THE EARTH A VAST BOMBSHELL. 



the proportion to its diameter just stated, it will ba represented 

 by the black circle surrounding fig. 1. 



If the egg of a fowl or an ostrich be imagined to represent the 

 earth, its shell would be much too thick to represent its solid 

 crust ! 



Fig. 1. 



It is no rhetorical exaggeration, then, to affirm that the globe we 

 live on is a stupendous but very thin bombshell charged with 

 liquid fire ! If such be the case, it may naturally be asked how 

 it happens that so thin a crust, supported on so mobile a fluid, 

 can maintain that general state of stability and equilibrium which 

 characterises the surface of the earth, so that it is referred to in 

 times ancient and modern as the type of all that is most solid and 

 durable ? 



9. To this it may be answered that many phenomena with 

 which mankind in certain localities is only too familiar, and which 

 are known to all by authentic contemporary reports and historical 

 records, prove that this imputed stability cannot be admitted 

 without most serious qualifications and exceptions. Not a year 

 passes that earthquakes are not reported in various parts of the 



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