HOW THE WATERS OP THE OCEAN BECAME SALT. 61 



for cbemical purposes iu the Uuited States, and tliis occurrence in 

 Cumberland is very interesting, for it seems to show, as he con- 

 cludes, that the waters of the lower Silurian period were really 

 higlily saline. 



In conclusion I beg to thank all for the kind manner in which 

 my paper has been received. 



The Meeting was then adjourned. 



A NOTE ON THE FOEEGOING PAPEE. 



D. BiDDLE, Esq., M.R.C.S.E., writes:— 



I feel sure that on consideration of the facts, Professor Hull's 

 view as to the cause of the saltness of the ocean will be found to 

 be untenable. Although the first chapter of Genesis does not lend 

 much countenance to the nebular hypothesis, yet in effect it states 

 that the whole surface of the earth was fluid before the dry land 

 appeared. Science has confirmed this testimony, and has thus 

 assigned to the ocean the first place in mundane existence. Such 

 being the case, it is scarcely too much to assume that the original 

 liquid forming the ocean was capable of holding (and, in fact, did 

 hold) in solution all those salts which are found in the ocean of the 

 present day. It possibly held many more when its temperature 

 was higher ; and some geologists have gone so far as to assert that 

 the solid crust of the earth is wholly a precipitate from the ocean, 

 the stratified appearance of many rocks giving support to this 

 hypothesis. But, be that as it may, it is not unreasonable to believe 

 that the ocean originally held in solution all the sodium chloride 

 entering into the earth's composition, and that so far from the land 

 having given salt to the ocean, the reverse has been the case, the 

 ocea ^ having given salt to the land. One way in which this has 

 been effected is by alterations of the earth's surface (at the first 

 appearing of dry land and subsequently), whereby portions of the 

 ocean have been imjirisoned in basins, from which there has been 

 no outlet except by evaporation. The salt left behind then forms 

 part of the land, and by further alterations of the earth's surface 

 may be overlaid, as in Worcestershire and Cheshire, or be up- 

 heaved, as in the Kalabagh Mou.ntains of India. 



Another argument against Professor Hull's view is to be found 

 in the fact that at least one-fortieth of the ocean consists of sodium 

 chloride, that the geographical area of the ocean is about three 

 times that of the land, and its mean depth far greater than the 

 mean height of the land above sea-level. Thus the salt at present 

 in the ocean is fully equal to one-tenth of all the land from which, 

 by gravitation, it could have been discharged, if Professor Hull's 



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