416 THEORY OF M. AGASSTZ. 



Nor is it less obvious, that if the inclination of 

 the earth's axis should go on augmenting from 

 to 40, there would be such a general refrige- 

 ration, as would destroy nearly all the pre-exist- 

 ing organisms of the middle latitudes, where 

 the mountain valleys would be filled with ice, 

 perhaps to the level of the sea ; as in Greenland, 

 Spitzbergen, and the southern polar continent. 

 In short, there would be what has been called 

 the Glacial Period by Dr. Louis Agassiz, who 

 has traced the evident marks of moving glaciers 

 on the polished and scoriated rocks of Switzer- 

 land, the Tyrol, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, 

 England, and France. And they have since 

 been observed in the United States.* 



If we extend our view to the solar system, we 

 perceive that floods of aethereal matter in the form 

 of light, are perpetually flowing from the sun, and 



* I cannot, however agree with M. Agassiz, that during what 

 he calls the glacial period, the whole surface of the earth pre- 

 sented a vast field of ice, from which projected only the highest 

 mountain ridges; nor that a cold by which every living being was 

 benumbed, suddenly appeared, and destroyed the myriads of or- 

 ganisms which but a moment before had been enjoying existence; 

 because it is impossible to account for such " a catastrophe" in 

 accordance with any of the known laws of nature. For example, 

 whence came all the waters required to produce a field of ice 

 many thousand feet in thickness ? And what had become of the 

 heating power of the sun, when the earth was seized with that 

 sudden Jit of the ague ? Yet there is ample proof, that immediately 

 antecedent to the existing order of things, a climate of polar 

 severity prevailed throughout the middle latitudes of the northern 

 hemisphere, and quite sufficient to destroy nearly ail the pre- 

 existing orders of tropical plants and animals. 



