DIASTROPHISM AND THE FORMATIVE PROCESSES 413 
71. It seems inconsistent with the ultimate constitution of 
matter, as now understood, to assign any limit to compression so 
long as pressure increases and there is any way by which the 
energy of organization can escape or take a new form of greater 
density. As energy continues to escape from the earth, and as 
there still remain resources of reorganization into denser forms— 
at least in the outer part of the earth—diastrophism is probably 
yet far from the end of its career. It is probably competent to 
rejuvenate the continents for eras yet to come. 
VULCANICITY AS A DIASTROPHIC AUXILIARY 
72. Our planetary system, embracing nearly a thousand bodies 
all told, presents a great graded series in which the largest mass 
is many million times that of the smallest.t There is also a grada- 
tion in physical state. At the upper extreme, Jupiter is domi- 
nantly fluid; at the lower extreme, the planetoids and satellites 
are atmosphereless solids; in the middle, gases, liquids, and solids 
are combined. The earth is near the middle but dominantly 
solid. The dividing line, where fluids and solids might be sup- 
posed to be critically balanced, lies considerably above the earth 
in the series. The subordination of the fluid element in the earth 
is assignable to certain restraining factors imposed by the rigidity 
of the material. These give rise to a partition of the energy set 
free by self-compression, so that only a portion of it manifests 
itself as temperature. A portion becomes refixed in endothermic 
compounds; a portion is consumed as latent heat of liquefaction 
and is forced into higher horizons where a solid state is resumed and 
the liquefying energy is again set free and readily discharged, 
while a third portion is probably consumed in physical and, perhaps, 
even atomic reorganization. The joint effect is the persistent 
removal of liquidity and the conservation of solidity. The whole 
is a profound metamorphic process. The special processes of 
vulcanism are thus looked upon as subsidiary to the metamorphic- 
diastrophic processes, but still as important auxiliaries. 
“The Physical Phases of the Planetary Nuclei during Their Formative Stages,”’ 
Article XIT, Jour. Geol., Vol. XXVIII (1920), table I, p. 476. 
