Academy of Science. 51 



form increase of fifty-seven feet to a degree, but for the remaining 814 feet it de- 

 creased two degrees, or a loss of a degree for each 407 feet 



If this rule of a regular increase of heat were a reliable one, we might expect 

 that the waters of tlie ocean would show a large increase of heat as we penetrate 

 its depths. But no such result has been discovered. On the contrary, all our deep 

 sea soundings show a state of temperature adverse to this theory. According to 

 nearly all the facts in our possession, instead of a theoretical rate of increase, there 

 is a steady and somewhat uniform decrease, so that the bottoms of the great oceans 

 are near the freezing point of fresh water. The soundings on the Telegraph Pla- 

 teau, in the North Atlantic, sustain this, as the water was usually, at the bottom, 

 below 40°. Off the coast of Norway, lat. 76° 17', long. 13*' 53' E., the temperature 

 at the bottom, 9,000 feet deep, was 33 and 33'^, while the surface was 41°. The 

 numerous soundings, both in the Atlantic and Indian oceans, by the Challenger, 

 show that all the deep portions of these oceans were of a uniform cold tempera- 

 ture, much below that of the surface. But the rocks underlying the great oceans, 

 twenty and thirty thousand feet, are so much nearer the hot regions of the earth, 

 that they should, if the popular theory is true, be far above the average tempera- 

 ture of the surface, if not to a high, almost boiling degree. 



That the interior of the earth ha.s a higher temperature than the surface 

 appears to be certain, but that a moderately high percentage of it is in a molten 

 state is not sustained by science. The examples we have given, and many more of 

 a similar character might be added, show that there is no regular rule which will 

 give us even an approximate knowledge of the heat of the center of our globe. 



Some very valuable scientific investigations were made many years ago, by Prof. 

 Hopkins, of London, in relation to this question. His conclusion was, that the crust 

 of the earth was not less than eight hundred miles in thickness, and that the fluid 

 portions of the interior, were little, if any, above the melting point of refractory 

 rocks. 



Sir Charles Lyell, in Principles of Geology, says of the theory of the intense in- 

 crease of heat toward the interior of the earth, "It seems wholly inconsistent with 

 the laws which regulate the circulation of heat through fluid bodies." The fluid 

 portions under volcanos must, therefore, be regarded as exceptional and local. 



Prof. J. Le Conte, in his recent work, says, we must base our geology on sub- 

 stantially a solid globe. Prof. J. D. Dana, in his last edition of the Elements of 

 Geologv. takes about the samc^ conclusion. 



KANSAS MOUNDS. 



By F. G. Adams, Topeka. 



The first recorded mention of ancient mounds in Kansas, was made of mounds 

 near Fort Leavenworth, by Rev. Isaac McCoy, in his account of the survey made 

 by him, of the boundary lines of the Delaware Indian reservation in 1830. This 

 Mr. McCoy was one of the first to bring forward the project of transferring to 

 Kansas, from the East, the Indians of the various emigrant tribes which the settlers 

 of Kansas found here twenty-three years ago, occupying large portions of what is 

 now the most populous part of this State, but who have since that time nearly all 



