102 Facta from the Arcana of Nature. 



developing igneous, as well as aqueous agencies, the alterna- 

 ting operation of which, during such convulsions, have been 

 abundantly noted by all geologists. Oscillation of the globe, 

 to regain its equilibrium, would be succeeded by renewed 

 rotation upon an axis passing through its centre of gravity ; 

 but the poles of such axis might then occupy an opposite, or 

 totally different position upon the Earth's surface, and thus 

 transpose the relative positions of the arctic and tropical 

 regions now existing. 



Sir C. Lyell remarks, " It can be shown that the Earth's 

 surface has been remodelled again and again ; mountain 

 chains have been raised or sunk, valleys formed, filled up, 

 and then re-excavated ; sea and land have changed places, 

 yet throughout all these revolutions, and the consequent 

 alterations of local and general climate, animal and vegetable 

 life has been sustained." " The changes of ocean level 

 required to swamp continents, are not so great as might be 

 supposed. A rise of 500 feet would sink the sources of the 

 Volga, and drown the most of Europe, 800 feet would sink 

 Basle, 1400 feet the Clyde, 1200 feet the Lake of Constance, 

 2850 feet the sources of the Danube, 4500 feet would sink 

 the Elbe, and boulders are found as high on European water- 

 sheds — in Scotland, Scandinavia, Wales, Ireland, and central 

 Europe ! In America, 680 feet would sink Lake Superior, 

 and the bottom of Lake Ontario is below sea level now. If 

 terraces be sea marks, there are terraces on Snowdon, and 

 the Alps at 3000 feet ; drift, shells, boulders, and rounded 

 stones, record that a frozen sea, 2000 feet deep, has passed 

 over the sites of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. Mr. 

 Geikie, in his work on The Glacial Drift of Scotland, proves 

 that the land of the British Isles has been submerged to a 

 height which would only leave a few hill tops above water. 



The Bev. J. Tenison Woods, F.G.S., states that a recent 

 scrutiny of over 2000 fossils proves that, during the period 

 when the British Isles and Northern Europe were exposed 

 to glacial action, and to partial submergence beneath an icy 

 sea, the southern colonies of Australia abounded in the vege- 

 tation and organisms peculiar to tropical climates. 



" That the ice epoch, like other great events in Nature, 

 came on gradually and slowly is," it is stated, " abundantly 

 evidenced by the temperate, or even coldly temperate aspects 

 of the flora and fauna of the later, as compared with those of 

 the middle, and earlier tertiaries. Thus, over the tertiary 

 areas, the declension of climate had been going on for ages, 



