3 1 6 Thoughts on the Juppojed Var'tations 



which it confifts is entirely inverted, and its homogeneous and 

 heterogeneous parts mixed together in confufion. Bvit in 

 this cafe, the exterior crull of the earth which we inhabit 

 would be wholly transformed; mountains, countries, and 

 feas, would change their places, and be conveyed to the 

 height or depth of a hundred miles perhaps, and more : and 

 how is it poffible that man, who can penetrate only to a very 

 I'mall depth in the earth, (liould be able to obferve fuch re- 

 mains of the old world ? 



Bcfides, tlie globe, which is of a fphcroidal form, revolves 

 round its lefs diameter, which is five miles ftiorter. Now, if 

 the angle of the inclination of this axis thould be fuildciily 

 or gradually changed, its rotary motion would not be de- 

 ranged, but the obliquity of the ecliptic would be expofed to 

 .chances, of which, according to obfervations made at all pe- 

 riod?^ no traces have been found. But if the poles of the 

 earth fliould leave their place, a new axis would be produced, 

 the diredion of its diurnal rotation would form another equa- 

 tor, and the fphcrical form would be changed. But the 

 imnicnfe centrifugal force would he continuallv producing 

 the moll dreadful revolutions in the land and fca, and the 

 remains of the antient population would be buried fo deep 

 in the earth as to efcape the refearches of fucceeding gene- 

 rations. 



The poles of our earth, at prcfent, feem to occupy the mod 

 commodious portions ; for as, on account of the cold, they 

 are uninhabitable to beings of our fpecies, whatever be the 

 inclination of the earth's axis, the ocean has been affigned 

 them as their place, and all the lands of the earth are fituated 

 around them, that, during the daily rolaiion and annual re- 

 volution of tlie earth round the fun, its furface may as much 

 as pofliblc be expofed to the beneficent efTcfts of that lumi- 

 rarv in his conrfc from the equator towards the poles. If 

 we fliould transfer the north pole, for example, to the middle 

 of Afia, the fouth pole would fall in South America, and an 

 immenfe traft of cultivated land, on account of the cold, 

 would be converted into uninhabitable deferts. It is, how- 

 ever, highly probable, that the prcfent ])oles, fince the forma- 

 tion of the earth, as we are at prefent acquainted with its 

 furface, confiUing of fca and land, have always had the fame 

 inclination. 



As far as certain afironomical obfervations go back, and 

 the antiquity of thefe amounts to 4450 years, when a Chinefe 

 afironomer obfcrved (exaftly according to the preceflion of 

 the eouinoxes) the ftar a. in the northern Dragon in the 

 neif^hbourhood of the north pole, no pha;nomena have taken 



place 



