与此同时，澳大利亚却在渐渐倾斜、下沉。在过去的1000万年里，它一方面朝北向亚洲漂移，另一方面它的主要边缘下沉了将近200米。看来，印度尼西亚在慢慢地没入水中，而且拖着澳大利亚一起下去。构造理论根本无法解释这些现象。

　　Alfred Wegener never lived to see his ideas vindicated. On an expedition to Greenland in 1930, he set out alone, on his fiftieth birthday, to check out a supply drop. He never returned. He was found a few days later, frozen to death on the ice. He was buried on the spot and lies there yet, but about a yard closer to North America than on the day he died.

　　阿尔弗雷德·魏格纳没有活到看到自己的思想证明是正确的。1930年，他在50岁生日那天独自一人出发去格陵兰岛探险，检查空投的补给品。他再也没有回来。几天以后，有人发现他冻死在冰面上。他被埋在那里，至今还在那里长眠，只是比他死的那天离北美洲近了大约1米。

　　Earth map

　　Einstein also failed to live long enough to see that he had backed the wrong horse. In fact, he died at Princeton, New Jersey, in 1955 before Charles Hapgood's rubbishing of continental drift theories was even published.

　　爱因斯坦也没有活着看到自己支持了错误的一方。他1955年死于新泽西州的普林斯顿，实际上是在查尔斯·哈普古德发表“胡说八道”的大陆漂移理论之前。

　　The other principal player in the emergence of tectonics theory, Harry Hess, was also at Princeton at the time, and would spend the rest of his career there. One of his students was a bright young fellow named Walter Alvarez, who would eventually change the world of science in a quite different way.

　　提出构造理论的另一个主要人物哈里·赫斯当时也在普林斯顿，将在那里度过他的余生。他的一位学生是个聪明的年轻人，名叫沃尔特·阿尔瓦雷斯，他最终将以完全不同的方式改变科学界。

　　As for geology itself, its cataclysms had only just begun, and it was young Alvarez who helped to start the process.

　　至于地质学本身，大变革还刚刚开始，年轻的阿尔瓦雷斯为启动这个过程发挥了作用。