EFFECTS OF A SUBSIDENCE OF THE LAND. 3D 



would be altered in direction and amount. The distribu 

 tion of heat achieved by these ocean currents would bo 

 different from what it is. The arrangement of the isother 

 mal lines, not even on the neighbouring continents, but 

 even throughout Europe, would be changed. The tides 

 would flow differently from what they do now. There 

 would be more or less modification of the winds in their 

 periods, strengths, directions, qualities. Rain would full 

 scarcely anywhere at the same times and in the same quan 

 tities as at present. In short, the meteorological conditions 

 thousands of miles off, on all sides, would be more or less 

 revolutionized. 



Thus, without taking into account the infinitude of 

 modifications which these changes of climate would pro 

 duce upon the flora and fauna, both of land and sen, the 

 reader will sec the immense heterogeneity of the results 

 wrought out by one force, when that force expends itself 

 upon a previously complicated area ; and he will readily 

 draw the corollary that from the beginning the complica 

 tion has advanced at an increasing rate. 



Before going on to show how organic progress also 

 depends upon the universal law that every force produces 

 more than one change, we have to notice the manifestation 

 of this law in yet another species of inorganic progress 

 namely, chemical. The same general causes that have 

 wrought out the heterogeneity of the Earth, physically 

 considered, have simultaneously wrought out its chemical 

 heterogeneity. Without dwelling upon the general fact 

 that the forces which have been increasing the variety and 

 complexity of geological formations, have, at the same 

 time, been bringing into contact elements not previously 

 exposed to each other under conditions favourable to union, 

 and so have been adding to the number of chemical com- 

 pounds, let us pass to the more important complications 

 that have resulted from the cooling of the Earth. 



