Daly, Reginald Aldworth; Our Mobile Earth. First edition, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York - London, 1926. Octavo, pp. xxii, 342, 187 illustrations including photographs and maps.
The work is complete and in the original wine red cloth with gilt spine titles. Light wear to spine edges, light soiling to boards. The text is very clean and bright. In very good condition.
Reginald Aldworth Daly(1871-1957) was a Canadian geologist educated at the University of Toronto and Harvard followed by postgraduate work in Germany and France. After working as a field geologist for the International Boundary Commission, Daly completed a three volume report titled “ North America Cordillera: Forty-Ninth Parallel in 1912. His research for this report led Daly to formulate a theory of the origins of igneous rocks. In 1914 Daly published this research in his most important work “Igneous Rocks and their Origin”. In 1912 Daly became a professor at Harvard. He was to become the head of the Department of Geology and held this position until 1942.
Daly was also an early proponent of Alfred Wegener’s continental drift theory. Daly along with Arthur Holmes were two prominent supporters of the theory. Daly summarizes his reasons for supporting continental drift in his book “Our Mobile Earth” and offers a mechanism for continental drift. He took his place in the small minority of North American geologist who favored the theory of continental drift which is now known as plate tectonics.
