118 ON THE TEMPERATURE OF THE PRIMORDIAL OCEAN. 



Bhells unclianged ; so that the cause mentioned by Mr. Mallet could 

 hardly have acted since the very earliest days. 



Prof. BoNNEY asked whether, if the heat were still considerable in 

 Miocene time, as stated by the author, there would not be too great 

 heat for life in (for example) Old Red Sandstone time. 



Capt. Galton thought that at the period when the very high tempe- 

 rature, viz. that of molten iron, prevailed, water or watery vapour 

 could not have existed, and that when the cooling process had con- 

 tinued so as to admit of the formation of aqueous vapour and 

 water, the high temperature would still not have admitted of the 

 existence of life ; consequently the time at which these elevated 

 temperatures prevailed must have been before the time when geo- 

 logical history began. 



Mr. Mallet said he did not suppose any part of the original 

 crust of the globe remained at present visible at the surface. Such 

 geological deductions as were made in his paper were only illus- 

 trative, and might be open to question. The epoch at which the 

 phenomena occurred to which his paper referred was long anterior 

 to the existence of either animal or vegetable life upon our globe. 

 Hence the palaeontological observations that had been made did not 

 seem to him to apply. "What he does affirm as certain is that the 

 method he has indicated, requiring for its data a more extended 

 experimental knowledge of the relations between temperature and 

 pressure in aqueous vapour, and a more exact knowledge of the 

 total volume of water now upon our terraqueous globe, affords the 

 means of determining the temperature of our oceanic water at every 

 period, from that of the primordial ocean to our own day. 



