Dr. Frankland on the Glacial Era

Some of the novelties presented at the lectures at the Royal Institution have, from the hour they were spoken, taken rank with the discoveries of the age and the data of science; amongst such are some of the most important results of the researches of Davy, Faraday, and Tyndall. Others, as might be naturally expected, have risen to no higher rank than that of hypotheses or an hour's amusement, and after exciting some discussion and comment, have passed away into that oblivion to which all but fundamental or practically useful facts are, sooner or later, consigned. Amongst those familiar voices which we are there in the habit of hearing, few are listened to with more pleasure, profit, or instruction, than that of Professor Frankland, especially when he restricts himself to those branches of chemistry in which he is so eminent. The Glacial period and the former incandescence of the earth are two themes that geologists are eternally dwelling upon—whether with profit to themselves or with any advantage to their hearers it would be very difficult to say. For once Professor Frankland has left those realms of chemistry within which he is a monarch to run a lance at the same time both for and against geologists. Basing a theory on the supposed existence of an internal molten mass constituting the core of our globe, is taking for it about as secure a basis as any one might be presumed to have who attempted to balance his body at the top of a mounte-bank's pole, the other extremity of which was held by infirm and trembling hands.