THE FRENCH SOIL IS SINKING, IT SEEMS, SLOWLY BUT SURELY

And two German geologists claim that it is at a rate of two centimeters per year! Fanciful figures, Professor Termier tells us... We can sleep soundly

Munich, January 28 (dep. Petit Paris.)
At the Academy of Sciences, Professor Schmidt has presented a work establishing that the French soil is sinking slowly but surely as a result of the deep layers of the earth's crust, itself in the process of sinking. The movement, which reaches two centimeters per year in Seine-Inférieure, would reach four centimeters on the entire coast of the North Sea. Another academician confirming these observations has given a different explanation: it is, according to. him, the upward movement of the soil of Norway and Sweden which, would cause by a sort of seesaw game the sinking of the foundations of the French and Belgian soil.

WHAT PROFESSOR TERMIER SAYS

As soon as this dispatch reached us, we went to question, at the service of the geographical map of France, Professor Termier, of the Academy of Sciences. The famous geologist was kind enough to reassure us.

This is a very audacious thesis, he told us. That the coasts of the North and North-West of France are sinking, this is an undeniable fact, but it is not from today. You know the beautiful legend of the city of Ys, which is based moreover on a real fact. In the North, Roman roads and forests have also been discovered, now submerged, but which must have once covered a fairly considerable area of ​​land. All geologists agree on this, as if to affirm that the English coasts of the Channel are sinking, while those of Scotland are rising significantly. What is new there? As for trying to prove a thesis by a figure as enormous as that of four centimeters per year, that is pure fantasy. Professor Schmidt, whom I do not know, has certainly been deceived in his good faith as a scholar. I will add finally that if the North of France is sinking, and this, I repeat, for thousands of years, Belgium and northern Germany are subject to the same geological phenomenon. In any case, this cannot have what we call a human character, that is to say extending to a limited number of years. It is, let's say, as old as the world, and we can sleep soundly, France is not collapsing yet!