The Formation of Mountains

Abstract

I HAVE deferred replying to Mr. Fisher's letter (NATURE, vol. xix. p. 172) till I had an opportunity of looking at Maxwell's “Theory of Heat;” but, having done so, I am no wiser, for I do not find the point in dispute anywhere referred to. In the “English Cyclopædia,” art. “Heat,” I find, however, the following statement: “If we suppose the mass of the earth to have been at any remote period at a very high temperature, the effect of the radiation of its heat through the colder surrounding space would be, to cool first the superficial strata, and successively, though in a less degree, the internal strata.” This slower cooling of the internal parts of a heated mass seems necessary result of the “law of exchanges,” to which the supposed “more rapid cooling of the interior of the globe than the crust” seems as decidedly opposed.