Apparent objections to the Glacial Theory* 283 



his own private resources and means. In all this, he ever appeared 

 to hold himself in the back ground, and rather seemed to advocate 

 and promote the objects and views of others, than his own. No man 

 however, had a better sense of what was due to himself, as he 

 occasionally proved on his natural generosity of character being 

 misunderstood. He was one of the ablest and best friends of this 

 journal, and shortly before his death we had a communication 

 from him on the subject of Isinglass, on the introduction of which 

 to the English market from Bombay, he was bestowing much 

 attention. 



This, however, is only one of the numerous objects of public in- 

 terest that will suffer by his loss. Mr. Malcolmson died, we 

 believe, in the prime of life, from a fever contracted it is said, dur- 

 ing an excursion for some scientific object, the particulars of which 

 we have not heard. 



Apparent objections to the Glacial Theory. By Capt. Thos. 

 Hutton. Bengal Army. 



The figure of the earth, and the traces which its strata present 

 of a former elevated temperature, have long since given rise to the 

 opinion, that our planet has gradually and insensibly cooled down 

 from a state of intense heat; and certainly without deeming it 

 necessary to admit, that the material elements of the earth were 

 once in a nebular condition ; it is still abundantly evident from 

 the facts of Geology, that the animals whose remains are found 

 imbedded in the earlier strata, must have lived in a climate perhaps 

 even warmer than those of tropical countries in the present day. 

 Those very fossils, indeed, from the earliest to the most recent 

 period may be said to form a kind of thermometric register, which 

 proves indubitably, that the climates of the earth have, from some 

 cause, decreased in temperature until the present order of things 

 commenced, since which no sensible diminution would appear to 

 have taken place. There is nothing observable amidst the appear- 

 ances and phenomena of the strata, to warrant the idea that such 

 decrease of temperature has been fitful and uncertain ; diminish- 

 ing at one period ; increasing at another ; and then again re- 



