re: Continental Fit
Thanks Nick, that certainly explains why continental fit was not correctly understood until the advent of plate tectonics, even though its significance was recognized by brilliant people since the 1600s. My own minor quibble - which really seems only grammatical by now - was that, at the end of the article, continental fit is mentioned as the last of our "most important observations related to plate tectonics" (my italics). So I suppose, with your explanation, that could be better read as 'the last of our most important correctly interpreted observations relating to plate tectonics'.