Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/55

Rh 2. We have reason to believe, as the result of astronomical investigations, that, notwithstanding the plasticity or liquidity of the undercrust, the mass of the earth—its nucleus, as we may call it—is practically solid, and of great density and hardness. Thus we have the apparent paradox of a solid yet fluid earth; solid in its astronomical relations, liquid or plastic for the purposes of volcanic action and superficial movements.

3. The plastic sub-crust is not in a state of dry, igneous fusion, but in that condition of aqueo-igneous or hydro-thermic fusion which arises from the action of heat on moist substances, and which may either be regarded as a fusion or as a species of solution at a very high temperature. This we learn from the phenomena of volcanic action, and from the composition of the volcanic and plutonic rocks, as well as from such chemical experiments as those of Daubrée and of Tilden and Shenstone.

4. The interior sub-crust is not perfectly homogeneous, but may be roughly divided into two layers or magmas, as they have been called—an upper, highly siliceous or acidic, of low specific gravity and light-colored, and corresponding to such kinds of plutonic and volcanic rocks as granite and trachyte; and a lower, less siliceous or more basic, more dense, and more highly charged with iron, and corresponding to such igneous rocks as the dolerites, basalts, and kindred lavas. It is interesting here to note that this conclusion, elaborated by Durocher and Von Waltershausen, and usually connected with their names, appears to have been first announced by John Phillips in his "Geological Manual," and as a mere common-sense deduction from the observed phenomena of volcanic action and the probable results of the gradual cooling of the earth. It receives striking confirmation from the observed succession of acidic and basic volcanic rocks of all geological periods and in all localities. It would even seem, from recent spectroscopic investigations of Lockyer, that there is evidence of a similar succession of magmas in the heavenly bodies, and the discovery by Nordenskiöld of native iron in Greenland basalts affords a probability that the inner magma is in part metallic.

5. Where rents or fissures form in the upper crust, the material of the lower crust is forced upward by the pressure of the less supported portions of the former, giving rise to volcanic phenomena either of an explosive or quiet character, as may be determined by contact with water. The underlying material may also be carried to the surface by the agency of heated water, producing those quiet discharges which Hunt has named crenitic. It is to be observed here that explosive volcanic phenomena and the formation of cones are, as Prestwich has well remarked, characteristic of an old and thickened crust; quiet ejection from fissures and hydrothermal action may have been more common in earlier periods, and with a thinner over-crust.

6. The contraction of the earth's interior by cooling and by the