Theory of One Continent you have ever spilled ice cubes on your kitchen counter, notice that they slide around quite easily. This like the continental plates floating around top the Earth's mantle. In the 1600s and 1700s. English philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon and American states and scientist Benjamin Franklin noticed the two continents on either side of the Atlantic Ocean(South America and Africa) seemed to together. Back then, sliding or drifting tectonic plates were unknowny