This bulletin is the second contribution to the general
investigation of the physical constants of rocks, the
experiments concerning which follow a general plan
devised by Mr. Clarence King. Questions bearing
directly on the viscosity of rock masses make up so
large a part of Mr. King’s geological observations, that
the duty of enquiring into the physics of this enormously complicated subject devolved seriously upon
me. Above all things some form of reliable working
hypothesis was to be discovered; and this is what the
present bulletin endeavors to accomplish. I believe the
physical hypothesis has been found and that the data
afford substantial corroboration of Maxwell’s theory of
the viscosity of solids (Barus, 1891).
Chapter 10
Viscous flow
Straight-limbed chevron-like folds in Cretaceous strata in the
footwall of the Lewis Thrust, Canadian Rockies, from the
Kananaskis Highway between Banff and Blairmore, looking
south. Photograph by D. Wiltschko.
investigation of the physical constants of rocks, the
experiments concerning which follow a general plan
devised by Mr. Clarence King. Questions bearing
directly on the viscosity of rock masses make up so
large a part of Mr. King’s geological observations, that
the duty of enquiring into the physics of this enormously complicated subject devolved seriously upon
me. Above all things some form of reliable working
hypothesis was to be discovered; and this is what the
present bulletin endeavors to accomplish. I believe the
physical hypothesis has been found and that the data
afford substantial corroboration of Maxwell’s theory of
the viscosity of solids (Barus, 1891).
Chapter 10
Viscous flow
Straight-limbed chevron-like folds in Cretaceous strata in the
footwall of the Lewis Thrust, Canadian Rockies, from the
Kananaskis Highway between Banff and Blairmore, looking
south. Photograph by D. Wiltschko.