Notices of Memoirs — Experiments on Flow of Rocks. 513 



Abstracts of Papers read before Section C (Geology), British 



AssociATroN, Toronto, 1897. 

 I- — Preliminary Notice of some Experiments on the Flow of 



KocKs.— By Frank D. Adams and John T. Nicholson, McGill 



University, Montreal, 



rpHESE experiments aim at ascertaining- whether it is possible, by 

 JL subjecting rocks artificially to pressure under the conditions 

 which obtain in the deeper parts of the earth's crust, to produce in 

 them the deformation and cataclastic structures exhibited by the 

 folded ^ rocks of the interior of mountain ranges or of the older 

 formations of the earth. 



Three factors contribute toward bringing about the conditions 

 to which rocks are subjected in the deeper parts of the earth's crust : 

 (1) great pressure from every direction; (2) high temperatures; 

 (.S) action of percolating waters. In the present experiments the 

 attempt has been made to reproduce only the first of these conditions ; 

 in subsequent experiments the endeavour will be made to reproduce 

 all three of them. 



The experiments have been made chiefly with pure Carrara marble. 

 Columns of the marble, 2 centimetres and 21 centimetres in diameter 

 and about 4 centimetres in length, were very accurately turned and 

 polished. Heavy wrought-iron tubes were then made, imitating the 

 plan adopted in the construction of ordnance, by rolling long strips 

 of Swedish iron around a bar of soft wrought iron, and welding the 

 strips to the bar as they were rolled around it. The core of soft 

 iron composing the bar was then drilled out, leaving a tube of welded 

 Swedish iron 6 millimetres thick, so constructed that the fibres of 

 the iron run around the tube, instead of being parallel to its length. 

 This tube was then very accurately fitted on to the column of marble. 

 This was accomplished by giving a very slight taper to both the 

 column and the interior of the tube, and so arranging it that the 

 marble would pass only about half-way into the tube when cold. 

 The tube was then expanded by heating, so as to allow the marble 

 to pass completely into it, and leave about 3 centimetres of the tube 

 free at either end. On allowing the tube to cool, a perfect contact 

 between the iron and marble was obtained, and it was no longer 

 possible to_ withdraw the latter. Any very slight failure to fit at 

 any point, if such a failure existed in any case, was rendered liarm- 

 less by the fact that under a comparatively low pressure the limestone 

 IS found to be sufficiently elastic, not only to fill up any such minute 

 space, but even to stretch the tube, and, on the pressure beino- 

 relieved, to contract again to its original form, so that it will drop 

 out of the tube which has been thus enlarged. Into either end of the 

 tube containing the small column an accurately fitting sliding steel 

 plug was inserted, and by means of these the marble was sublnitted 

 to a pressure far above that which would be sufficient to crush it if 

 not so inclosed. The machine employed in obtaining the pressure 



DECADE IV. ^VOL. IV. NO. XI. 33 



