Finding fault

Recently we have become concerned about cracks in the earth.

Although we have been assured by people in very high places that there is nothing to worry about, we feel that cracks in the earth are not a good thing. They certainly are bad when they appear in skyscraper foundations, in bridges and in the engine block of our automobile.

So why are cracks in the earth's crust reported only on the back pages of a newspaper or on midday educational television?

While it is true that these cracks have been here for a long time (some say 200 million years) no one seems to take them seriously. People talk and talk about the earth cracking up but no one does anything about it.

Maybe it is understandable. After all, the cracks don't show. Mostly they are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, or somewhere out of sight in the Pacific or Indian Oceans. If they were in the vicinity of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington , DC they would get attention soon enough. From the Democrats, anyway.

These cracks and crevasses may be evidence of continental drift, and we are against continental drift. Continents, we believe, ought to stay where they are.

It is quite possible that the fear of drifting continents is responsible for much of the illegal immigration into the United States. If people get too worried that the place they live is drifting into trouble they naturally will want to go live in some more steady place. The United States seems to be one of those stable areas, which may sound funny to anyone who watches television.

Not that the cracks in the crust don't touch the United States. They do. But the only important crack in America is the San Andreas fault, which runs from north to south in the vicinity west of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The worst that could happen as a result of this crack would be for California to drift out into the Pacific Ocean and sink, a result which many believe would not be entirely negative.

But it is not the cracks in the earth, per se, which concern us. It is the psychological effect on the inhabitants who live atop them. They would be prone to crack-up thinking.

California may or may not be a good illustration but from the study of geodetic charts one can see that serious cracks run through the Mideast, through Iran, and up into the Asian areas of the USSR. Then there is one from the Kamchatka Peninsula down into Southeast Asia.

All potentially jittery areas, now, and in time to come.

We feel something should be done. Maybe it is too much to expect they could fill up the affected areas with cement but, on the other hand, we can't stand idly by and watch the world crack up. Especially when we don't know whose fault it is going to be.