The Central Mass of the Globe in a state of Igneous Fusion. 207 



light passing iu these directions militates against the explanation ; but 

 allowing it to be admissible, the same advantages may be derived from the 

 theory above j)roposed ; since similar interferences will occur by means of 

 the pulses excited in the ethereal matter by the moving atoms of light, 

 and similar calculations may be applied ; nor is there any pheenomenon 

 explicable either by the Newtonian or the undulatory theory, but such as 

 can without difficulty or intricacy, be well explained on the New Theory, 

 which also explains many facts not to be accounted for by the one or the 

 other of " the rival theories," if indeed the term rival may still be applied, 

 as I understand that M. Biot, one of the most able and strenuous advocates 

 of Newton, has changed his views in favour of the undulatory theory. 



In comparing these explanations, the reader will bear in mind, that the 

 third depends, solely and entirely, on principles philosophically derived 

 from physical phaenomena, which have no immediate relation to optics, and 

 obtained without any reference to the operations of light. 



ON CERTAIN OBJECTIONS RECENTLY ADDUCED 



AGAINST TU£ HYPOTHESIS WHICH SUPPOSES 



THE CENTRAL MASS OF THE GLOBE TO BE IN A STATE 

 OF IGNEOUS FUSION. 



Mr. Editor, 



In a recent number of the Edinburgh Piiilosophical Journal, edited 

 by Professor Jameson, April, 1835, my attention was attracted by the 

 following passages in an article on "Ampere's Theory of the Globe," con- 

 taining objections alleged against the hypothesis, entertained by many 

 geologists, which supposes the central mass of the globe to be in a state of 

 igneous fusion, and drawn from the consideration of the perturbations to 

 which it is said the crust of the globe must on this hypothesis be exposed, 

 from the swell of tidal waves which It is urged the influence of the moon 

 and sun must excite, in the supposed fluid mass. 



" Those who maintain, that the internal nucleus of the globe is in a liquid state, 

 do not appear to have reflected upon the action which the moon would exercise on 

 this enormous fluid mass : an action, from which would result tides analogous to 

 those of our seas, but infinitely more terrible in their effects, both on account of the 

 extent and the density of the liquid. It is difficult to conceive, how the casing of the 

 earth could offer resistance to the continued shocks of a sort of hydraulic lever 

 fourteen hundred leagues in length."* 



• "Air. LyeU, in the last edition of his Principles of Geology, vol. ii. p. 284, has combated tlie 

 doctrine of a central heat npon principles similar to these: 'granting for a moment,' says he, 'that 

 the tides iu this internal matter can have become so feeble, as to be incapable of lifting up' every 

 .ix hours the fissured shell of the earth, may we not ask, whether during eruptions, jets of lava ought 

 not be thrown out* from the craters of volcanoes when the tides arise, and whether the same phn-- 

 nonienon would not be more conspicuous in Sironiboli, where there is always lava boiling in the 

 crater? Ought not the fluid, if connected with the interior ocean, to disappear entirely on the ebhint 

 "f its tides J' " 



• The italic* are our own. 



