Revieivs — Elisee Reclus on " The Earth.'* 35 



Commencing •with a description of the Earth as a planet, the 

 author gives a brief but accurate sketch of its astronomical relations, 

 importing into his description from time to time his views on its 

 past, present, and future condition. He believes that great cata- 

 strophes have already occurred, and that a succession of cataclysms 

 will take place before the " vitality " of our globe becomes annihi- 

 lated. Its rate of rotation is already diminishing in a perceptible 

 degree, and M. Eeclus sees in this and some other phenomena suffi- 

 cient proof that, after a series of internal convulsions, the earth's 

 history will terminate with the fall of our planet upon the surface 

 of the sun as a series of meteorites. 



These preliminary chapters will acquire more significa,nce in the 

 mind of the reader after he has mastered a portion of the next 

 division of the work, entitled '• The Land." He will then find that 

 the occasional paragraphs about " vitalities," " harmonies," and 

 " rhj^thms," which at first will strike him, probably, as being mere 

 poetical forms of expression, are really indicative of the ruling idea 

 of the author in his contemplation of telluric phenomena. He will 

 continually find accurate statements of facts unaccompanied by any 

 reference to their cause, but illustrated by comparisons with ana- 

 logous phenomena which the author regards as either harmonious 

 or rhythmical. 



In his description of "The Land," M. Eeclus confines himself to the 

 present epoch,and treats his subject as a portion of Physical Geography. 

 This science he rightly regards as descriptive of the earth as it 

 exists before our eyes, and as preparing the way for Geology by 

 collecting and classifying facts which we can now verify, and by 

 their aid discovering the laws of the formation and destruction 

 of strata. Taking this line of argument, and importing into it the 

 idealism to which we have already drawn attention, M. Eeclus 

 makes the second portion of his work an elaboration of the truth 

 of the following statement (p. 40) : — 



" The globe of our earth is in evident conformity to all the laws 

 of harmony, both in the spherical uniformity of its shape, and also 

 in its constant and regular course through space. It would, there- 

 fore, be incomprehensible if, on a planet so rhythmical in all its 

 methods, the distribution of continents and seas had been accom- 

 plished, as it were, at random. It is true enough that the outlines 

 of coasts and mountain ridges do not constitute a system of geo- 

 metrical regularity; but this very variety is a proof of a higher 

 vitality, and bears witness to the multiplicity of motions which have 

 co-operated in the adornment of the earth's surface." 



As an illustration of his ruling idea, we give a short synopsis 

 of his mode Qf correlating certain terrestrial phenomena as 

 harmonious, merely premising that we select one or two sets as 

 typical of his method, and that the same process is applied to the 

 comparison of all the phenomena which have been made known to us 

 by the researches of travellers and physical geographers. 



The dry land of the earth is classified by our author as three 

 double continents, forming three parallel series. Of these double 



