This premised, let us go back to our layers of 25 miles thick with
their respective volumes. Nine of them counted from the diameter of
7900 miles inwards, will be equal to 225 miles and will bring us to
234 miles deep, which at the same time that it leaves us the same
volume and mass that we have always retained for the first 9 miles in
depth, will facilitate our calculations considerably without making
any appreciable difference in them. We shall then have to find for the
9 layers 9 corresponding densities increasing from 3 to 5·66, and if
we multiply these together respectively, and add the numbers of the
volumes and masses of the outer 9 miles in depth, we shall get, at
the diameter of 7450 miles, a simple volume of 43,418,587,327 cubic
miles, and mass volume of 195,312,523,450 cubic miles. Deducting this
latter sum from 735,584,493,738 cubic miles, which represents the
half mass of the earth at the density of water, we have a remainder
of 540,271,970,288 cubic miles. On the other hand we find that the
simple volume of the earth comprehended between the diameters of
7450 and 6284·5 miles is 86,543,337,361 cubic miles; so that if we
divide 540,272,970,288 by this sum, we find that a density of 6·24
times that of water over the whole intervening space--between the
two diameters just cited--will make up the whole half-volume, at the
density of water, from the surface of the earth to the diameter of
6284·5 miles. Then, for the inner half-mass:--If we multiply the simple
volume between the diameters of 6284·5 miles, and 3150 miles, which
is 113,596,348,539 cubic miles by 6·24, we get 708,841,214,870 cubic
miles at density of water; and if from there we run down the density to
3 at 2700 miles in diameter we get 27,400,652,354 cubic miles, which
added to the last mentioned amount gives 736,241,867,224 cubic miles,
somewhat in excess of the inner half-mass of the earth at density of
water. Thus we see that in order that the average density of the earth
of 5·66 may be made up, there is no necessity for appealing to matter
of any kind with a density of more than 6·24 times of water. And there
is still something else of importance to be taken into consideration
before we can bind ourselves to a density even so great as that.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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