Principles of Geology Part 44

The town of Uddevalla (see Map, p. 523) stands at the head of a narrow creek overhung by steep and barren rocks of gneiss, of which all the adjacent country is composed, except in the low grounds and bottoms of valleys, where strata of sand, clay, and marl frequently hide the fundamental rocks. To these newer and horizontal deposits the fossil sh.e.l.ls above mentioned belong, and similar marine remains are found at various heights above the sea on the opposite island of Orust. The extreme distance from the sea to which such fossils extend is as yet unknown; but they have been already found at Trollhattan in digging the ca.n.a.l there, and still farther inland on the northern borders of Lake Wener, fifty miles from the sea, at an elevation of 200 feet near Lake Rogvarpen.

To pa.s.s to the Baltic: I observed near its sh.o.r.es at Sodertelje, sixteen miles S. W. of Stockholm, strata of sand, clay, and marl, more than 100 feet high, and containing sh.e.l.ls of species now inhabiting the Bothnian Gulf. These consist partly of marine and partly of freshwater species; but they are few in number, the brackishness of the water appearing to be very unfavorable to the development of testacea. The most abundant species are the common c.o.c.kle and the common mussel and periwinkle of our sh.o.r.es (_Cardium edule_, _Mytilus edulis_, and _Littorina littorea_), together with a small tellina (_T. Baltica_) and a few minute univalves allied to _Paludina ulva_. These live in the same water as a _Lymneus_, a Neritina (_N. fluviatilis_), and some other fresh-water sh.e.l.ls.

But the marine mollusks of the Baltic above mentioned, although very numerous in individuals, are dwarfish in size, scarcely ever attaining a third of the average dimensions which they acquire in the salter waters of the ocean. By this character alone a geologist would generally be able to recognize an a.s.semblage of Baltic fossils as distinguished from those derived from a deposit in the ocean. The absence also of oysters, barnacles, whelks, scallops, limpets (_ostrea_, _bala.n.u.s_, _buccinum_, _pecten_, _patella_), and many other forms abounding alike in the sea near Uddevalla, and in the fossiliferous deposits of modern date on that coast, supplies an additional negative character of the greatest value, distinguishing a.s.semblages of Baltic from those of oceanic sh.e.l.ls. Now the strata containing Baltic sh.e.l.ls are found in many localities near Stockholm, Upsala, and Gefle, and will probably be discovered everywhere around the borders of the Bothnian Gulf; for I have seen similar remains brought from Finland, in marl resembling that found near Stockholm. The utmost distance to which these deposits have yet been traced inland, is on the southern sh.o.r.es of Lake Maeler, at a place seventy miles from the sea.[737] Hence it appears from the distinct a.s.semblage of fossil sh.e.l.ls found on the eastern and western coasts of Sweden, that the Baltic has been for a long period separated as now from the ocean, although the intervening tract of land was once much narrower, even after both seas had become inhabited by all the existing species of testacea.

As no accurate observations on the rise of the Swedish coast refer to periods more remote than a century and a half from the present time, and as traditional information, and that derived from ancient buildings on the coast, do not enable the antiquary to trace back any monuments of change for more than five or six centuries, we cannot declare whether the rate of the upheaving force is uniform during very long periods. In those districts where the fossil sh.e.l.ls are found at the height of more than 200 feet above the ocean, as at Uddevalla, Orust, and Lake Rogvarpen, the present rate of rise seems less than four feet in a century. Even at that rate it would have required five thousand years to lift up those deposits. But as the movement is now very different in different places, it may also have varied much in intensity at different eras.

We have, moreover, yet to learn not only whether the motion proceeds always at the same rate, but also whether it has been uniformly _in one direction_. The level of the land may oscillate; and for centuries there may be a depression, and afterwards a re-elevation, of the same district. Some phenomena in the neighborhood of Stockholm appear to me only explicable on the supposition of the alternate rising and sinking of the ground since the country was inhabited by man. In digging a ca.n.a.l, in 1819, at Sodertelje, about sixteen miles to the south of Stockholm, to unite Lake Maeler with the Baltic, marine strata, containing fossil sh.e.l.ls of Baltic species, were pa.s.sed through. At a depth of about sixty feet, they came down upon what seems to have been a buried fishing-hut, constructed of wood in a state of decomposition, which soon crumbled away on exposure to the air. The lowest part, however, which had stood on a level with the sea, was in a more perfect state of preservation. On the floor of this hut was a rude fireplace, consisting of a ring of stones, and within this were cinders and charred wood. On the outside lay boughs of the fir, cut as with an axe, with the leaves or needles still attached. It seems very difficult to explain the position of this buried hut, without imagining, as in the case of the temple of Serapis (see p. 486), first a subsidence to the depth of more than sixty feet, then a re-elevation. During the period of submergence, the hut must have become covered over with gravel and sh.e.l.ly marl, under which not only the hut, but several vessels also were found, of a very antique form, and having their timbers fastened together by wooden pegs instead of nails.[738]

Whether any of the land in Norway is now rising, must be determined by future investigations. Marine fossil sh.e.l.ls, of recent species, have been collected from inland places near Drontheim; but Mr. Everest, in his "Travels through Norway," informs us that the small island of Munkholm, which is an insulated rock in the harbor of Drontheim, affords conclusive evidence of the land having in that region remained stationary for the last eight centuries. The area of this isle does not exceed that of a small village, and by an official survey, its highest point has been determined to be twenty-three feet above the mean high-water mark, that is, the mean between neap and spring tides. Now, a monastery was founded there by Canute the Great, A. D. 1028, and thirty-three years before that time it was in use as a common place of execution. According to the a.s.sumed average rate of rise in Sweden (about forty inches in a century), we should be obliged to suppose that this island had been three feet eight inches below high-water mark when it was originally chosen as the site of the monastery.

Professor Keilhau of Christiania, after collecting the observations of his predecessors respecting former changes of level in Norway, and combining them with his own, has made the fact of a general change of level at a modern period, that is to say, within the period of the actual testaceous fauna, very evident. He infers that the whole country from Cape Lindesnaes to Cape North, and beyond that as far as the fortress of Vardhuus, has been gradually upraised, and on the southeast coast the elevation has amounted to more than 600 feet. The marks which denote the ancient coast-line are so nearly horizontal that the deviation from horizontality, although the measurements have been made at a great number of points, is too small to be appreciated.

More recently (1844), however, it appears from the researches of M.

Bravais, member of the French scientific commission of the North, that in the Gulf of Alten in Finmark, the most northerly part of Norway, there are two distinct lines of upraised ancient sea-coast, one above the other, which are not parallel, and both of them imply that within a distance of fifty miles a considerable slope can be detected in such a direction as to show that the ancient sh.o.r.es have undergone a greater amount of upheaval in proportion as we advance inland.[739]

It has been already stated, that, in proceeding from the North Cape to Stockholm, the rate of upheaval diminishes from several feet to a few inches in a century. To the south of Stockholm, the upward movement ceases, and at length in Scania, or the southernmost part of Sweden, it appears to give place to a movement in an opposite direction. In proof of this fact, Professor Nilsson observes, in the first place, that there are no elevated beds of recent marine sh.e.l.ls in Scania like those farther to the north. Secondly, Linnaeus, with a view of ascertaining whether the waters of the Baltic were retiring from the Scanian sh.o.r.e, measured, in 1749, the distance between the sea and a large stone near Trelleborg. This same stone was, in 1836, a hundred feet nearer the water's edge than in Linnaeus's time, or eighty-seven years before.

Thirdly, there is also a submerged peat moss, consisting of land and freshwater plants, beneath the sea at a point to which no peat could have been drifted down by any river. Fourthly, and what is still more conclusive, it is found that in seaport towns, all along the coast of Scania, there are streets below the high-water level of the Baltic, and in some cases below the level of the lowest tide. Thus, when the wind is high at Malmo, the water overflows one of the present streets, and some years ago some excavations showed an ancient street in the same place eight feet lower, and it was then seen that there had been an artificial raising of the ground, doubtless in consequence of that subsidence.

There is also a street at Trelleborg, and another at Skanor, a few inches below high-water mark, and a street at Ystad is exactly on a level with the sea, at which it could not have been originally built.

The inferences deduced from the foregoing facts are in perfect harmony with the proofs brought to light by two Danish investigators, Dr. Pingel and Captain Graah, of the sinking down of part of the west coast of Greenland, for a s.p.a.ce of more than 600 miles from north to south. The observations of Captain Graah were made during a survey of Greenland in 1823-24; and afterwards in 1828-29; those by Dr. Pingel were made in 1830-32. It appears from various signs and traditions, that the coast has been subsiding for the last four centuries from the firth called Igaliko, in lat. 60 43' N. to Dis...o...b..y, extending to nearly the 69th degree of north lat.i.tude. Ancient buildings on low rocky islands and on the sh.o.r.e of the main land have been gradually submerged, and experience has taught the aboriginal Greenlander never to build his hut near the water's edge. In one case the Moravian settlers have been obliged more than once to move inland the poles upon which their large boats were set, and the old poles still remain beneath the water as silent witnesses of the change.[740]

The probable cause of the movements above alluded to, whether of elevation or depression, will be more appropriately discussed in the following chapters, when the origin of subterranean heat is considered.

But I may remark here, that the rise of Scandinavia has naturally been regarded as a very singular and scarcely credible phenomenon, because no region on the globe has been more free within the times of authentic history from violent earthquakes. In common, indeed, with our own island and with almost every spot on the globe, some movements have been, at different periods, experienced, both in Norway and Sweden. But some of these, as for example during the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, may have been mere vibrations or undulatory movements of the earth's crust prolonged from a great distance. Others, however, have been sufficiently local to indicate a source of disturbance immediately under the country itself. Notwithstanding these shocks, Scandinavia has, upon the whole, been as tranquil in modern times, and as free from subterranean convulsions, as any region of equal extent on the globe. There is also another circ.u.mstance which has made the change of level in Sweden appear anomalous, and has for a long time caused the proofs of the fact to be received with reluctance. Volcanic action, as we have seen, is usually intermittent: and the variations of level to which it has given rise have taken place by starts, not by a prolonged and insensible movement similar to that experienced in Sweden. Yet, as we enlarge our experience of modern changes, we discover instances in which the volcanic eruption, the earthquake, and the permanent rise or fall of land, whether slow or sudden, are all connected. The union of these various circ.u.mstances was exemplified in the case of the temple of Serapis, described in the last chapter, and we might derive other ill.u.s.trations from the events of the present century in South America.

Some writers, indeed, have imagined that there is geological evidence in Norway, of the sudden upheaval of land to a considerable height at successive periods, since the era when the sea was inhabited by the living species of testacea. They point in proof to certain horizontal lines of inland cliffs and sea-beaches containing recent sh.e.l.ls at various heights above the level of the sea.[741] But these appearances, when truly interpreted, simply prove that there have been long pauses in the process of upheaval or subsidence. They mark eras at which the level of the sea has remained stationary for ages, and during which new strata were deposited near the sh.o.r.e in some places, while in others the waves and currents had time to hollow out rocks, undermine cliffs, and throw up long ranges of shingle. They undoubtedly show that the movement has not been always uniform or continuous, but they do not establish the fact of any sudden alterations of level.

When we are once a.s.sured of the reality of the gradual rise of a large region, it enables us to account for many geological appearances otherwise of very difficult explanation. There are large continental tracts and high table-lands where the strata are nearly horizontal, bearing no marks of having been thrown up by violent convulsions, nor by a series of movements, such as those which occur in the Andes, and cause the earth to be rent open, and raised or depressed from time to time, while large ma.s.ses are engulfed in subterranean cavities. The result of a series of such earthquakes might be to produce in a great lapse of ages a country of shattered, inclined, and perhaps vertical strata. But a movement like that of Scandinavia would cause the bed of the sea, and all the strata recently formed in it, to be upheaved so gradually, that it would merely seem as if the ocean had formerly stood at a higher level, and had slowly and tranquilly sunk down into its present bed.

The fact also of a very gradual and insensible elevation of land may explain many geological movements of denudation, on a grand scale. If, for example, instead of the hard granitic rocks of Norway and Sweden, a large part of the bed of the Atlantic, consisting chiefly of soft strata, should rise up century after century, at the rate of about half an inch, or an inch, in a year, how easily might oceanic currents sweep away the thin film of matter thus brought up annually within the sphere of aqueous denudation! The tract, when it finally emerged, might present table-lands and ridges of horizontal strata, with intervening valleys and vast plains, where originally, and during its period of submergence, the surface was level and nearly uniform.

These speculations relate to superficial changes; but others must be continually in progress in the subterranean regions. The foundations of the country, thus gradually uplifted in Sweden, must be undergoing important modifications. Whether we ascribe these to the expansion of solid matter by continually increasing heat, or to the liquefaction of rock, or to the crystallization of a dense fluid, or the acc.u.mulation of pent-up gases, in whatever conjectures we indulge, we can never doubt for a moment, that at some unknown depth beneath Sweden and the Baltic, the structure of the globe is in our own times becoming changed from day to day, throughout a s.p.a.ce probably more than a thousand miles in length, and several hundred in breadth.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

CAUSES OF EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES.

Intimate connection between the causes of volcanoes and earthquakes--Supposed original state of fusion of the planet--Universal fluidity not proved by spheroidal figure of the earth--Attempt to calculate the thickness of the solid crust of the earth by precessional motion--Heat in mines increasing with the depth--Objections to the supposed intense heat of a central fluid--Whether chemical changes may produce volcanic heat--Currents of electricity circulating in the earth's crust.

It will hardly be questioned, after the description before given of the phenomena of earthquakes and volcanoes, that both of these agents have, to a certain extent, a common origin; and I may now, therefore, proceed to inquire into their probable causes. But first, it may be well to recapitulate some of those points of relation and a.n.a.logy which lead naturally to the conclusion that they spring from a common source.

The regions convulsed by violent earthquakes include within them the site of all the active volcanoes. Earthquakes, sometimes local, sometimes extending over vast areas, often precede volcanic eruptions.

The subterranean movement and the eruption return again and again, at irregular intervals of time, and with unequal degrees of force, to the same spots. The action of either may continue for a few hours, or for several consecutive years. Paroxysmal convulsions are usually followed, in both cases, by long periods of tranquillity. Thermal and mineral springs are abundant in countries of earthquakes and active volcanoes.

Lastly, hot springs situated in districts considerably distant from volcanic vents have been observed to have their temperature suddenly raised, and the volume of their water augmented, by subterranean movements.

All these appearances are evidently more or less connected with the pa.s.sage of heat from the interior of the earth to the surface; and where there are active volcanoes, there must exist, at some unknown depth below, enormous ma.s.ses of matter intensely heated, and, in many instances, in a constant state of fusion. We have first, then, to inquire, whence is this heat derived?

It has long been a favorite conjecture, that the whole of our planet was originally in a state of igneous fusion, and that the central parts still retain a great portion of their primitive heat. Some have imagined, with the late Sir W. Herschel, that the elementary matter of the earth may have been first in a gaseous state, resembling those nebulae which we behold in the heavens, and which are of dimensions so vast, that some of them would fill the orbits of the remotest planets of our system. The increased power of the telescope has of late years resolved the greater number of these nebulous appearances into cl.u.s.ters of stars, but so long as they were confidently supposed to consist of aeriform matter it was a favorite conjecture that they might, if concentrated, form solid spheres; and it was also imagined that the evolution of heat, attendant on condensation, might retain the materials of the new globes in a state of igneous fusion.

Without dwelling on such speculations, which can only have a distant bearing on geology, we may consider how far the spheroidal form of the earth affords sufficient ground for presuming that its primitive condition was one of universal fluidity. The discussion of this question would be superfluous, were the doctrine of original fluidity less popular; for it may well be asked, why the globe should be supposed to have had a pristine shape different from the present one?--why the terrestrial materials, when first called into existence, or a.s.sembled together in one place, should not have been subject to rotation, so as to a.s.sume at once that form which alone could retain their several parts in a state of equilibrium?

Let us, however, concede that the statical figure may be a modification of some other pre-existing form, and suppose the globe to have been at first a perfect and quiescent sphere, covered with a uniform ocean--what would happen when it was made to turn round on its axis with its present velocity? This problem has been considered by Playfair in his Ill.u.s.trations, and he has decided, that if the surface of the earth, as laid down in Hutton's theory, has been repeatedly changed by the transportation of the detritus of the land to the bottom of the sea, the figure of the planet must in that case, whatever it may have been originally, be brought at length to coincide with the spheroid of equilibrium.[742] Sir John Herschel also, in reference to the same hypothesis, observes, "a centrifugal force would in that case be generated, whose general tendency would be to urge the water at every point of the surface to _recede_ from the _axis_. A rotation might indeed be conceived so swift as to flirt the whole ocean from the surface, like water from a mop. But this would require a far greater velocity than what we now speak of. In the case supposed, the _weight_ of the water would still keep it _on_ the earth; and the tendency to recede from the axis _could_ only be satisfied therefore by the water leaving the poles, and flowing towards the equator; there heaping itself up in a ridge, and being retained in opposition to its weight or natural tendency towards the centre by the pressure thus caused. This, however, could not take place without laying dry the polar regions, so that protuberant land would appear at the poles, and a zone of ocean be disposed around the equator. This would be the first or immediate effect. Let us now see what would afterwards happen if things were allowed to take their natural course.

"The sea is constantly beating on the land, grinding it down, and scattering its worn-off particles and fragments, in the state of sand and pebbles, over its bed. Geological facts afford abundant proof that the existing continents have all of them undergone this process even more than once, and been entirely torn in fragments, or reduced to powder, and submerged and reconstructed. Land, in this view of the subject, loses its attribute of fixity. As a ma.s.s it might hold together in opposition to forces which the water freely obeys; but in its state of successive or simultaneous degradation, when disseminated through the water, in the state of sand or mud, it is subject to all the impulses of that fluid. In the lapse of time, then, the protuberant land would be destroyed, and spread over the bottom of the ocean, filling up the lower parts, and tending continually to remodel the surface of the solid nucleus, in correspondence with the _form of equilibrium_. Thus after a sufficient lapse of time, in the case of an earth in rotation, the polar protuberances would gradually be cut down and disappear, being transferred to the equator (as being _then_ the _deepest sea_), till the earth would a.s.sume by degrees the form we observe it to have--that of a flattened or _oblate_ ellipsoid.

"We are far from meaning here to trace the process _by which_ the earth really a.s.sumed its actual form; all we intend is to show that this is the form to which, under a condition of a rotation on its axis, it must _tend_, and which it would attain even if originally and (so to speak) perversely const.i.tuted otherwise."[743]

In this pa.s.sage, the author has contemplated the superficial effects of aqueous causes only; but neither he nor Playfair seem to have followed out the same inquiry with reference to another part of Hutton's system; namely, that which a.s.sumes the successive fusion by heat of different parts of the solid earth. Yet the progress of geology has continually strengthened the evidence in favor of the doctrine that local variations of temperature have melted one part after another of the earth's crust, and this influence has perhaps extended downwards to the very centre.

If, therefore, before the globe had a.s.sumed its present form, it was made to revolve on its axis, all matter to which freedom of motion was given by fusion, must before consolidating have been impelled towards the equatorial regions in obedience to the centrifugal force. Thus lava flowing out in superficial streams would have its motion r.e.t.a.r.ded when its direction was towards the pole, accelerated when towards the equator; or if lakes and seas of lava existed beneath the earth's crust in equatorial regions, as probably now beneath the Peruvian Andes, the imprisoned fluid would force outwards and permanently upheave the overlying rocks. The statical figure, therefore, of the terrestrial spheroid (of which the longest diameter exceeds the shortest by about twenty-five miles), may have been the result of gradual and even of existing causes, and not of a primitive, universal, and simultaneous fluidity.[744]

Experiments made with the pendulum, and observations on the manner in which the earth attracts the moon, have shown that our planet is not an empty sphere, but, on the contrary, that its interior, whether solid or fluid, has a higher specific gravity than the exterior. It has also been inferred, that there is a regular increase in density from the surface towards the centre, and that the equatorial protuberance is continued inwards; that is to say, that layers of equal density are arranged elliptically, and symmetrically, from the exterior to the centre. These conclusions, however, have been deduced rather as a consequence of the hypothesis of primitive and simultaneous fluidity than proved by experiment. The inequalities in the moon's motion, by which some have endeavored to confirm them, are so extremely slight, that the opinion can be regarded as little more than a probable conjecture.

The mean density of the earth has been computed by Laplace to be about 5, or more than five times that of water. Now the specific gravity of many of our rocks is from 2 to 3, and the greater part of the metals range between that density and 21. Hence some have imagined that the terrestrial nucleus may be metallic--that it may correspond, for example, with the specific gravity of iron, which is about 7. But here a curious question arises in regard to the form which materials, whether fluid or solid, might a.s.sume, if subjected to the enormous pressure which must obtain at the earth's centre. Water, if it continued to decrease in volume according to the rate of compressibility deduced from experiment, would have its density doubled at the depth of ninety-three miles, and be as heavy as mercury at the depth of 362 miles. Dr. Young computed that, at the earth's centre, steel would be compressed into one-fourth, and stone into one-eighth of its bulk.[745] It is more than probable, however, that after a certain degree of condensation, the compressibility of bodies may be governed by laws altogether different from those which we can put to the test of experiment; but the limit is still undetermined, and the subject is involved in such obscurity, that we cannot wonder at the variety of notions which have been entertained respecting the nature and conditions of the central nucleus. Some have conceived it to be fluid, others solid; some have imagined it to have a cavernous structure, and have even endeavored to confirm this opinion by appealing to observed irregularities in the vibrations of the pendulum in certain countries.

An attempt has recently been made by Mr. Hopkins to determine the least thickness which can be a.s.signed to the solid crust of the globe, if we a.s.sume the whole to have been once perfectly fluid, and a certain portion of the exterior to have acquired solidity by gradual refrigeration. This result he has endeavored to obtain by a new solution of the delicate problem of the processional motion of the pole of the earth. It is well known that while the earth revolves round the sun the direction of its axis remains very nearly the same, _i. e._ its different positions in s.p.a.ce are all nearly parallel to each other. This parallelism, however, is not accurately preserved, so that the axis, instead of coming exactly into the position which it occupied a year before, becomes inclined to it at a very small angle, but always retaining very nearly the same inclination to the plane of the earth's...o...b..t. This motion of the pole changes the position of the equinoxes by about fifty seconds annually, and always in the same direction. Thus the pole-star, after a certain time, will entirely lose its claim to that appellation, until in the course of somewhat more than 25,000 years the earth's axis shall again occupy its present angular position, and again point very nearly as now to the pole-star. This motion of the axis is called _precession_. It is caused by the attraction of the sun and moon, and princ.i.p.ally the moon, on the protuberant parts of the earth's equator; and if these parts were solid to a great depth, the motion thus produced would differ considerably from that which would exist if they were perfectly fluid, and incrusted over with a thin sh.e.l.l only a few miles thick. In other words, the disturbing action of the moon will not be the same upon a globe all solid and upon one nearly all fluid, or it will not be the same upon a globe in which the solid sh.e.l.l forms one-half of the ma.s.s, and another in which it forms only one-tenth.

Mr. Hopkins has, therefore, calculated the amount of precessional motion which would result if we a.s.sume the earth to be const.i.tuted as above stated; _i. e._ fluid internally, and enveloped by a solid sh.e.l.l; and he finds that the amount will not agree with the observed motion, unless the crust of the earth be of a certain thickness. In calculating the exact amount some ambiguity arises in consequence of our ignorance of the effect of pressure in promoting the solidification of matter at high temperatures. The hypothesis least favorable for a great thickness is found to be that which a.s.sumes the pressure to produce no effect on the process of solidification. Even on this extreme a.s.sumption the thickness of the solid crust must be nearly _four hundred miles_, and this would lead to the remarkable result that the proportion of the solid to the fluid part would be as 49 to 51, or, to speak in round numbers, there would be nearly as much solid as fluid matter in the globe. The conclusion, however, which Mr. Hopkins announces as that to which his researches have finally conducted him, is thus expressed: "Upon the whole, then, we may venture to a.s.sert that the minimum thickness of the crust of the globe, which can be deemed consistent with the observed amount of precession, cannot be less than one-fourth or one-fifth of the earth's radius." That is from 800 to 1000 miles.[746]

It will be remarked, that this is a _minimum_, and any still _greater_ amount would be quite consistent with the actual phenomena; the calculations not being opposed to the supposition of the general solidity of the entire globe. Nor do they preclude us from imagining that great lakes or seas of melted matter may be distributed through a sh.e.l.l 400 or 800 miles thick, provided they be so inclosed as to move with it, whatever motion of rotation may be communicated by the disturbing forces of the sun and moon.

_Central heat._--The hypothesis of internal fluidity calls for the more attentive consideration, as it has been found that the heat in mines augments in proportion as we descend. Observations have been made, not only on the temperature of the air in mines, but on that of the rocks, and on the water issuing from them. The mean rate of increase, calculated from results obtained in six of the deepest coal mines in Durham and Northumberland, is 1 Fahr. for a descent of forty-four English feet.[747] A series of observations, made in several of the princ.i.p.al lead and silver mines in Saxony, gave 1 Fahr. for every sixty-five feet. In this case, the bulb of the thermometer was introduced into cavities purposely cut in the solid rock at depths varying from 200 to above 900 feet. But in other mines of the same country, it was necessary to descend thrice as far for each degree of temperature.[748]

A thermometer was fixed in the rock of the Dolcoath mine, in Cornwall, by Mr. Fox, at the great depth of 1380 feet, and frequently observed during eighteen months; the mean temperature was 68 Fahr., that of the surface being 50, which gives 1 for every seventy-five feet.

Kupffer, after an extensive comparison of the results in different countries, makes the increase 1 F. for about every thirty-seven English feet.[749] M. Cordier announces, as the result of his experiments and observations on the temperature of the interior of the earth, that the heat increases rapidly with the depth; but the increase does not follow the same law over the whole earth, being twice or three times as much in one country as in another, and these differences are not in constant relation either with the lat.i.tudes or longitudes of places.[750] He is of opinion, however, that the increase would not be overstated at 1 Cent. for every twenty-five metres, or about 1 F. for every forty-five feet.[751] The experimental well bored at Grenelle, near Paris, gave about 1 F. for every sixty English feet, when they had reached a depth of 1312 feet.

Some writers have endeavored to refer these phenomena (which, however discordant as to the ratio of increasing heat, appear all to point one way) to the condensation of air constantly descending from the surface into the mines. For the air under pressure would give out latent heat, on the same principle as it becomes colder when rarefied in the higher regions of the atmosphere. But, besides that the quant.i.ty of heat is greater than could be supposed to flow from this source, the argument has been answered in a satisfactory manner by Mr. Fox, who has shown, that in the mines of Cornwall the ascending have generally a higher temperature than the descending aerial currents. The difference between them was found to vary from 9 to 17 F.; a proof that, instead of imparting heat, these currents actually carry off a large quant.i.ty from the mines.[752]

If we adopt M. Cordier's estimate of 1 F. for every 45 feet of depth as the mean result, and a.s.sume, with the advocates of central fluidity, that the increasing temperature is continued downwards, we should reach the ordinary boiling point of water at about two miles below the surface, and at the depth of about twenty-four miles should arrive at the melting point of iron, a heat sufficient to fuse almost every known substance. The temperature of melted iron was estimated at 21,000 F., by Wedgwood; but his pyrometer gives, as is now demonstrated, very erroneous results. Professor Daniell ascertained that the point of fusion is 2786 F.[753]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 92.

Section of the earth, in which the breadth of the outer boundary line represents a thickness of 25 miles; the s.p.a.ce between the circles, including the breadth of the lines, 200 miles.]

According to Mr. Daniell's scale, we ought to encounter the internal melted matter before penetrating through a thickness represented by that of the outer circular line in the annexed diagram (fig. 92); whereas, if the other or less correct scale be adopted, we should meet with it at some point between the two circles; the s.p.a.ce between them, together with the lines themselves, representing a crust of 200 miles in depth. In either case, we must be prepared to maintain that a temperature many times greater than that sufficient to melt the most refractory substances known to us, is sustained at the centre of the globe; while a comparatively thin crust, resting upon the fluid, remains unmelted; or is even, according to M. Cordier, increasing in thickness, by the continual addition of new internal layers solidified during the process of refrigeration.

The mathematical calculations of Fourier, on the pa.s.sage of heat through conducting bodies, have been since appealed to in support of these views; for he has shown that it is compatible with theory that the present temperature of the surface might coexist with an intense heat at a certain depth below. But his reasoning seems to be confined to the conduction of heat through solid bodies; and the conditions of the problem are wholly altered when we reason about a fluid nucleus, as we must do if it be a.s.sumed that the heat augments from the surface to the interior, according to the rate observed in mines. For when the heat of the lower portion of a fluid is increased, a circulation begins throughout the ma.s.s, by the ascent of hotter, and the descent of colder currents. And this circulation, which is quite distinct from the mode in which heat is propagated through solid bodies, must evidently occur in the supposed central ocean, if the laws of fluids and of heat are the same there as upon the surface.

In Mr. Daniell's experiments for obtaining a measure of the heat of bodies at their point of fusion, he invariably found that it was impossible to raise the heat of a large crucible of melted iron, gold, or silver, a single degree beyond the melting point, so long as a bar of the respective metals was kept immersed in the fluid portions. So in regard to other substances, however great the quant.i.ties fused, their temperature could not be raised while any solid pieces immersed in them remained unmelted; every accession of heat being instantly absorbed during their liquefaction. These results are, in fact, no more than the extension of a principle previously established, that so long as a fragment of ice remains in water, we cannot raise the temperature of the water above 32 F.

If, then, the heat of the earth's centre amount to 450,000 F., as M.

Cordier deems highly probable, that is to say, about twenty times the heat of melted iron, even according to Wedgwood's scale, and upwards of 160 times according to the improved pyrometer, it is clear that the upper parts of the fluid ma.s.s could not long have a temperature only just sufficient to melt rocks. There must be a continual tendency towards a uniform heat; and until this were accomplished, by the interchange of portions of fluid of different densities, the surface could not begin to consolidate. Nor, on the hypothesis of primitive fluidity, can we conceive any crust to have been formed until _the whole_ planet had cooled down to about the temperature of incipient fusion.