122 MR. A. W. WATERS ON A CHANGE IN 



ference of specific gravity of water and earth, is only what 

 could be exercised by -^~ of the weight of the equatorial 

 bulge. 



Were the earth not a yielding body, it is apparent that 

 any great alteration of the position of the axis would ma- 

 terially affect the tides in a way which is not indicated by 

 any geological phenomena. Prof. Twisden pointed out at 

 the Geological Society that an alteration of 20 degrees with 

 an unyielding globe would cause a tide seven miles high. 



Were the earth perfectly rigid, the greater denudation 

 would naturally take place from the area of undue bulge, 

 and so the figure of rotation might be ultimately restored. 

 May not readjustment account for a land-hemisphere 

 such as we have at present ? 



It may be objected that the changes we have been exa- 

 mining in detail could never act more than temporarily in 

 one direction, and, by changes in the land and sea, the 

 water which had been removed would be brought back, and 

 the axis would take its old place. This is not at all a ne- 

 cessity; for supposing, after the large continental elevation 

 which was caused by the earth^s taking the figure of rota- 

 tion, and which would have an axis of elevation east and 

 west, that we now have water-troughs and minor elevations 

 equally distributed north and south, this is what theory 

 would expect, and which we find on the smaller scale on 

 which it has been studied. In this way it might be made 

 an oceanic area and be now ready for work again. I 

 commend the consideration of the effect of the readjust- 

 ment of the earth's crust to the consideration of those 

 able to grapple with it. 



It will be objected that any such movement of the axis 

 would be discoverable astronomically from the earth- and 

 moon-motions — that is, by the precession and nutation of 

 the equinoxes, which are caused by the attraction of the 



