Force's KC-135, which in thelast three years has logged more than50.000 (lying hours as an aerial tanker-transport. Nearly 200 KC-135's havebeen delivered to the Air Force. Only twohave crashed. One accident was laid topilot error; the other is still under in-vestigation.

The first 707 new in July. 1954. Madecautious by the series of accidents whichbefell the original British Comets, theCivil Aeronautics Administration wassevere in its inspection. Pan Americanand Boeing test-flew the 707 more thanlOCX) hours under every conceivable con-dition. Afterward the plane was system-atically destroyed to measure its ability towithstand severe stress. The 707 is called"the most thoroughly tested civiliantranspon ever put in service," This is noexaggeration.

Looking at its massive bulk on theground, one wonders how it could everfly. The fuselage is nearly half the lengthof a football field—144 feet, six inches—longer by twenty-four feet than theground covered by the first flight of theWright brothers. Its tail towers to nearlyfour stories—thirty-eight feet, three inches.Its wings, angled back at thirty-five de-grees, are about the same span as theDC-7C—130 feet, ten inches—but thefour Jet pods hanging beneath them makethe plane seem heavier and bulkier. Fullyloaded the plane weighs 123 tons, orabout fifty-two tons more than a DC-7C.The fifty-four small windows along eachside of the fuselage give the 707 a vagueresemblance to a landlocked ocean liner,

"As a matter of fact." a Pan Am execu-tive said, "one of these planes making arouíKl trip every twenty-f'our hours couldcarry more people back and forth acrossthe Atlantic than the Queen Mary,"

One appealing feature of the 707 fromthe airline point of view is the flexibilityof the seating arrangement inside its 100-

foot-longcabin. All seats are mounted ontracks and can be changed around swiftlyto accommodate the four classes of airtravel: de lu\e, first class, tourist andeconomy.

So fur. Pan Am has flown only twoclasses on its Paris run: de luxe and econ-omy. The forty de luxe passengers—round-trip fare, S9O9—sit in the forwardend of the cabin in roomy seats, twoabreast on both sides of the aisle and, intheory, are plied with liquor and a sump-tuous meal catered by Maxim's of Paris.The seventy-one economy-class passen-gers—round-trip fare. S489.60—ride inthe rear of the cabin in much smallerseats, three abreast on both sides of theaisle, and are fed sandwiches and coffee,

./V partition with a folding door sepa-rates the iwo classes, and no passenger ofone class may enter the compartment ofanother, except in emergency. Not want-ing to arrive in Paris with a Maxim's-eyeview of the trip, I chose to ride economy.with special dispensation, as a workingjournalist, to wander at will between thetwo compartments.

Our captain. Robert Weeks, along withthe de luxe passengers, entered the elon-gated plane through the door near thenose, I walked aft and up a ramp whichled into the rear cabin. Except for theseating arrangement, I might have beenentering a swanky night club. The purser,dressed in white dinner jacket and cum-merbund, stood by the door like a head-waiter. Soft music from special tapesHooded into the compartment through theloud-speaker system. The décor wasstrikingly modern : pastel grays and bluesagainst white, with soft, indirect lighting.

There was considerable confusion inthe compartment, however, since half adozen of us were unable to locate ourseats, and a dozen others wanted theircoats hung up. The purser, tr\ing lo stemthis confusion, was searching for a second

purser or a stewardess to help out. "That'sone of Ihe troubles with these monsters,"he giiir-l led. "They're so big you can'tkeep u.::-. of your people." The purserwas niiilsin : his second jet trip. Several ofhis assistants were making their first.

I climbed into my seat, which was out-board—next to one of the many smallwindows. There are nearly twice as manywindows as seats and they are not alignedin the economy section. I had to lean for-ward to see out. (At night, flying above30.000 feet, there is not much to see any-way.)

Over each seat there was an individual"service unit." containing a small NoSMOKING—FASTEN SEAT BELT sign, tinyloud-speaker, reading light, stewardesscall-button and a compartment for theemergency oxygen-breathing apparatus,a spongelike device which is clamped overthe nose and mouth in the unlikely eventthat the cabin pressurization fails. Thereis a blue plastic fold-down tray on theback of each seat, an item 1 was able toexamine in microscopic detail when theman in front of me reclined his scat intomy lap.

At 7:17 P.M. New York time. CaptainWeeks shot a blast of compressed air intoNumber three engine, rolling the turbine.Within two minutes the three other en-gines were turning over, and withoutfurthei ado the plane began to roll,guided by ground crewmen wearing spte-cial ear muffs as protection against en-gine noise. Inside, in the rear cabin, weneeded no ear muffs, but could plainlyhear a kind o\ deep-throated roar andhigh-pitched whistling of wind, all mi.\edtogether.

1 recalled a memo written by a Pan Amexecutive : "Unfortunately," he said, "thejet i/i»f ( produce more sound than origi-nally advertised, both inside and outsidethe aircraft. There is no sense in trying todisguise this obvious fact. Therefore. 1would hke to suggest to you that we ma\