

I. 



*(:e 



of 



1 



Ppose 



Ppen 



<t\ 



K 



*cCt 





^\. 



1 been 



^ of 



planet 

 inallv, 



'equi. 



same 

 tease 



jethe 





rttte 



3 now 



water 



water 

 tliere 

 I'tion 



X 



tlie 



plac« 



eran 



t 



III 



be 



cf, ot 



ra 



rse- 

 iits, 



e 



-al 



(Tic 



ia^^ 



f 







Ch. XXXII.] SPHENOIDAL POEM OF THE EAETII. 



201 



them 



& 



this process even 



more 



and been entirely torn in fragments^ or reduced to powder, 

 and submerged and reconstructed. Land, in this view of 



mig 



the subject, loses its attribute of fixity. As a mass, it 

 hold together in opposition to forces which the water freely 

 obeys ; but in its state of successive or simultaneous degra- 

 dation, when disseminated through the water, in the state 



im 



In the lapse of time, then, the protuberant land would be 

 destroyed, and spread over the bottom of the ocean, filling 



remodel 



surface of the solid nucleus, in correspondence with the 

 form of eqttilihrium. Thus, after a sufficient lapse of time, in 

 the case of an earth in rotation, the polar protuberances 

 would gradually be cut down and disappear, being trans- 

 ferred to the equator (as being then the deepest sea), till the 

 earth would assume by degrees the form we observe it to 

 have— that of a flattened or ohlate ellipsoid. 



' We are far from meaning here to trace the process hy 

 which the earth really assumed its actual form; all we intend 

 is to show that this is the form to which, under a condition 

 of a rotation on its axis, it must tend, and which it would 

 attain even if originally and (so to speak) perversely consti- 

 tuted otherwise.^ ^ 



Although in the above 



must 



passage 

 understood 



mention is made of 



leading part in the degradation of the polar land under the 



condition above assumed. 



Herschel 



liis observations to the effects of aqueous causes only ; neither 



seem to have tollowed out the same 



Hutton 



assumes 



parts of the solid earth. Yet the progress of geology has 

 continually strengthened the evidence in favour of the doctrine 

 that local variations of temperature have melted one part after 

 another of the earth's crust, and this influence has perhaps 

 extended downwards to the very centre. If, therefore, before 



* Herscliel's Astronomy, chap. iii. 



* 



f 



