302 Scientific Intelligence. 
IL GEoLoGy AND NATURAL History. 
Note on the History of certain recent views in Dynamical 
Geslogy ; by Roserr Mater, F.R.S. (Letter to the Editors, 
d _ : ‘ : 
my views as to the nature and origin of volcanic energy and heat, 
and to a note at p. 156, by Professor Jos. LeConte, will you allow 
me to state that no question of priority can arise, as it seems to 
me, between that gentlemen and myself, as evolving from his very 
able paper in your Journal of November, 1 2. 
either Professor Taunt nor wapeele' have any claim to - 
eneral “es of the elevation of mountain chains, etc., by ta 
gential or lateral pressure. That belongs to Constant Prevost, wilib 
distine hee enunciated the doctrine and m many of its consequences 
nearly forty years ago, though, like many other great and preg- 
nant truths, this was for a long time completely and is even yet 
much neglecte 
My own oiagth to originality comprised in wad 1 Pre read in 
and eouseeby of all devition and pee ssion of yboxeat origin, 
including fissures and faults, ete. ; 3, of vulcanicity, including vol- 
canoes and earthquakes, etc., as s all successive results of the same 
simple cosmical mechanism, the energy of which has ecayed 
and is decaying with time, since the period ofl de the train com 
menced, viz., tee our globe became a molten Sree thinly 
crusting ov 
or less fully to several scientific frie fae. especialy t to my ? friend 
Professor Houghton, of the Universit ‘of Dublin. I also took 
date as to them by letter addressed to Professor Stokes, Secretary. 
of the Royal Society of London, dated January, 1870, a or. of 
which is before me. So far therefore, as there may be anything 
n 
ao of Prof. LeConte and my own above referred to, I endorse 
is statement that they are independent respectively in date as in 
conception. 
I have looked into Mr. Vose’s work on Orographic e Geology, 
published 1866, to which Prof. LeConte’s sits (p. 156) directs at- 
tention in these words : 
