126 A. R Hunt— The Age of the Earth. 



guarded against in the appendix, nor in the body of the paper, 

 does there appear any reference to the possibility of sea- water being 

 absorbed by the surface rocks of the globe, either by capillary 

 attraction, as maintained by Daubree, or by means of fissures, as 

 contended by De la Beche. 



The possibility — nay, the probability — of sea-water obtaining 

 access to the deep-seated and heated regions of the globe was 

 admitted by Lyell, De la Beche, and Daubree, and by other 

 eminent geologists ; and although to a large extent neglected at the 

 present time, the arguments in favour of the hypothesis seem 

 worth considering. 



My own attention was attracted to the subject as follows : — From 

 1879 to 1889 inclusive, I wrote seven papers on the detached blocks 

 which lie strewn on the bottom of the English Channel. The 

 primary object of the enquiry was to ascertain whether the blocks 

 represented a prolongation of the Dartmoor granite, as commonly 

 supposed, and whether they were in any way related to the meta- 

 morphic rocks of the neighbouring headlands of the Start, the 

 Prawle, and the Bolt. 



I commenced the investigation in the full expectation that the 

 connection with Dartmoor would be proved at once. 



I secured thirty-four crystalline rocks from the Channel, and 

 a large collection from Dartmoor. Not a single speck of tourmaline 

 or crystal of chloride of sodium did I detect in the twenty granites 

 and gneisses from the Channel ; while not a single slice from 

 Dartmoor failed to indicate chlorides, and very few of the Dartmoor 

 rocks from which they were cut (if any) were without tourmaline. 

 The fluid inclusions in the Channel rocks were of a different type 

 from those in the Dartmoor rocks. The two series of rocks seemed 

 absolutely distinct. 



This most unexpected result greatly excited my curiosity, and 

 I sought to find some explanation. Finally, in 1889, I hazarded the 

 suggestion that sea-water had gained access to the Dartmoor granite 

 in Carboniferous times ; and in 1892, after an examination of the 

 South Devon schists, I, for entirely different reasons, threw out 

 the suggestion that they also had been influenced by the presence of 

 sea- water during their metamorphosis. 



These suggestions were not only almost universally rejected by 

 geologists, but they caused considerable umbrage, so I discontinued 

 the enquiry, and put away my microscope. 



However, before bringing my own work to a conclusion, I 

 examined the older authorities, and found that both Lyell and 

 De la Beche maintained the hypothesis that sea-water reached the 

 heated rocks, and that subsequently the late Mr. J. A. Phillips and 

 M. Daubree were of the same opinion ; and, strange to say, they all 

 had different reasons for their belief. My own conclusions were also 

 based on entirely independent evidence ; and, indeed, so far as 

 appears from the records, all the observers thought out the problem 

 independently from different points of view. Lyell relied on the 

 steam emitted by volcanoes, De la Beche appealed to his mineral 



