Penny Blood: Serial Sensation and Working-Class Entertainment — page 234: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XVII. GEOLOGICAL MOVEMENTS EXPLAINED. Recapitulation of the four suggested causes of compression—Three of them negatived—The fourth possibly the true one—The fact of compression certain, and the duplex character of the corrugations most probable—The conse- quences of denudation followed out—Elevation its correlative—Fresh-water strata covered by marine—Movements most energetic near, but not confined to, continents—Degradation of mountains a law of nature—Enormous thickness of certain strata accounted for—Raised sea beaches—Two classes of elevatory movements—Drainage across dip—Theories of compression compared. In our endeavour to discover the cause of the compression, by which it is generally believed that the elevations existing upon the earth’s surface have been produced, it must be admitted that we have not arrived at any degree of positive certainty. The results obtained have been mostly negative. But even negative results have great value, because the disproof of a theory, which for want of close examination may long hold its ground, removes a chief obstacle to further advance in knowledge. It is submitted, then, that the theory has been disproved (1), That the earth is a solid body cooling by conduction, and that the inequalities which appear on its surface have been caused by the contraction of the interior through cooling. It has further been shown that the geological phenomena re- quire us to suppose that the crust of the earth rests upon a fluid substratum, and this belief has led to the examination, and rejec- tion, of a second theory, (2) That the crust is thin, and is so far flexible that the fluid may rise into the anticlinals formed by the corrugations of the crust; a view held by some who have written on the subject’, and at one time entertained by the Author him- 1 See note, p. 169. CONNEC OOO @ (CO)