WCP2386

Letter (WCP2386.2276)

[1]1

Harlton Rectory2

Cambridge

17 Jan[uary] 1879.

Dear Sir

It gave me great pleasure to see your first letter to "nature"3 upon the formation of mountains. I have long wished to see the subject taken up and your attention having been directed to it is almost a guarantee that it will be so.

I take the liberty of forwarding to you my paper in which I believe I have proved that the contraction[?] of a solid globe would not account for the [2] existing inequalities. I do not know whether a mathematical investigation may be agreeable to your usual studies but the first part of the paper is quite elementary & the longer calculations may be taken for granted. So if you can find time to read the last few pages you will understand the drift of my argument.

I have no doubt that the usual assumption to which you have taken exception would cause the elevation of mountains. That which I have proved is4 [3]5 that such mountains could not be as high as those which exist — or rather the inequalities of the surface taken altogether would be less than they are.6

I would ask whether you are not making an incorrect application of the "law of exchanges"7 in your last letter which for that law if I understand it rightly, is one relating to radiation rather than to conduction. It is to radiation that the cooling of the surface is due but the cooling of the interior to conduction.

I remain | faithfully yours | Osmond Fisher8, 9 [signature]

[4] I think the enclosed diagram will show how the temperature falls quicker the within the earth than in the crust.

ORQ is the temperature curve (copied from Sir W Thomson10) assumed for the present epoch.

Suppose OR'Q' the curve at some former epoch. Then in both cases the surface temperature is taken as the zero, and it is supposed that the surface temperature has remained constant as Thomson explains that it would do.

Then at the depth ON the present temperature is represented by NP & the former temperature by NP' and at the depth OM the present temperature is represented by MR & the former by MR'

Hence at the depth N the temperature has fallen by PP' and at the depth M by RR'. Now it is evident from the shape of the curve that RR' is greater than PP'. Hence the temperature has fallen the more at the greater depth. At great depth however the temperature has scarcely altered at all.

[5]11, 12 [A diagram showing the curves is sketched on this page].

1
Text in another hand in the top right corner reads "1".
2
Fisher was a tutor at Jesus College Cambridge, and from 1867 lived at Harlton. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
3
Wallace's letters to the Editor of Nature magazine were printed in the 12 December 1878, 16 January 1879, and 30 January 1879 issues. Each carried the title "The Formation of Mountains." S295, S298, S300, The Alfred Russel Wallace Page.
4
There is a British Museum stamp in red ink in the bottom right corner.
5
Text in another hand in the top right corner reads "2".
6
Fisher's arguments appeared in Nature, 23 January 1879, vol xix. p. 267. <https://archive.org/stream/naturejournal19londuoft/naturejournal19londuoft_djvu.txt> [accessed 23 July 2015].
7
Fisher refers to Wallace's letter of 16 January where he discusses the "law of exchanges". S298, The Alfred Russel Wallace Page.
8
Fisher, Osmond, Reverend (1817-1914). Church of England clergyman, geologist and geophysicist. ODBN.
9
Text (in another hand?) below the signature reads "F.O.".
10
Thomson, William, Baron Kelvin (1824-1907). Mathematician and physicist. ODNB.
11
Text in another hand in the top right corner reads "3".
12
Text in another hand at the top of the page above the diagram reads "Assumption that when surface is really[?] of uniform temp[erature]. inside can cool — Is it not an impossibility — must not the rate at which heat can radiate from the surface exceed the rate at which it can be conducted to the surface". The word "cool" has been written over another illegible word.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2386.2276)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Ghosh, Susan [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP2386,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2386