The force of this proof is, however, weakened by the fact that the rate at which the heat increases differs very much in different places. Also it is now generally supposed that such a tremendous furnace of heat—a furnace nearly eight thousand miles in diameter—could not fail to break up and melt so slight a covering shell.
Many believe, therefore, not that the whole interior of the earth is liquid with heat, but that enormous fire-seas or lakes of melted rock exist here and there, under or in the earth-crust. From these lakes the volcanoes would be fed, and they would be the cause of earthquakes and land-upheavals or land-sinkings. There are strong reasons for supposing that the earth was once a fiery liquid body, and that she has slowly cooled through long ages. Some hold that her centre probably grew solid first from tremendous pressure; that her crust afterwards became gradually cold; and that between the solid crust and the solid inside or "nucleus," a sea of melted rock long existed, the remains of which are still to be found in these tremendous fiery reservoirs.
The idea accords well with the fact that large numbers of extinct or dead volcanoes are scattered through many parts of the earth. If the above explanation be the right one, doubtless the fire-seas in the crust extended once upon a time beneath such volcanoes, but have since died out or smouldered low in those parts.
A somewhat curious calculation has been made, to illustrate the different modes of working of these two mighty powers—Fire and Water.
The amount of land swept away each year in mud, and borne to the ocean by the River Ganges, was roughly reckoned, and also the amount of land believed to have been upheaved several feet in the great Chilian earthquake.
It was found that the river, steadily working month by month, would require some four hundred years to carry to the sea the same weight of material, which in one tremendous effort was upheaved by the fiery underground forces.
Yet we must not carry this distinction too far. Fire does not always work suddenly, or water slowly; witness the slow rising and sinking of land in parts of the earth, continuing through centuries; and witness also the effects of great floods and storms.
The crust of the earth is made of rock. But what is rock made of?
Certain leading divisions of rocks have been already considered:
The Water-made Rocks;