The age of the earth considered geologically and historically / By William Rhind.

  • Rhind, William, active 1818-1867.
Date:
1838
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The age of the earth considered geologically and historically / By William Rhind. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    212/220 (page 202)
    EXPLANATION OF PLATE IV. Fig. ]. The reader is requested to compare Dr Buckland’s section of the strata of the earth given in his Bridgewater Treatise, with Mr Con'y- beare’s actual section in the first volume of the Transactions of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr Buckland’s section is avowedly fanciful; and if he constructs theories for the mind, there is no reason why he may not delineate pictorial theories to the eye also. In the accompanying sketch, fig. 1. the actual proportion which the elevation of the stratified rocks and the highest mountains bear to the whole contents of the sphere of the globe is represented. The mean diameter of the earth is estimated at 7911.73 miles. Supposing the extreme height of the atmosphere to be 45 to 50 miles, this would amount to about one-eightieth part of the semidiameter. The highest mountains on the globe do not exceed five miles and a half, or about one-ninth part of the height of the atmosphere. The extreme depth of the ocean may be reckoned at five and a half miles ; so that the waving lines on the portion of the earth’s circumference represented in the figure, will shew the irregularities caused on the surface by the elevations and depressions comprised within ten or eleven miles of perpendicular depth. The mean average elevation of the strata above the sea level becomes, in this diagram, scarcely perceptible. The first idea of a somewhat similar diagram originated with M. de la Beche_ Geological Views and Sections. > Fig. 2. Represents a general view of a section of England, from Cumberland to Sussex, and is referred to page 18.