Abstract
THE vexed question of the age of the earth has passed through several distinct phases. Lyell and his contemporaries, accustomed to dwell on the oextreme slowness of geological processes, considered themselves free to make unlimited “drafts on the bank of time”; but, since 1862, this position has been seriously challenged from the physical side. The chief argument brought against it was that, granting the globe to have cooled from a molten state, it would attain its assumed present thermal condition in a few scores of millions of years, only a fraction of which time would be available for the stratigraphical record. If the general body of geologists, influenced by the high authority of Lord Kelvin, have tried to adapt themselves to this narrow limitation, it has not been without reluctance, and some sturdy dissentients have refused any such coercion. To these, during the last few years, welcome support has come from unexpected quarters. The nebular hypothesis of the earth's origin, upon which the estimates of Kelvin and King were tacitly based, has been shaken by Moulton's calculations and other arguments put forward by Chamberlin, Moreover, the remarkable discoveries in the domain of radio-activity have compelled a reconsideration of the thermal state of the globe. Estimates of the earth's age deduced from its supposed rate of cooling clearly become futile if we have no good reason for believing that the earth is a cooling body. On the other hand, from the radio-active properties of various minerals Strutt has deduced geological ages liberal enough for the most extreme uniformitarian.
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References
"A Preliminary Study of Chemical Denudation". By F. W. Clarke . Pp. 19. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. lvi., No. 5. (Washington, 1910.) "The Age of the Earth". By G. F. Becker . Pp. 28. Ibid., vol.lvi., No. 6. (Washington, 1910.)
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H., A. Geological Chronology 1 . Nature 85, 173–174 (1910). https://doi.org/10.1038/085173a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/085173a0