Alfred Wegener

by Mott T. Greene

  30. Taylor, “Bearing of the Tertiary Mountain Belts,” 206, 216, 219–223.

  31. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 186.

  32. Ibid. The quotation is from Albert Heim, Untersuchungen über den Mechanismus der Gebirgsbildung; im Anschluss an die geologische Monographie der Todi-Windgällen Gruppe, 2 vols. (Basel: Benno Schwabe, 1878), 2:237.

  33. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 186.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Wegener cites John Joly, Radioactivity and Geology (London: Constable, 1909), but the information is likely from Rudzki, Physik der Erde, 122–125.

  36. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 186.

  37. The reference is to John F. Hayford, The Figure of the Earth and Isostasy from Measurments in the United States (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1909).

  38. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 187.

  39. Ibid.

  40. Ibid., 187–188.

  41. For the history of this concept see Greene, Geology in the Nineteenth Century, 238–250, 267–269.

  42. See, e.g., Naomi Oreskes, The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Marco Segala, La Favola della Terra Mobile: La controversia sulla teoria della deriva dei continenti (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990); Anthony Hallam, An Outline of Phanerozoic Biogeography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Martin Schwarzbach, Alfred Wegener und die Drift der Kontinente, ed. Heinz Degen, vol. 42, Grosse Naturforscher (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 1980); Henry Frankel, “Alfred Wegener and the Specialists,” Centaurus 20 (1976): 305–324; H[omer] E. Le Grand, Drifiting Continents and Shifting Theories (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

  43. See his “Cosmic Physics” introduction to his geology textbook, defining Earth as a planet among other planets. Kayser, Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Geologie, introduction, 1:1.

  44. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 189.

  45. Andrija Mohorovicic, “Potres od 8 X 1909,” Godishje Isvjesce Zagrebakog Meteoroloskog Opservatorija za godinu 1909 {avail as Jahrbuch der Meteorologische Observatorium, Agram[Zagreb] für 1909} (1910); Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 190.

  46. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 190.

  47. Ibid., 191.

  48. Ibid.

  49. Ibid.

  50. Kayser, Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Geologie, 1.

  51. R[eginald] A. Daly, Strength and Structure of the Earth (New York: Prentice Hall, 1940).

  52. Harold Jeffreys, The Earth: Its Origin, History, and Physical Constitution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1929), 181.

  53. Jeffreys and Daly (see previous notes) had very different notions about how viscosity, plasticity, and liquidity ought to be defined.

  54. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 192.

  55. Adrian E. Scheidegger, Principles of Geodynamics, 2nd ed. (New York: Academic Press, 1963), 148.

  56. Rudzki, Physik der Erde, 504.

  57. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 193.

  58. Ibid.

  59. Sueß, Face of the Earth, 1:604.

  60. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 194.

  61. Ibid.

  62. Ibid.

  Chapter 11. The Theorist of Continental Drift (2): Marburg, February–April 1912

  1. Alfred Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” Petermanns Mitteilungen 58 (1912): 253–306.

  2. Ibid., 253.

  3. Eduard Sueß, The Face of the Earth, trans. Hertha Sollas, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1904–1909), 4:270–275, 282–286.

  4. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente.”

  5. Ibid., 254.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Sueß, Face of the Earth, 2:75ff., 3:386–387.

  9. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 254.

  10. Frank Bursley Taylor, “Bearing of the Tertiary Mountain Belts on the Origin of Earth’s Plan,” Geological Society of America, Bulletin 21 (1910): 216–217, plate 4.

  11. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 254.

  12. Ibid., 255.

  13. Ibid.

  14. Ibid., 255n.

  15. Ibid., 255.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Wegener assumed that his audience would understand the absurdity of this contention. We may note that, for instance, glacial deposits within 30° of the equator, transferred to the current Northern Hemisphere, would require glacial phenomena for a Northern Hemisphere ice age as far south as Los Angeles, California. The actual limit of West Coast glaciation is instead at the northern border of Washington State, 48° away from the equator.

  18. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 256.

  19. Ibid., 256.

  20. Sueß, Face of the Earth, 4:73–82.

  21. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 305.

  22. Ibid., 306.

  23. Fridtjof Nansen, Auf Schneeschuhen durch Grönland, translation of Paaski over Grønland, original Norwegian ed., 2 vols. (Hamburg: J. F. Richter, 1897); Fridtjof Nansen, The First Crossing of Greenland, 2 vols. (New York: Longmans, Green, 1890), 444–497. For Nathorst, see 456ff.

  24. There is an extensive discussion of this material in chap. 9.

  25. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 307.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Giovanni Schiaparelli, De la rotation de la terre sous l’influence des actions géologiques (St. Petersburg, 1889), 31–32.

  28. Ibid., 32.

  29. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 307.

  30. These figures, as well as the entire argument in this section, are taken verbatim, or very nearly, from M[aurycy] P. Rudzki, Physik der Erde (Leipzig: Chr. Herm. Tachnitz, 1911), 208.

  31. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 307.

  32. Ibid., 308.

  33. C. A. Schott, The Telegraphic Longitude Net of the United States and Its Connection with That of Europe 1866–1896, Annual Report of the Director, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, for 1897 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), appendix 2.

  34. Wegener, “Die Entstehung der Kontinente,” 307.

  35. Ibid.

  36. Felix Maria Exner, “Referat über Wegener: Thermodynamik der Atmosphäre,” Meteorologische Zeitschrift 28, no. 12 (1911): 389–390.

  37. See Deborah R. Coen, Vienna in the Age of Uncertainty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 282; Berta Karlik and Erich Schmid, Franz Serafin Exner und sein Kreis: Eig Beitrag zur Geschichte der Physik in Österreich (Wien: Österreischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1982); A. Kh. Khrgian, Meteorology: A Historical Survey (Ocherki razvitiya meteorologii), trans. Ross Hardin, 2nd ed., rev. Kh. P. Pogosyan (Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific Translations, 1970), 231; and Paul A. Hanle, “Indeterminacy before Heisenberg: The Case of Franz Exner and Erwin Schrödinger,” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 10 (1979): 235.

  38. Else Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden: F. A. Brockhaus, 1960), 79. This letter does not survive in the original but was quoted extensively and approvingly by Else Wegener.

  39. We know of this only through an exchange of correspondence between the philosophical faculty at Marburg and the minister of education, attempting to create a post with sufficient remuneration to make it attractive for Wegener to stay at Marburg. Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz Berlin (Merseburg). See Wutzke 1998 004-1913.

  40. The Leipzig “search” was a formality, and Bjerknes was the only real candidate. See Robert Marc Friedman, Appropriating the Weather: Vilhelm Bjerknes and the Construction of a Modern Meteorology (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), 84ff.

  41. Wegener to Köppen, 29 Jan. 1912, DMH 1968 597/6 N 1/41, W 003-1912. Wegener expressed embarrassment that Köppen quoted Voeikov’s comment to him in a previous letter.

  42. E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher
, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 79. This letter no longer survives.

  43. Wegener to Köppen, 17 Jan. 1912, DMH 1968 597-3 N 1/38, W 002-1912; italics in the original.

  44. Ibid.

  45. Exner, “Referat über Wegener,” 389.

  46. Coen, Vienna in the Age of Uncertainty, 289.

  47. Friedman, Appropriating the Weather, 199.

  48. Exner, “Referat über Wegener,” 389–390.

  49. Wegener to Köppen, 17 Jan. 1912, DMH 1968 597/3 N 1/38, W 002-1912.

  50. Wegener to Köppen, 29 Jan. 1912, DMH 1968 597/6 N 1/41, W 003-1912.

  51. Wegener to Ludwig Darmstädter, 15 Feb. 1912, Prussian State Library Berlin, Sammlung Darmstädter, W 004-1912; Wegener to Köppen, 16 Feb. 1912, DMH 1968 597/6 N 1/37, W 005-1912.

  52. Wegener to Elstner, 12 Apr. 1912, HSM [307d Nr. 269], W 015-1912.

  53. Ibid.

  54. Ibid.; Resolution of the Faculty [Elstner], 19 May 1912, HSM [307d Nr. 269], W 015-1912.

  55. Wegener to Köppen, 16 Feb. 1912, DMH 1968 597/64 N 1/39.

  56. E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 80. Else recalled the eclipse being on the sixteenth; it was actually on the seventeenth.

  57. Ibid.

  58. Wegener to Köppen, 16 Feb. 1912, DMH 1968 597/6 N 1/37, W 005-1912.

  59. Wegener to Elstner, 15 June 1912, HSM [307d Nr. 269], W 026-1912.

  60. E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 80.

  61. Ibid. See also Ulrich Wutzke, Durch die weiße Wüste: Leben und Leistungen des Grönlandforschers und Entdeckers der Kontinentaldrift Alfred Wegener, Petermann ed. (Gotha: Justus Perthes Verlag, 1997), 89.

  62. E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 80–81.

  63. (Kaptajn) J. P. Koch, Gennem den Hvide Ørken: Den danske Forskningsrejse tvaers over Nordgrønland 1912/13 (Kjøbenhavn: Gyldendalske Boghandel Nordisk Forlag, 1913), 110.

  Chapter 12. The Arctic Explorer (2): Greenland, 1912–1913

  1. Wegener began to keep a daybook starting on 7 June, and he would keep this diary and an observational journal until the arrival on the west coast of Greenland in mid-July 1913. These journals he kept in pencil in the small-format notebooks he had used in 1906–1908, comprising nearly 600 pages. Three of the volumes are his expedition diary; the fourth is the “Journal of Observations” and is partly in Danish, as indeed are parts of the other journals.

  All are in the Wegener Nachlass, Deutsches Museum, Munich. Tagebuch, 7 June–15 Sept. 1912: 594/8; Tagebuch, 17 Sept. 1912–18 Apr. 1913: 594/9; Tagebuch, 19 Apr.–17 July 1913, 594/10; Beobachtungs-Journal, 13 Apr.–17 July 1913. In the back of this volume is an essay on the Jacobshavn Eisstrom: 594/13.

  2. Wegener to his parents, 4 July 1912, quoted in Else Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden: F. A. Brockhaus, 1960), 81. The original letter is lost.

  3. Wegener recorded this trip in his journal: 19–29 June 1912. Koch worked up his notes into an article for Petermanns Mitteilungen. A detailed account drawn from these sources can be found in Ulrich Wutzke, Durch die weiße Wüste: Leben und Leistungen des Grönlandforschers und Entdeckers der Kontinentaldrift Alfred Wegener, Petermann ed. (Gotha: Justus Perthes Verlag, 1997), 93–96.

  4. Wegener to his parents, 1 July 1912. This letter does not survive and is quoted from E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 81.

  5. Wegener to his parents, 4 July 1912, quoted from ibid.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Wegener to Elstner, 4 July 1912, HSM [307d Nr. 269], W 033-1912.

  8. Wegener to his parents, 21 July 1912, in E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 81. Koch’s article appeared as Johan Peter Koch, “Die dänische Expedition nach Königen-Luise-Land und quer über das nordgröndlandische Inlandeis 1912/1913. I. Die Reise durch Island 1912,” Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 58, no. 2 (1912): 185–189.

  9. Wegener to his parents, 21 July 1912, in E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 81.

  10. (Kaptajn) J. P. Koch, Gennem den Hvide Ørken: Den danske Forskningsrejse tvaers over Nordgrønland 1912/13 (Kjøbenhavn: Gyldendalske Boghandel Nordisk Forlag, 1913), 7.

  11. Ejnar Mikkelsen, Farlig Tomandsfaerd (A Dangerous 2-Man Journey) (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1962), chap. 13.

  12. Koch, Gennem den Hvide Ørken, 9.

  13. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 27 July 1912.

  14. Johan Peter Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste: Die dänische Forschungsreise quer durch Nordgrönland 1912–1913, trans. Else Wegener (Berlin: Springer, 1919), 10.

  15. Ibid.

  16. The following account is assembled from Wegener’s Tagebuch, 21 July 1912–8 Sept. 1912; and Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 59–67. The entries in the book are collations of Wegener’s and Koch’s diaries for those dates.

  17. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 21, 12 Aug. 1912.

  18. These accounts collate mishaps from 31 July to 8 September, recorded in Wegener’s Tagebuch.

  19. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 5 Aug. 1912.

  20. Ibid., 8 Aug. 1912.

  21. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 54.

  22. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 8 Sept. 1912.

  23. Ibid., 12 Sept. 1912.

  24. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 76–78; Wegener’s Tagebuch, 15 Sept. 1912.

  25. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 79.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 17 Sept. 1912.

  28. Ibid., 18 Sept. 1912.

  29. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 81; the expedition report states that it was a torn muscle. J. P. Koch and A. Wegener, “Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der dänischen Expedition nach Dronning Louises-Land und quer über das Indlandeis von Nordgrönland 1912–13 unter Leitung von Hauptmann J.P. Koch. Abteilung 1–2,” Meddelelser om Grønland 74 (1930): 24.

  30. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 18 Sept. 1912.

  31. Ibid., 22 Sept. 1912.

  32. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 91; Koch, Gennem den Hvide Ørken, 103.

  33. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 88.

  34. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 30 Sept. 1912.

  35. Ibid.

  36. Ibid.

  37. Ibid., 1 Oct. 1912.

  38. Ibid., 7 Oct. 1912.

  39. Ibid.

  40. Koch, Gennem den Hvide Ørken, 126–128.

  41. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 111.

  42. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 28 Oct. 1912.

  43. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 115; Wegener’s Tagebuch, 27 Oct. 1912.

  44. Koch, Gennem den Hvide Ørken, 137

  45. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 29 Oct. 1912.

  46. Koch, Gennem den Hvide Ørken, 139.

  47. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 5 Nov. 1912.

  48. Ibid.

  49. Ibid.

  50. Ibid., 6 Nov. 1912.

  51. Ibid., 11 Nov. 1912.

  52. There is an account of this work in Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 122–123; a much more detailed account in Koch and Wegener, “Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der dänischen Expedition,” 48–54; and ancillary material in Wegener’s Tagebuch, 30 Nov. and 1 Dec. 1912.

  53. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 123. This instrument is today mounted on the wall in the display case in the conference room of the Royal Danish Geographical Society in Copenhagen.

  54. Koch and Wegener, “Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der dänischen Expedition,” 200ff.; E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 107.

  55. Koch and Wegener, “Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der dänischen Expedition,” 6ff.

  56. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 1 Dec. 1912; Hans Heß, Die Gletscher (Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn, 1904).

  57. Koch and Wegener, “Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der dänischen Expedition,” 6–7.

  58. Ibid.

  59. E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 108.

  60. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 148.

  61. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 3 May 1913.
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  62. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 190.

  63. Ibid., 191.

  64. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 13 May 1913.

  65. Ibid., 15, 16, and 19 May 1913.

  66. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 208–209.

  67. Ibid., 210.

  68. Ibid.

  69. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 12 June 1913.

  70. Ibid., 25 June 1913.

  71. Ibid., 26 June 1913.

  72. Ibid.

  73. Ibid., 29 June 1913.

  74. Ibid., 4 July 1913.

  75. Ibid.

  76. Ibid.

  77. Ibid., 5 July 1913.

  78. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 233.

  79. Ibid., 235; Wegener’s Tagebuch, 9 July 1913.

  80. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 9 July 1913.

  81. Koch, Durch die weiße Wüste, 236.

  82. Ibid., 238–239.

  83. Ibid.

  84. Ibid., 241.

  85. Ibid., 242.

  86. Ibid.

  87. Ibid., 245.

  88. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 19 July 1913.

  89. Koch, “Die dänische Expedition nach Königen-Luise-Land,” 247.

  90. Wegener’s Tagebuch, 17 July 1913.

  91. E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 131.

  92. Børge Fristrup, The Greenland Ice Cap (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966), 250.

  93. E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 133.

  94. Der Königliche Kurator der Universität Philosophische Facultät, 27 Sept. 1912, HSM [307d Nr. 269].

  95. Wegener to Marie Köppen, Aug. 1913. Like most of the personal correspondence reported by Else Wegener, this letter does not survive and is quoted from E. Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen, 133.

  Chapter 13. The Soldier: Marburg and “The Field,” 1913–1915

  1. Copies of the citation for “Ritter des Dannebrogs-Ordens” (18 Oct. 1913) are in the Wegenerarchiv at the AWI, Bremerhaven, as well as in the Heimatmuseum, Neuruppin.

  2. Else Wegener, Alfred Wegener: Tagebücher, Briefe, Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden: F. A. Brockhaus, 1960), 134.

  3. This letter survives only in an excerpt from ibid., 134. Wegener to Köppen, Oct. 1913.