Shrinking Oceans May Reveal Lost Submarine Lands

Atlantis may rise again in about & billion years.

The oceans of the world may be shrinking. If they are, the Atlantic will be divided, in about a billion years, into two seas by an Atlantean continent running its entire length, according to Han Petterson, Director of the Oceanographic Institute at Gotesburg, Sweden.

Petterson was speaking in the course of his first Silliman Memorial Lecture of April 16. The Silliman Lectures, entitled "The Ocean. Floor and its Problems" are being given at the Yale Law School Auditorium from April 16 to 25.

The Pacific and Indian Oceans, unlike the Atlantic, would be divided into a number of small seas. Large undersea ridges or plateaus would be exposed forming new land bridges and continents between the Antarctic and other continents.

Oceanwise, acording to Petterson, the Earth may be following the evolutionary pattern of Mars and Venus. Venus is still in a pre-oceanic stage, while Mark is a desert plant. "Our present oceanic splendor," he said, "may be a transient stage and the Earth may be on its way towards a complete dessication."