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VIII.—On the Secular Straining of the Earth. I.1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Charles Davison
Charles Davison
Affiliation:
Mathematical Master at King Edward's High School, Birmingham.
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Extract

As early as the times of Descrates (1668) and Newton (1681), the “ settling and shrinking of the whole globe after the upper regions or surface began to be hard,”2 was held a sufficient cause for the formation of mountain-chains. Following the growth of our knowledge of mountain-structure, the contraction theory has been rediscovered several times in the present century. It has been worked out in great detail by Élie de Beaumont, Prevost, Delabeche and others; but, above all, by J. D. Dana, the real founder of the theory, in an admirable series of papers extending over the last forty-two years.

Leaving its details out of account, the fundamental idea in the contraction theory may be stated as follows: The whole earth was originally at a high temperature throughout, its present distribution of temperature being the result of cooling since the initial epoch.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 6 , Issue 5 , May 1889 , pp. 220 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1889

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Footnotes

1

Read before the Birmingham Philosophical Society on Feb. 14, 1889. In this paper I have attempted to give an account of part of a paper “ On the Distribution of Strain in the Earth's Crust resulting from Secular Cooling, etc.,” read before the Royal Society on May 5, 1887 (Phil. Trans. 1887, A. pp. 231–242). The reasoning in ch. xi. of Mr. T. Mellard Reade's work on “ The Origin of Mountain. Ranges ” (1886) shows that he had previously perceived the existence of a surface of zerostrain in the earth's crust, separating an outer region of crushing from an inner region of stretching. In his well-known paper, “ On the Formation of Alpine Valleys and Alpine Lakes ” (Phil. Mag., Feb. 1863, 4th ser. vol. XXV. p. 97), Mr. John Ball arrived at the conclusion that folding by lateral pressure diminishes as the depth from the surface of the earth increases, until it becomes insensible.

References

page 220 note 2 Brewster's, “ Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton,” vol. ii. Appendix 4;Google Scholar Nature, vol. xxxviii. p. 30.Google Scholar

page 222 note 1 Nature, vol. xix. p. 313.Google Scholar

page 223 note 1 This period was adopted in order to simplify the calculations, and is well within the limits given by Sir W. Thomson.