176 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



"But I beheld a fearful sign 



To which the white men's eyes are blind; 



Their race may vanish hence, like mine, 

 And leave no trace behind, 



Save ruins o'er the region spread 



And the white stones above their dead. 



Before these fields were shorn and tilled, 



Full to the brim our rivers flowed; 

 The melody of waters filled 



The fresh and boundless wood ; 

 And torrents dashed, and rivulets played, 

 And fountains spouted in the shade. 



Those grateful sounds are heard no more; 



The springs are silent in the sun; 

 The rivers by the blackened shore 



With lessening currents run; 

 The realms our tribes are crushed to get, 

 May be a barren desert yet. 



Discussions upon the topics of Mr. Tice's paper were postponed until 

 the afternoon session. 



On motion, the Society then took a recess for dinner. 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 



The Society re-assembled at the usual hour, and devoted a half hour 

 to discussions upon topics of Mr. Tice's lecture. 



Prof. Turner — Mr. President, I wish to express my hearty concur- 

 rence in the general scope and end of the highly interesting paper read 

 by Mr. Tice. But I wish to suggest also that there are other causes that 

 have operated to change the climates and the productiveness of the con- 

 tinents, besides the changes in their forests. 



I believe, notwitstanding the counter opinions of the books, and the 

 theories, that it ean be mathematically demonstrated that the earth has 

 now, and ever must have had a slow and imperceptible oscillation, if not 

 an entire revolution from north to south. This is as demonstrable as its 

 revolution from west to east. Let any one reflect on the immense amount 

 of debris, the thousands of millions of tons of rocks, stones, and sand 

 that the great northern icebergs perpetually tear away from the shores of 

 our northern seas and bear towards the equator, building up whole con- 

 tinents of newly made shoals or banks, like those of Newfoundland; 

 and also on the immense amounts of slime and mud carried by the 

 rivers of the two continents, in the same direction, and he will see that 

 it is impossible that the earth's centre of gravity should not be changed; 

 and with it the relations of the Equator and the Poles to its whole mass. 



This necessary motion will at last be found to be the true cause of all 

 the varied and complex j^henomena which have so long puzzled our 

 geologists; inducing them to fill good Mother Earth now with fire, now 



