Bon enor as ee, Le gern tke i 
* ‘yy ae "eye 
“pur ae pee eee SER. 123 
itt atic Mide ja Place, 1 tk ical facts ol 
jn the time of finapctckery: as = Seca exact to concludes 
the duration of a day has not diminished 1-300 of a cent al 
second in two thousand years, thought, that the contraction ac- 
tuaily produced by the secular cooling of the globe 0 
ficient to increase the velocity of its rotation. This pinta a" 
gests an useful limit to the actual effect of general cooling. 
But if we consider the effects of contraction from the 
mmencement of the coolin sett we must admit that some 
salietiee in this last respect has actually been exerted. the 
one hand, the duration of the day ‘has very slightly been dimin- 
ishe 
sufficient to endure this alteration of figure; which we admit. 
poles greater than at the first origin of things. If these data be 
conceded, the two effects just mentioned are still going on: -It 
intensity; which is not impossible, as we shall see by and bye. 
- & 18. Another OT i RP not less probable or staan to 
which we are led by the th eory of the incandescence and igneous 
fluidity of the central is this. If the flexibility of the 
mass, “18 
earth’s crust be such as we have su * phenomena of 
tides take pl z) earth We shall not 
surprised at this effect, very feeble though it be, if we pay atten- 
tion to the fact that it certainly did tak at 
ess than four or five metres. 
e secular refiguration, continually increasing the 
thickness of the earth’s crust, gives — to ingu ire, a, the 
ces does not accompany tte peo : m this being i im- 
this first material cause in a gaseous state, notwithstanding - 
influence of immense ony at the depth we are now consid- 
ering. The capricious phenomena, ea cthanadilig may depend 
also on the great inequality rol the interior surface of the crust of 
the e 
“4 20. These ort oe to a new explanation of volcanic phe- 
nomena, which, to very few persons who have a just notion 
ef the eleménts of this joestieis may appear more satisfactory 
