GEOLOGY PROFESSOR 'BURSTS INTO VERSE' DURING LECTURE
Southampton, England (JFK+50) On August 27, 1925, Associated Press reports that Professor W.A. Parkes* of Toronto, Canada "burst into verse" while lecturing here in Southampton at the annual meeting of the British Association for Advancement of Science.
The Professor said...
"What is it rules the upper crust? Isostasy, Isostasy.
What activates the overthrust? Isostasy, Isostasy.
What gives the shore lines wanderlust?
What humbles highlands into dust?
What makes the strongest stratum bust? Isostasy, Isostasy."
JFK+50 NOTE
Isostasy, according to the AP report, is the theory of general equilibrium in the earth's crust maintained by the yielding of flow of rock material beneath the surface under the stress of gravitation.
*William Arthur Parkes (1868-1936) was born in Hamilton, Ontario & graduated University of Toronto, PhD 1900. One of his popular lectures was titled "Geology in Poetry." WAP was one of the foremost paleontologists of Canada.
SOURCES
"Memorial of William Arthur Parkes," bu E.S. Moore, Proceedings of the Geological Society of America, June 1937, www.rock.geosociety.org/
"Rhyming Briton Quotes 'Isostasy'; Proves Scientists Are Not So Prosy," The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., August 27, 1925, Chronicling America, Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/
