Penny Blood: Serial Sensation and Working-Class Entertainment — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

50 ELEVATIONS AND DEPRESSIONS. _ [cu. v. the whole globe:by considering its surface composed of elemen- tary rectangular areas, and summing them; whence Barrtke = 5 (A) —S(B)ssccccccsssesseees (3). In which expression r is the radius of the earth measured to the present position of the datum level. k is the present thickness of the cooled crust. eis the mean total linear compression of the crust. > (A) is the volume of the total elevations above the datum level. > (B) is the volume of the total depressions below it. And a = 3'14159. It is worthy of remark, that the relation between lateral compression and elevation expressed by the above equation, (3), in no way depends upon the arrangement of the disturbed rocks, nor upon the time at which the successive movements have. taken place, nor upon the elevations occupying their original positions on the globe, nor upon whether or not subse- quent denudation, or any other mode of action, has redistributed the elevated matter. Nay, even if.by human agency excava- tions have been made, their results will be included in our equation, which 1s perfectly general and true, so long as it is strictly interpreted. It requires also in particular to be noticed that it is not assumed that mountain-ranges need be anticlinals. All that 1s assumed is that they are carved out of tracts ele- vated as a whole by lateral pressure. An opinion seems to have lately gained ground among geolo- gists, that the continents and oceans have at all periods occupied nearly the same positions upon the globe that they do now. It may be as well to remark that, whether this opinion be -true or not, it has no effect whatsoéver upon the correctness of the result at which we have arrived. Our equation does not depend in the least degree upon the intermediate history of the earth’s surface; but requires only that in the primeval state it COMIC OOOKS.EO