the Contortions in Palaeozoic Strata. 57 



Map of the World, appear to have a meridianial direction, 

 I see by the map in Murchison's Siluria that Siliirian strata 

 abound in that part of the Continent. 



Fourthly. The trend of the land is generally north and 

 south. This fact has been often noticed, but never satisfactorily 

 accounted for. 



Fifthly. The Andes diminish in altitude as they approach 

 the south, as though the lateral pressure was there, as it were, 

 dying out through an approach to the region of quiescence 

 before alluded to. In New Zealand, lying much farther 

 south than ourselves, the palaeozoic strata are less distorted 

 than in Victoria. In Russia, also, situate in the supposed 

 northern region of quiescence, the Silurian strata are often, 

 as I believe, found in a nearly horizontal position. 



Sixthly. The northern and southern polar circles are 

 either covered by drift or by ocean, so that the supposed 

 stellar fractures are not observable. 



III. It will be asked whether any force capable of 

 diminishing the rate of the earth's axial revolution exists in 

 nature. 



1. Up to a very recent period the rate of the earth's 

 diurnal revolution has been spoken of as constant. This 

 conclusion, however, is doubted by eminent astronomers of 

 the present day. There is a retarding force. The same 

 being found in the resistance to the earth's axial revolution, 

 resulting from the friction of the tidal wave, which, lagging 

 a little behind the moon, impinges upon the shores of 

 continents and islands, so that force becomes changed into 

 heat, which is lost completely by being radiated into space. 



The consequences of this force are apparent, in some few 

 discrepancies discovered of late in certain astronomical 

 tables. 



2. There appears to me to be yet another source of 

 retardation. Two deep water currents are continually 

 running from the several poles to the equator. As these 

 currents respectively pass from points whereat the axial 

 velocity is nothing, #b where it attains nearly one 

 thousand miles per hour, the waters are left a little behind 

 the earth, so that the currents reaUy take a N.W. and S.W. 

 direction, and, by impinging upon the easterly coasts of 

 continental masses, must necessarily constitute a resisting 

 power. There is, I know, a counter current, wherein the 

 conditions are reversed, running from the equator to the poles; 

 but from the evaporation in low being in excess of that in 



