The Age of the Earth #270246

It is perhaps a little to ask of our Mother Earth her age, but Science acknowledges no shame and from time to time has boldly attempted to wrest from her a secret which is proverbially well guarded. On January 30th, 1911, I placed before the Natural History Society of the Royal College of Science a brief account of some of these attempts, and out of that paper this little book has gradually developed. In the present survey of the subject - the measurement of geological time - I have endeavoured to give as full and complete an account of the chief methods of attack as space would allow. My particular object has been to draw attention to their respective limitations and to test the validity of the various assumptions on which they are based. So far, the most remarkable feature of the problem lies in the extraordinary discrepancy between the conclusions drawn from the two most prominent methods of dealing with it. I have sought to mitigate the severity of this disagreement by discussing the possibility and consequences of reconciliation and by suggesting a path along which reconciliation may be found.