The Scientific Monthly, October to December, 1915Various
Science
The Scientific Monthly, October to December, 1915
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
1. The evidence supplied by the volcanoes, by the hot springs,
and by the rise in temperature as we go down in all deep mines,
is unmistakably to the effect that there is an immense quantity
of heat in the Earth's interior. Near the surface the
temperature increases at the average of 1 degrees Centigrade
for every 30 meters of depth. If this rate were maintained we
should at 60 km. in depth arrive at a temperature high enough
to melt platinum, the most refractory of the known metals. What
the law of temperature-increase at great depths is we do not
know, but the temperature of the Earth's deep interior must be
very high.
2. The pressures in the Earth increase from zero at the surface
to the order of 3,000,000 atmospheric pressures at the center.
We know that rock structure, or iron or other metals, can be
slightly compressed by pressure, but the experiments at very
high pressures, notably those conducted by Bridgman, give no
indications that matter under such pressures breaks down and
obeys different or unknown laws. It should be said, however,
that laboratory pressure-effects alone are not a safe guide as
to conditions within the Earth, where high pressures are
accompanied by high temperature. Unfortunately it has not been
found possible to combine the high-temperature factor with the
high-pressure factor in the laboratory experiments. It is well
known that the melting points of metals, including rocks,
increase with increase of pressure; and although the
temperatures in the Earth's interior are very high, it is easy
to conceive that the materials of the Earth's interior are
nevertheless in the solid state, or that they act like solids,
because of the high pressures to which they are subjected.
3. The specific gravity of the entire Earth is 5.5 on the scale
of water as one, whereas the density of the stratified rocks
averages only 2.75; that is, the stratified rocks have but one
half the density of the Earth as a whole. The basaltic rocks
underlying the stratified attain occasionally the density 3.1,
and perhaps a little higher. It follows absolutely that the
density of the materials of the Earth's interior must be
considerably in excess of 5.5. If the interior is composed
chiefly of substances which are plentiful in the Earth's
surface strata, our choice of materials which principally
compose the interior is reduced to a few elements, notably the
denser ones.
4. The observed phenomena of terrestrial precession can not be
explained on the basis of an Earth with a thin solid surface
shell and a liquid interior, for the attractions of the Moon
and Sun upon the Earth's equatorial protuberance would cause
the surface shell to shift over the fluid interior, instead of
swinging the entire Earth.
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