Penny Blood: Serial Sensation and Working-Class Entertainment — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

CH. I1.] CONDITION OF INTERIOR. 27 supposition however may be passed over as not affecting the aspect of the subject at present under review. It is possible that a future generation of geologists may be able to gather some information regarding the interior of the earth from the mysterious phenomena of magnetic variation. But at present we cannot hope for much help from that quarter. The temptation, however, is too great to forbear quoting from Captain Evans a very striking passage’. ‘“ These are a few facts relating to secular changes going on in two magnetic elements within our own time; and what are the inferences to be drawn there- from? They appear to me to lead to the conclusion that move- ments, certainly beyond our present conception, are going on in the interior of the earth; and that so far as the evidence pre- sents itself, secular changes are due to these movements, and not to external causes. We are thus led back to Halley's con- ception of an internal nucleus or inner globe, itself a magnet, rotating within the outer magnetised shell of the earth.” This is, to say the least, in very remarkable accordance with the conclusion that a liquid stratum underlies the cooled crust of the earth. 1 Lecture at the Royal Geographical Society, March 11, by Capt. F. J. Evans, C.B., F.B.8., Hydrographer to the Admiralty, ‘‘ Nature,” May 16, 1878. COLA @ NOO (CO)