104 Facts from the Arcana of Nature. 



of Asia, now several hundred feet beneath the ocean level ; 

 or, if igneous agencies break up and disperse the Polar ice ? 

 A sudden loss of equilibrium must ensue, inaugurating 

 a devastating cataclysrnal convulsion. Some such con- 

 tingency is evidently alluded to in Psalm Ixxiv. 13 — 15, as 

 possibly to alter the configuration and position of conti- 

 nents and oceans of the globe, and drift to the wilderness the 

 leviathans of the deep. In view of its probability, though, 

 perhaps, not in our day, nor even in this era of our globe's 

 history, " Men's hearts " may well " fail them for fear, and 

 for looking after those things which are coming on the 

 " Earth." The day of which " shall come as a thief in the 

 night." 



Professor Jameson remarks that " the coal formation of 

 East Greenland is the same as that of the great coal mines 

 of Scotland and England. This formation alwa3 T s contains 

 impressions and casts of plants which have a tropical aspect, 

 a circumstance of high interest when combined with the 

 arctic situation of the coal. Remains of plants with tropical 

 characters evidently in their native place of growth under 

 the 7oth degree of north latitude, is a fact which naturally 

 leads to very interesting discussions in regard to the ancient 

 forms of the land, and the former state of the climate." 



Professor Haughton, in his " Geological Account of the 

 Arctic Archipelago," in appendix to Captain McClintock's 

 work on the Fate of Franklin, &c," observes that " The 

 discovery of fossils, in situ, of the ammonite, evidently 

 belonging to the liassic periqd, in 76° north latitude, is 

 calculated to throw doubts upon the theories of climate, 

 which would account for all past changes of temperature by 

 changes in the relative position of land and water on the 

 Earth's surface. Besides the ammonite belonging to a warmly 

 temperate or tropical sea, fossils of vertebrata and saurian 

 reptiles have also been found in latitude 76°. If the change 

 of temperature be supposed to be caused by a change of the 

 relative position of land and water, the temperature of 

 Dublin or of some place on the parallel of latitude, must be 

 supposed to be raised to 99° Fahr., while the temperature 

 of the thermal equator will exceed 124°. The theory of 

 central heat also appears to me open to the same objection, 

 as a mode of explaining this remarkable geological fact, for it 

 will simply add a constant to our present climates, leaving 

 the difference to remain as at present to be accounted for by 

 latitude and the distribution of land and water. The 



