26 Notices of Memoirs. 



II. — On the Internal Heat of the Earth. By Dr. Julius 



SCHVARCZ, F.G.S.^ 



THE author reviewed the evidence upon which is founded the 

 doctrine of central heat as applied to the earth. It is based on 

 three arguments. First, gathered from volcanic phenomena, — pheno- 

 mena which may be explained by the chemical and electro-chemical 

 schools of geologists, at least as satisfactorily as by the supporters 

 of central fire ; the second argument is adduced from the nebular 

 hypothesis, an hypothesis having now-a-days no other foundation 

 than what is involved in it from the central fire hypothesis ; and 

 the third is adduced from the supposed uniform increase of tem- 

 perature down to the centre of our planet, in every part of the 

 earth, — an argument which is again a mere hypothesis. 



Having carefully studied the literature of the subject, Dr. 

 Schvarcz criticised the observations upon which the hypothesis 

 of central fire is supported, and showed how imperfect and con- 

 flicting is the evidence to prove that the increase of underground 

 temperature is really general and uniform. 



Before generalising, we must accumulate a greater number of 

 facts, precisely recorded, than are at present at command, and he 

 therefore urged geologists to combine all their efforts in order to 

 multiply geothermometrical observations, especially in countries now 

 unexplored. 



He was of opinion that solar impressions of all the climates on 

 our earth's surface, taken collectively, and local reservoirs of lava, 

 not exceeding considerably the depth of thirty-five geographical 

 miles, and manifesting themselves through volcanic cones from local 

 processes of oxydation, must be taken for those secondary causes which 

 remain indispensable elements of any astiology of underground tem- 

 peratures, even for theories to come. Electricity, as connected with 

 cosmical magnetism and planetary rotation, may have been an im- 

 portant agent, besides the secondary causes just alluded to. 



III. — On a new Phosphatic Deposit, near Upware, Cambridge- 

 shire. By J. F. Walker, B.A., F.G.S., &c. 



IT is unnecessary here to give a lengthened account of Mr. Walker's 

 paper (read before the British Association, Dundee) as most of 

 the facts have appeared in two previous numbers of the Geological 

 Magazine.^ 



The author repeats his opinion that this Phosphatic deposit is of 

 the age of the Lower Greens^nd — it contains fossils of that age as 

 well as extraneous specimens. The bed contains sponges resembling 

 those of Faringdon ; and during a recent visit to that locality he 

 obtained several shells which he has also found at Upware. 



The phosphatised casts of shells found at Upware, and also at 



' Being an abstract of his paper read before Section C. of the British Association, 

 Dundee, September, 1867. 

 2 Geological Magazine, July, 1867, p. 309. Ibid.^ October, 1867, p. 454. 



