Timeline of the development of tectonophysics (before 1954)

A lithosphere creeping over the asthenosphere is a logical consequence of an Earth with internal heat by radioactivity decay, the Airy-Heiskanen isostasy, thrust faults and Niskanen's mantle viscosity determinations.

Later on, the thrust fault concept appeared, and a contracting Earth (Eduard Suess, James D. Dana, Albert Heim) was its driving force.

In 1895, John Perry produced an age of Earth estimate of 2 to 3 billion years old using a model of a convective mantle and thin crust.

[1] Finally, Arthur Holmes published The Age of the Earth, an Introduction to Geological Ideas in 1927, in which he presented a range of 1.6 to 3.0 billion years.

The geophysicists were right to state that the Earth is solid, and the mantle is elastic (for seismic waves) and inhomogeneous, and the ocean floor would not allow the movement of the continents.

In 1858, Snider-Pellegrini made these two maps. They depict his interpretation of how the American and African continents may once have fit together before subsequently becoming separated.
Airy model of isostasy: 1. thickness of the crust under mountains, 2. lower mountains, 3. thickness of normal continental crust, 4. thickness of oceanic crust, 5. sealevel, 6. pieces of the Earth's crust, 7. asthenosphere.
Triassic , Ladinian stage (230 Ma).
Distribution of modern-day Glossopteris fossils (#1: South America, #2: Africa, #3: Madagascar, #4: Indian subcontinent, #5: Antarctica, #6: Australia).
Mineralogy igneous rocks.
A diagram of folds, indicating an anticline and a syncline .