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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
Observations by Mr. Scrope on the subject to which he has so long devoted his attention demand respectful attention, and that I should endeavour to assign my reasons for not agreeing with the strictures which he has made upon my paper, read to the Royal Society in June, 1872.
[*Mr. Mallet, in this and other passages, certainly entirely misapprehends Mr. Scrope's views, since in several papers contributed by him within the last few years to this Magazine he has expressly called in question the theory which Mr. Mallet ascribes to him. For example, this is the chief purport of two papers having for their title “On the Supposed Internal Fluidity of the Earth” [see Geol. Mag. 1868, Vol. V. p. 537, and 1869, Vol. VI. p. 145Google Scholar], and again in an article “On the Cause of Volcanic Action” [see Geol. Mag. 1869, Vol. VI. p. 196Google Scholar] he concludes his paper with these words:—“Since it has become the fashion of late among the writers of popular geological treatises to assume as a matter of fact, beyond dispute, that the substance of the globe, immediately beneath its thin superficial crust (and probably to its centre), is in a state of fluid fusion, and that the access of water from the sea above to this molten interior is the exciting cause of earthquakes and volcanos, I have thought it well to express my reasons for entertaining doubts, to say the least, as to the correctness of either hypothesis.” (p. 199.) Probably Mr. Mallet has never considered these papers.—Edit. Geol. Mag.]