Penny Blood: Serial Sensation and Working-Class Entertainment — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER IL. CONDITION OF INTERIOR. Little known about the condition of the interior of the earth—Results of the mathematical “ Theory of the Earth” point toa former condition of fluidity— Determination of the mean and surface densities—The question proposed whether the fluid condition still partially exists more or less—Connection between this question and that of the law of internal temperature—Two modes of attacking the question, (1) Precession, (2) the tides—Opinions of Sir Wm. Thomson, Hopkins, Delaunay, and others—Possibility of a cooled crust resting on an internal fluid layer. VARIOUS suppositions may be made respecting the condition of the interior of the earth. What we actually know about it is very little. Whether any portion of it, or how much of it, is at the present time liquid can only be determined by secondary considerations. But we may feel almost certain on account of its present form and the law of variation of gravity upon its sur- face that it was once wholly melted, and that it consists at present of concentric spheroidal shells, each of equal density throughout, and of definite form; such form having been deter- mined by the velocity of rotation and law of density, coupled with the law of mutual attraction of all the mass, The ellip- ticity of these shells decreases from the surface towards the centre, The mean density of the surface has been estimated at from 2°56 to 2°75. The mean density of the whole is nearly twice as great. The summary of the experiments from which these constants may be determined is as follows : COLA @ NOOKS ACO