Facts from the Arcana of Nature. 105 



astronomical theory of Herschel also, which would account 

 for former changes of climate, by changes in the radiating 

 power of the sun would only increase the temperature at 

 each latitude, leaving the difference as at present. The only 

 speculation with which I am acquainted, which is capable of 

 solving this opprobrium geologicorum, is the hypothesis of 

 a change in the axis of rotation of the earth, the admis- 

 sion of which, as a geological possibility, is mathematically 

 demonstrable, and which has recently had some singular 

 evidence in its favour advanced by geologists. In 1851, I 

 brought forward at the Geological Society of Dublin, a case 

 of angular fragments of granite, occurring in the carboni- 

 ferous limestone of the County of Dublin ; and I explained 

 the phenomena by the supposition of the transporting power 

 of ice. In 1855, Professor Ramsay laid before the Geological 

 Society of London, a full and detailed theory of glaciers 

 and ice, as agents concerned in the formation of a remarkable 

 breccia of Permian age, occurring in the central counties of 

 England ; and, still more recently, the same agent has been 

 employed by the geological surveyors of India, to account 

 for the transport of materials, at geological periods long 

 antecedent to those in which ice transport is commonly 

 supposed to have commenced. The motion of the earth's 

 axis would reconcile all the facts known, and it must be 

 regarded as a geological desideratum to determine its amount 

 and direction, and to assign the cause of such a movement 1 

 The solution of this problem I regard as quite possible. It 

 is well worthy of remark, that the arguments from the 

 occurrence of coal plants and ammonites strengthen each 

 other ; the coal plants rendering the question of light, and 

 the ammonites that of heat, insuperable objections to the 

 admission of any received geological hypothesis, to account 

 for the finding of such remains in situ in latitudes so high 

 as those of Melville Island, Prince Patrick's Island, and 

 Exmouth Island." 



Professor Ram considers that "nothing less than aber- 

 ration of the axis of the Earth can adequately account for 

 the varied phenomena forming the problems of geology." 

 The same view has been set forth by other geologists, 

 including Sir Henry James and Mr. Evans, secretary to 

 the Geological Society ; but astronomical assumptions have 

 heretofore promptly quelled analysis of the question. 



La Place, while maintaining the permanent immobility 

 of the Earth's axis of rotation, hazarded a conjecture that 



