108 



DISCOVERY 



mony of the Concert began to display itself. In 1821 

 the revolt of the Greeks against the Turks took place. 

 .\ustria, under the leadership of Mettcmich, regarded 

 this revolt as merely another instance of the rebellion 

 of revolutionary subjects against the proper authority 

 of their legitimate sovereign. She therefore encouraged 

 the Sultan to crush the insurrection with all possible 

 speed and all necessary severity. Russia, on the other 

 hand, saw in the revolt the rising of an Orthodox 

 Christian people against an infidel oppressor, and the 

 passion of Russian s\Tnpathy, which in 1827 burst all 

 the restraints of diplomacy, went out towards the 

 struggling and suffering Greeks. 



Before the complete independence of Greece had 

 been secured by Russian intervention, still a third line 

 of cleavage had manifested itself in the European 

 Concert. In 1830 Belgium threw off the yoke of 

 Holland which had been imposed upon her in 1815, thus 

 violating one of the main stipulations of the sacrosanct 

 Treaty of Vienna. Russia, Austria, and Prussia united 

 in protesting against Belgian action, and in maintaining 

 the authority of the settlement of 1S15. Britain and 

 with her France (under the new Orleanist monarch}'), 

 on the other hand, championed the Belgian claim to 

 self-determination. Thus by 1830 the Great European 

 Powers were torn by dissensions. Along the three 

 different and conflicting lines of democracy, religion, 

 and nationality, the Concert was divided into dis- 

 cordant groups. Only the fact that the three group- 

 sections were not the same, and not even parallel, pre- 

 vented the schisms from developing into open rupture. 

 Long before 1830, in fact, the defects of the Concert 

 of Europe, as established in 1814-15, had become 

 glaringly evident. They were, first, that the Concert 

 was merely a league of Governments : it was alien from 

 the peoples of the European States ; it was antagonistic 

 to the popular principles of democracy and nationality. 

 Secondly, that it lacked a communal consciousness and 

 a general will : its members were particularist and 

 selfish, each bent primarily on his own prosperity and 

 aggrandisement. Thirdly, that it was committed to 

 the maintenance of a thoroughly unsatisfactory settle- 

 ment — viz., the treaty settlement of 1815, which em- 

 bodied the compromises of diplomatists and the con- 

 cessions of dynasts rather than the desires of the public 

 opinion of the Continent. Fourthly, that it possessed 

 no organs, and had provided no instruments, for the 

 modification of the treaties of 1815, or for the settle- 

 ment of new problems which might emerge from the 

 changing circumstances of the new age then just begin- 

 ing. Finally, that the sphere of its operations was 

 inadequately defined, so that, while Castlereagh, and 

 after him Canning, insisted on restricting it to inter- 

 national relations, Metternich and the reactionaries 

 were able to extend its activities to include interference 



in the domestic pohtics of the European States. With 

 these grave defects in structure and mode of working, 

 it is no matter of marvel that the Concert collapsed 

 between 1822 and 1830. The wonder is that it man- 

 aged to maintain any sort of symphony so long. 

 {To be conchidcd next month) 



The Measurement of 

 Geological Time 



By Arthur Holmes, D.Sc, F.G.S. 



Lecturer in Geology in the Imperial College oj Science and Technolorjg, 

 South Kensington 



The measurement of geological time depends on a 

 comparison between the rate at which some process — 

 geological, thermodynamic, radio-active, or astro- 

 nomical — is going on at the present day, and the total 

 effect of that process throughout the period of 

 its activity. This is simply analogous to the fact 

 that, if a body is moving with a known velocity, then 

 the distance it travels gives a measure of the time 

 taken. Average estimates of the rates of certain geo- 

 logical processes can be arrived at appro.ximately ; 

 such, for example, as the rate of removal of detritus or 

 soluble substances from the land surfaces, and the rate 

 of deposition of sediments on the sea floor, or of the 

 addition of salt to ocean waters. Knowing the total 

 quantity of sediments that has been deposited since the 

 hour-glass of denudation and deposition began its long 

 career ; or knowing the total quantity of salt that has 

 accumulated in the seas since water first gathered in 

 the ocean basins, it can be calculated to a first crude 

 approximation how long these processes have been in 

 operation. Thus, estimating the annual deposition of 

 sediments at 9,000 million tons, and the total mass of 

 sediments at 3,000,000 million miUion tons, the age of 

 the oldest sediments works out by simple division at 

 330 million years. Similarlj', estimating the total 

 maximum thickness of all the sedimentary rocks at 

 335,000 feet, and the maximum average rate of present- 

 day deposition at one foot in 900 years, the age is found 

 by multipUcation to be about 300 million years. How- 

 ever, these figures, although closely agreeing, must not 

 be supposed to have any serious value, for they are 

 clearly based on the assumption that the rate of sedi- 

 mentation observed during a few decades represents 

 the average rate for all geological time. To show 

 that this assumption is not justified would require a 



