352 A. Anderson — On Changes of Climate. 



have advanced, in my notes on the improbability of the coexistence 

 of the Keindeer and ancient Hippopotamus, communicated to the 

 " Eeliquiae Aquitanicse." 



Under no ordinary hj'^pothesis do I conceive — nor is my opinion, I 

 believe, unsupported — that the great terrestrial changes revealed by 

 the observations of the geologist can be accounted for. Causes 

 immeasurably more potent than the processes of Nature as at present 

 observable, under any modification that the imagination can realize, 

 must have contributed to produce the stupendous results that are 

 apparent. Short of successive inclinations of the earth's axis to 

 greater degrees at various epochs, I conceive of no adequate agency : 

 but, this agency admitted, much that is otherwise mysterious would, 

 I opine, be satisfactorily solveable. Physically viewed, the agencies 

 to this great end are at least within the scope of the imagination, 

 under those universal laws of gravitation acting on a spheroidal mass, 

 exemplified even now in the slight periodical nutation of the pole 

 under the varying counter-attractions of the sun and moon. Were 

 it permitted to suppose that our planet was at one period attended, 

 like Jupiter, by several satellites, it would have been retained by the 

 counterpoise of attraction in a vertical position with regard to its 

 orbit, as may be mathematically demonstrable, even as Jupiter is so 

 now retained — and consequently have revolved in its annual course 

 without appreciable seasonal variation. The successive destruction, 

 at various epochs, of these imagined satellites would have produced 

 proportional deflections of the axis with corresponding variation of 

 season and climate ; the last, that condition under which Man was 

 created and exists. Astronomy teaches us that planetary catastrophes, 

 such as here supposed, are not only within the limit of possibility, 

 but have actually occurred. It has been suggested even that the 

 meteoric stones, of which the frequent fall has been enigmatical, are 

 but the scattered fragments of anciently disrupted spheres revolving 

 in space until casually coming within the earth's attraction. May it 

 not then be permissible, if the theory I have hazarded be not sum- 

 marily rejected, to suppose that some, at least, of these mysterious 

 visitors may be but the scattered relics of vanished satellites of our 

 own planet? Step by step the geologist, instructed by gradually 

 developed indications, approaches conclusions of which the principles 

 only are shadowed forth in the revealed account of the cosmogony, 

 but to which, reverentially accepted, they nowhere stand in opposi- 

 tion. The history of the science has well been termed " a growing 

 evidence." Yet in its revelations, while much may be demonstrated 

 by comparison with palpable types, much again must be inferential, 

 from the collation of circumstances with the undeviating processes of 

 known natural laws. 



Under the assumption I have advanced, the formation of Coal, 

 originating from a vegetation consistent only with a climate analo- 

 gous to the inter-tropical climates of to-day, and irreconcilable with 

 the variations incident to the temperate zones, may have proceeded 

 far beyond the limits where that fossil fuel is now known chiefly to 

 exist. It might be predicated, indeed, that Coal-fields exist even within 



