Page:On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Earth.pdf/8

20 from the atmosphere in all times—namely, the chemical weathering of siliceous minerals,—is of the same order of magnitude as a process of contrary effect, which is caused by the industrial development of our time, and which must be conceived of as being of a temporary nature.

“In comparison with the quantity of carbonic acid which is fixed in limestone (and other carbonates), the carbonic acid of the air vanishes. With regard to the thickness of sedimentary formations and the great part of them that is formed by limestone and other carbonates, it seems not improbable that the total quantity of carbonates would cover the whole Earth's surface to a height of hundreds of metres. If we assume 100 metres—a number that may be inexact in a high degree, but probably is underestimated,—we find that about 25,000 times as much carbonic acid is fixed to lime in the sedimentary formations as exists free in the air. Every molecule of carbonic acid in this mass of limestone has, however, existed in and passed through the atmosphere in the course of time. Although we neglect all other factors which may have influenced the quantity of carbonic acid in the air, this number lends but very slight probability to the hypothesis, that this quantity should in former geological epochs have changed within limits which do not differ much from the present amount, As the process of weathering has consumed quantities of carbonic acid many thousand times greater than the amount now disposable in the air, and as this process from different geographical, climatological, and other causes has in all likelihood proceeded with very different intensity at different epochs, the probability of important variations in the quantity of carbonic acid seems to be very great, even if we take into account the compensating processes which, as we shall see in what follows, are called forth as soon as, for one reason or another, the production or consumption of carbonic acid tends to displace the equilibrium to any considerable degree. One often hears the opinion expressed, that the quantity of carbonic acid in the air ought to have been very much greater formerly than now, and that the diminution should arise from the circumstance that carbonic acid has been taken from the air and stored in the Earth's crust in the form of coal and carbonates. In many cases this hypothetical diminution is ascribed only to the formation of coal, whilst the much more important formation of carbonates is wholly overlooked. This whole method of reasoning on a continuous diminution of the