Penny Blood: Serial Sensation and Working-Class Entertainment — page 171: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

154 THE REVELATIONS OF [om. x11. to the company; and very interesting results were obtained, which are recorded in his published papers’. | Dr Stapff points. out that the rate of increase of temperature beneath the mountain differs from that beneath the plane surface, and gives it as his opinion that the influence which the mass of the mountain superimposed, and free on each side, exercises on the temperature of the rocks, 1s very different from that which an envelope would exercise, formed of the crust of the earth of a thickness equal to the height of this same mass*. This con- clusion is ostensibly corroborated by the fact, that the augmen- tation of temperature 1s observed to be more rapid beneath the hollows and flat spaces of the open surface above the tunnel than beneath the summits. It may. however be shown that the contour of the mountain cannot account for a general rate of increase of temperature beneath it so much slower than the usual one. The mean rate at Mt St Gothard for the whole tunnel is found by Dr Stapff to be 0°-0206 C. per metre of descent, which is about az degree F. per foot’. This is little more than half the usual rate of increase. The rate was found to exceed this mean on the north more often than on the south side of the mountain. To estimate roughly the effect which the contour of the mountain would produce in lowering the rate of increase, we may argue thus. As we ascend in the atmosphere the tempe- rature decreases. The temperature of the summit of the moun- tain is found to be zero centigrade, or the freezing-point. Calculate then the altitudes at which the observed rate at 1 « Studien tiber die Wirmevertheilung im Gotthard.” Bern, 1877. “ Etude de Influence de la Chaleur de l’Intérieur de la Terre sur la possibilité de con- struction des Tunnels dans les hautes Montagnes. Premiére partie, 1879. Do. deuxiéme partie, 1880. Revue universelle des Mines, etc. Annuaire de |’ Asso- ciation des Ingénieurs.” Paris, 9, Rue des Saints-Péres, Londres, 5, Bouverie Street. Liége, 24, Rue d’Archis. ‘‘ Repartition de la température dans le grand tunnel du St Gothard. Annexe xrv au volume vii des rapports trimestriels du. Conseil fédéral sur la marche des travaux du chemin de fer du St Gothard (rapport N°, 80).” 1880. 2 <¢Htnde de l’Influence de la Chaleur de I’Intérieur de la Terre,” &c., p. 2. 3 The factor which reduces the former to the latter system of units is 0°548. COMiCOOokxS.conn @ ———