72 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM II 



the occurrence of events of this character in past 

 times has more or less completely broken down. 



It is, to say the least, highly probable that this 

 earth is a mass of extremely hot matter, invested 

 by a cooled crust, through which the hot interior 

 still continues to cool, though with extreme slow- 

 ness. It is no less probable that the faults and 

 dislocations, the foldings and fractures, everywhere 

 visible in the stratified crust, its large and slow 

 movements through miles of elevation and depres- 

 sion, and its small and rapid movements which 

 give rise to the innumerable perceived and 

 unperceived earthquakes which are constantly 

 occurring, are due to the shrinkage of the crust 

 on its cooling and contracting nucleus. 



Without going beyond the range of fair scienti- 

 fic analogy, conditions are easily conceivable which 

 should render the loss of heat far more rapid than 

 it is at present ; and such an occurrence would be 

 just as much in accordance with ascertained laws 

 of nature, as the more rapid cooling of a red-hot 

 bar, when it is thrust into cold water, than when 

 it remains in the air. But much more rapid 

 cooling might entail a shifting and re-arrangement 

 of the parts of the crust of the earth on a scale of 

 unprecedented magnitude, and bring about " catas- 

 trophes" to which the earthquake of Lisbon is 

 but a trifle. It is conceivable that man and his 

 works and all the higher forms of animal life 

 should be utterly destroyed; that mountain 



