388 Scientific Intelligence. 
ought to convince every geologist how hopeless it is to expect 
aid in this direction 
latitude of Edinburgh, or Edinburgh to the latitude of London. 
e must be a sanguine geologist indeed who can expect to account 
.for the glaciation of this country, or for the former absence of ice 
around the poles by this means. We know perfectly well that 
since the glacial epoch there have been no changes in the physical 
geography of the earth sufficient to deflect the pole half a dozen 
f miles, far less half a dozen of degrees. It does not help the 
matter much to assume a distortion of the whole solid mass of the 
; , it is true, would give a few degrees additional 
deflection of the pole, but that such a distortion actually took 
place is more opposed to geology and physics than even the ele- 
vation of a continent ten times the size of Europe to a height of 
two miles. 
Mr. Twisden, in his valuable memoir referred to, has shown 
even more convincingly how impossible it is to account for the 
great changes of geological climate on the hypothesis of a change 
in the axis of rotation. This conclusion has been further borne 
out by another mathematician, the Rev. E. Hill, in an article in 
the June number of the Geological Magazine. And Professor 
_ There is no geological evidence to show that since Silurian 
times the Atlantic and Pacific were ever in their broad features 
otherwise than they are now—two immense oceans separat by 
of a reason to conclude that the poles have ever shift 
from their present position. On this point I cannot do better 
than quote the opinion recently expressed by Sir William Thomson. 
