70 



easy to analyse the hypothesis, but as we have questioned the 

 very foundation of the principle on which it is founded, we 

 need not dwell on it here, but simply state, that the movement 

 of the surface of the globe northward accounts for the above 

 effect in a more convincing manner, and more free from intricate 

 computations, than the geometrical physics now used in astro- 

 nomy. Besides, the supporters of the theory leave a residual 

 phenomenon equal to about ten seconds unaccounted for, and an- 

 other movement in the ecliptic ; hence we have abundant proofs 

 by celestial observations of terrestrial changes in a northerly 

 direction. It may be argued, that if the masses of dry land, 

 which are now situated near the north pole, containing organic 

 remains belonging to the tropics, have been propelled there by 

 such a slow northward action, it must take some thousands of 

 years since they were in the torrid zone more than we admit 

 according to our chronology, supposing the relics are the re- 

 mains of those given to man. There is no proof that they are 

 not the relics of those given to man, and we have abundant 

 evidence of the fossils of the existing organic beings being found 

 with those which have become extinct; therefore no line of 

 separation can be legitimately drawn between them. With re- 

 spect to our chronology, it is not well defined, i. e. not a demon- 

 strable quantity ; it is a mean of a compound composed of un- 

 certain quantities, therefore necessarily an uncertain amount. 

 Not one of the chronological records was considered sufficiently 

 certain to be adopted— the Egyptian and Chinese were left out 

 — therefore it is useless to enter into this question ; besides, it 

 matters not to our creed whether the globe was created 7000 

 years or 30,000 years ago ; time cannot make any difference in a 

 faith which is founded on too firm a foundation to be shaken. 



Plato says that the world changes its superficies in every re- 

 spect ; that the heavens and the stars appear to change and 

 reverse their movement by time, in such way as that the east 

 appears to become the west; we find also the Egyptian priests 

 acquainting Herodotus, that from the commencement of the 

 dynasty of their kings (which according to their computation 

 extended to more than 11,000 years) the sun had apparently 

 changed his course in the heavens four times. 



We can easily conceive that a country like Australia, which is 



