Penny Blood: Serial Sensation and Working-Class Entertainment — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER VI. ELEVATIONS ON THE HYPOTHESIS OF SOLIDITY. Any physical hypothesis regarding the condition of the interior of the earth may be tested by comparing the average height of the elevations it would produce with that which exists in nature—Sir Wm. Thomson regards the earth asa solid cooling by conduction—Some of the results of his paper ‘‘On the Secular Cooling of the Earth”—-His mathematical formula for expressing the law of temperature in descending—Calculation in general symbols of the average height of the elevations which would be produced upon the supposition of the earth cooling as a solid—Numerical result obtained with a value of the coeficient of contraction deduced from Mallet’s experiments and Sir Wm. Thomson's estimates of the melting temperature and conductivity—The same with Mallet’s estimate of the melting temperature of slag—The corresponding age of the earth—Amount of radial contraction. In the preceding chapter an estimate has been made of the average height above the datum level of all the elevations upon the earth’s surface, which exist at the present time, it being supposed that the most profound depths .of the sea coincide nearly with the datum level. And it has been found that a very moderate computation gives 9504" feet for this average height: but there are good reasons for supposing that 13224° feet are nearer the mark. It has also been proved that upon the supposition that these elevations are the result of lateral compression, their average height above the datum level is ex- pressed by the product 2ke, where k& is the thickness of the corrugated crust, and e-the mean coefficient of compression, If then we are able to calculate the value of 2ke upon any physical supposition we choose to make regarding the condition 1 p. 55. 2 p. 56. <r COLA @ NOO (CO)