Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 12.2 The Oceans (from A. Geikie, Elementary Lessons in
Physical Geography (1907), Plate 1).
oceanographic research had been carried out, so that by the mid-
1890s the physiographic features of many oceans were well known
(Figure
12.2.
) What Joly did was to examine the annual rate of sodium
input into the oceans and by simple mathematics arrive at an estimate
for the age of the Earth.
At this time Joly was unaware, as were all others enquiring into
the age of the Earth, of the pioneering suggestions of the English
astronomer Edmond Halley, whose work on water salinity we exam-
ined inChapter
4.
There aremany examples where earlier theories and
ideas have been forgotten, and remain in the pages of large tomes
sitting on shelves high up in a musty library. Although published as
a short note in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, whichwas widely
taken by libraries, this did not stop Halley's ideas becoming lost in the
ever-increasing volume of paper. Researchers working at the dawn of
the twentieth century did not have the modern benefits of Georef and
other on-line bibliographic databases which spew out numerous cita-
tions to scientific and geological papers depending on what key word
