VOLCANOES. 



part of a sexagesimal second. This puzzles Mayer, but 

 bo very doggedly asserts, that if they give up the theory 

 of an internal fire they then deprive themselves of any 

 tenable explanation of volcanic activity. This result how- 

 ever remains to be seen. The assertion of Mayer is of a piece 

 with most of the scientific dogmas of later days, for when facts 

 will not coincide with theories, the ambitious philosophers yet 

 cling to their statements, and by perpetually driving them into 

 people's ears, endeavour to stifle the attempts of others to arrive 

 at the truth. It is to be deplored, that there is displayed among 

 scientific men more of a selfish desire to have their names 

 mentioned in connection with some secondary, and compara- 

 tively unimportant pet theory, than is consistent with a true 

 ambition to promote the interests oi science. 



Sir John Herschell says, in an article on Volcanoes and 

 Earthquakes, Good Words, 1863, that they are : " Un- 

 avoidable (I had almost said necessary) incidents m a vast 

 system of action, to which we owe the veiy ground we stand 

 on ; without which neither man, beast, nor bird, would have a 

 place for their existence, and the world would be the habitation 

 of nothing but fishes." The reason he assigns for this is, that 

 the land being every day washed by the tides and rivers, is 

 having vast quantities of its material gathered and deposited in 

 the ocean ; and this is so constant and universal, that if there 

 were no counter action by earthquakes to raise the land, the 

 earth would be one vast ocean ! That earthquakes raise vast 

 tracts of country occasionally, wo admit, but that they have 

 the influence which Hurschell attributes to them, wo deny. 



Volcanoes and earthquakes according to the popular theory, 

 are thus caused by the central heat of the earth. Ilerschell 



