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XV.— On the Secular Cooling of the Earth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

William Thomson
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Extract

1. For eighteen years it has pressed on my mind, that essential principles of Thermo-dynamics have been overlooked by those geologists who uncompromisingly oppose all paroxysmal hypotheses, and maintain not only that we have examples now before us, on the earth, of all the different actions by which its crust has been modified in geological history, but that these actions have never, or have not on the whole, been more violent in past time than they are at present.

Type
Transactions
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , 1862 , pp. 157 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1862

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References

page 157 note * March 1862.

page 158 note * Proceedings Royal Soc. Edin., Feb. 1852. “On a Universal Tendency in Nature to the Dissipation of Mechanical Energy.” Also, “On the Restoration of Energy in an Unequally Heated Space,” Phil. Mag., 1853, first half year.Google Scholar

page 158 note † Feb. 1844.—“ Note on Certain Points in the Theory of Heat.”

page 158 note ‡ See British Association Report of 1855 (Glasgow) Meeting.

page 159 note * Principles of Geology.

page 162 note * On the Periodical Variations of Underground Temperature. Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin. March 1860.

page 166 note * March 1862.

page 166 note † “Proceedings,” Jan. 1862. “On the Convective Equilibrium of Temperature in the Atmosphere.”

page 166 note ‡ Joule, , “On the Changes of Temperature produced by the Rarefaction and Condensation of Air,” Phil. Mag. about 1844Google Scholar. Thomson, , “On a Method for Determining Experimentally the Heat evolved by the Compression of Air; Dynamical Theory of Heat, Part IV.,” Trans. R. S. E., Session 1850–51Google Scholar; and reprinted, Phil. Mag. Joule, and Thomson, , “On the Thermal Effects of Fluids in Motion,” Trans. R. S. Lond., June 1853 and June 1854Google Scholar. Joule, and Thomson, , “On the Alterations of Temperature accompanying Changes of Pressure in Fluids,” Proceedings R. S. Lond., June 1857.Google Scholar

page 166 note § “Theoretical Considerations Regarding the Effect of Pressure in lowering the Freezing-Point of Water,” Trans. R. S. E., Jan. 1849.Google Scholar

page 166 note ∥ Proceedings R. S. E., Session 1849–50.

page 168 note * See his Report on “Earthquakes and Volcanic Action.” British Association Report for 1847.

page 169 note * Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 1861, “On Crystallization and Liquefaction as influenced by Stresses tending to Change of Form in Crystals.”

page 169 note † In a paper “On the Rigidity of the Earth,” communicated to the Royal Society a few days ago. April 1862.