Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
one chooses to enter. Halley's note was only rediscovered in 1910 by
George Ferdinand Becker (1847-1919), a geologist with the United
States Geological Survey who had a background in physics and mathe-
matics. Becker, who made numerous contributions to the geochrono-
logical debate, brought Halley's paper to the wider attention of the
scientific community by penning a note in the premier American
journal Science. Joly was aware of Mellard Reade's valuable paper
published in the Proceedings of the Liverpool Geological Society in
1876 and the topic that followed, which examined the volume of
calcium sulphate and chloride in the oceans and derived dates of
25million and 200million years respectively, based upon their annual
rate of accumulation. Later, Joly acknowledged these pioneering
publications of Halley and Mellard Reade, but in 1915 noted without
explanation that their schemes, unlike his, would not have produced
reliable results.
On 17May 1899 John Joly left his office in the MuseumBuilding
and walked through the College, and out on to the streets of Dublin.
He turned up Kildare Street, passing the Kildare Street Club on his left,
where some years before the cigar-smoking gentlemen had been
startled by a cricket ball that smashed through a window, hit by
W. G. Grace during a game against the Gentlemen of Ireland on the
neighbouring College Park. On reaching his destination he turned left
into a cobbled forecourt and walked towards the main entrance of
Leinster House. Appropriately this formidable building had been
built by the Duke of Leinster in 1743 in whose pay Joly's ancestor
was. In 1899 it was the meeting house of the Royal Dublin Society, a
body established in 1731 to promote science and agriculture: now it is
the meeting place of the Irish Parliament or Dail. Joly entered the
meeting hall, and, standing in front of the lectern, proceeded to read
a paper entitled 'An estimate of the geological age of the Earth' to the
assembled members.
The paper was rapidly published four months later in September
in the Society's Scientific Transactions. Unusually, perhaps even
uniquely for publications of this organisation, a second impression
