1. The conflict between Thomson and Darwin has been somewhat exaggerated. As T. H. Huxley pointed out in 1876, evolution did not require any particular time scale and its proponents could have accepted almost any system of dating agreeable to geologists and physicistsScience and Hebrew traditionNew York 1896 134ff 134ff Nor was Thomson adamantly opposed to evolution; he disliked only the randomness and lack of divine guidance characteristic of Darwin's theory. See his ‘Presidential Address to the British Association Edinburgh, 1871’, inPopular lectures and addresses, vol. 2 (1894, London), 132–205. In a larger sense his own worldview was also evolutionary, as W. Boyd Dawkins recognized in his review of ‘Geological theory in Britain’,Edinburgh review(Amer. ed.).131(1870), 21–34 (p. 25).
2. Bischof GustavPhysical, chemical, and geological researches on the internal heat of the GlobeLeipzig1837 1 233 233 translated fromDie Wärmelehre des Innern unsers Erdkörpers… (1841, London) see also pp. 256–265. The same view was presented in a series of papers in theEdinburgh new philosophical journal(1836–1839), cited with approval by Charles Darwin in 1838; see Darwin'sCollected papers, vol. 1 (1977, Chicago), 60, 78, and note 19 on p. 83. (I owe this reference to Professor Sandra Herbert.)