GEOLOGICAL TIME.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 4256, 10 July 1895, Page 4

GEOLOGICAL TIME.

Geologists (says Sir Archibald Geikie, in " Nature ") have been slow to admit that they were in error in

assuming that they had an eternity of past time for the evolution of the eartn's history. They have frankly acknowledged the validity of the physical arguments which go to place more or less definite limits to the antiquity of the earth. They were, on the whole, disposed to acquiesce in the allowance of 100 millions of years granted to them by Lord Kelvin, for the transaction of the whole of the long cycles of geological history. But the physicists have been insatiable and inexorable. As remorseless as Lear's daughters, they have cut down their grant of years by successive slices, until some of them have brought the number to something less than 10,000,000. In vain have the geologists protested that there must somewhere be a flaw in a line of arguments which tends to results so entirely at variance with the strong evidence for a higher antiquity, furnished not only by the geological record, but by existing racea of plants and animals. They have insisted that this evidence is not mere theory or imagination, but is drawn from a multitude of facts which become hopelessly unintelligible unless sufficient time is admitted for the evolution of geological history. They have not been able to disprove the argument of the physicists, but they have contended that the physicists have simply ignored the geological argu* ments as of no account in the discussion and here the matter has rested for some years, neither side giving way, and with no prospect of agreement. Within, the last few weeks, however, the ques-

tion has been taken up anew from the physical side. Professor Perry feeling that, after all, the united testimony of geologists and biologists was so decided against the latest reductions of time, that was desirable to reconsider, the physical arguments has gone over them once more. He now finds that on the assumption that the earth is not homogenous, as postulated by Lord Kelvin, but possesses a much higher conductivity and thermal capacity in its interior than in its crust, its age may be enormously greater than previous calculations have allowed.