CHAPTER II

THE MUMMY AT THE FEAST

ONE OF THE MOST CURIOUS effects of what we may call the new cosmic outlook, the attitude engendered by the study of astronomy, is that we can regard our globe with a spirit of cold detachment. The man of science seems to transfer himself a quarter of a million miles away—say, to the moon—and describe the earth as if it were the possession of an alien race. Essentially, he says, a large metal globe, measuring about 7,900 miles in diameter, and weighing about (here one likes the “about”) 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons. Being surrounded by a shell of gases, some of which have formed great oceans of water, the metal has rusted and disintegrated at the surface; and the rubbish, and the molten matter squeezed from below, have, under pressure, formed a tough skin of rock between forty and fifty miles in thickness which binds the globe.

This would give us a very solid and durable structure but for two circumstances. The metal interior must have a very high temperature and be subject to an enormous pressure. The temperature rises one degree (Fahrenheit) with every fifty feet of descent into the crust, and the boiling point of water must be reached about two miles from the surface. At fifty miles the metal should have a temperature of about 5,000° F. The terrific pressure no doubt prevents the metal from taking a fluid or molten form, but when we reflect that the belt of rock is, in comparison with the fierce interior, hardly thicker than the shell of an egg, we are not surprised that molten matter bursts or oozes from below through every pore and fissure. If the Earth is still contracting, as is generally believed, the pressure must increase and the strain on the rocky shell become more severe.

The second great condition of instability is th