18 R. D. Oldham — The Interior of the Earth. 



appointment of commissioners authorized to take action in cases of 

 improper exploitation of properties, or unreasonable or prohibitive 

 conditions imposed by landowners for royalties and wayleaves ; (2) the 

 provision and administration of a fund for the purpose of undertaking 

 experimental work. 



Since Sir Lionel Phillips wrote his report an Imperial Mineral 

 Resources Bureau has been set up. It has been designed as an 

 Imperial link between the respective Mines and Mineral Departments 

 of the self-governing Dominions, India, and the United Kingdom, 

 and its constitution would not appear to permit of its being attached 

 to a Mines Department of the United Kingdom. The Bureau is, 

 we understand, already at work on its internal organization. 

 It is an Imperial body to be incorporated by Boyal Charter 

 under the Presidency of the Lord President of the Council, 

 with a governing body containing representatives appointed by the 

 self-governing Dominions, India, and the United Kingdom, as well 

 as certain technical men appointed by the Minister of Reconstruction 

 to represent the mineral, mining, and metal industries generally. 

 In the collection of statistical information it will work through the 

 Mines Departments of all parts of the Empire, including the United 

 Kingdom, and as an Imperially constituted body its relations to a 

 Home Mines Department should be of similar nature to those of the 

 self-governing Dominions. 



From what has been said, however, it must be clear that it would 

 be a great advantage for the dispatch of important business relating 

 to the mining industry of this country to bring under one official 

 head the functions performed by so many different governing bodies. 

 Whether an independent Ministry should be formed or to what 

 existing Department of State a Mines Department should be attached 

 are questions of comparatively minor importance. But if a Ministry 

 to deal with Commerce and Industry were to be formed this would 

 obviously be the proper home for a Department of Mines and Minerals, 

 just as in France the Conseil general des Mines is a department of the 

 Ministre des travaux publics. 



IV. — The Interior op the Earth. 

 By K. D. Oldham, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



Being the Introduction to a Geophysical Discussion organized by a Committee 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and held in the 

 rooms of the Boyal Astronomical Society on November 19, 1918. 



r HEN I received the invitation to open this discussion my first 

 feeling was of diffidence, for, the interior of the earth being 

 necessarily inaccessible to direct observation, the solution of the 

 problems connected with it has principally been left to mathematical 

 research, and this must remain the final court of appeal. In these 

 circumstances it seemed verging on presumptuousness to address an 

 audience consisting so largely of mathematicians in inauguration of 

 a discussion on the interior of the earth. Second thoughts showed 



