Sir W. Thomson and Geological Time

Abstract

THE strongest statement about the retardation of the earth's motion of rotation by tidal friction, supposing the earth had been for so long a time provided with an ocean, is to be found in the appendix to a sermon preached by Professor Pritchard, F.R.S., then president of the Royal Astronomical Society, before the British Association at Nottingham. He there, in combating Darwin, says, “One million of million years ago, if the solid earth could then have been provided with an ocean, the length of the day would probably have been less than the flash of the hundredth of a second of time !”