VOLUME XXII NUMBER i 



THE 



JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY 



JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1914 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE DAUBREE EXPERIMENT AND 



CAPILLARITY IN RELATION TO CERTAIN 



GEOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS 



JOHN JOHNSTON and L. H. ADAMS 

 Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington 



Those who believe that meteoric waters are an important factor 

 in the production of the phenomena of vulcanism have always met 

 with difficulty in devising a means by which surface waters could 

 reach deep-seated and highly heated regions. This difficulty they 

 have, as they believed, obviated by instancing an experiment made 

 by Daubree on the passage of water through a porous sandstone 

 against a certain excess counter pressure. That this experiment 

 has no bearing on the question at issue has already been pointed 

 out more than once; but this has apparently not attracted the 

 attention of those who wish to believe in its appHcability as a proof 

 of the possibility of introducing accessions of meteoric water into 

 the magma. Accordingly we propose to discuss this experiment 

 and the laws governing capillary processes (of which it is an 

 example) ; and we endeavor to point out the limitations which must 

 be borne in mind when capillary effects are adduced as important 

 factors in the production of geological phenomena such as vul- 

 canism. 



Daubree' s experiment.— \t\. this experiment, which was performed 

 in 1 86 1, Daubree found that water would pass through a disk of 

 Vol. XXII, No. I I 



