FAILURE OF CLIMATIC THEORIES. 13 



not only to a large extent at least free from ice, but 

 also enjoyed a climate as warm and genial as that of 

 England. To attribute results so striking and stu- 

 pendous to such commonplace agencies as ocean 

 currents, winds, clouds, and aqueous vapour is at 

 present considered to be little else than absurd. 

 Extraordinary and imposing causes proportionate to 

 the effects are therefore sought. 



To account for the Glacial Epoch, for example, the 

 land was at one time supposed to have stood much 

 higher than at present. It was soon discovered, how- 

 ever, that the glaciation was much too general to be 

 explained by such means. Many believed that it 

 might be accounted for by assuming a displacement 

 of the continents, but this hypothesis had likewise to 

 be abandoned when it became known that no altera- 

 tion in the position of our continents and ocean basins 

 has taken place since the Glacial Epoch. 



Others again imagined that some great change had 

 probably taken place in the obliquity of the ecliptic so 

 as to bring the Arctic circle down to beyond the lati- 

 tude of England. And in order to bring this about 

 what enormous upheavals were supposed to have 

 occurred ! It was soon, however, shown that no pos- 

 sible rearrangement of matter on our globe could 

 materially affect the obliquity; and besides this, it 

 was further pointed out that, even supposing the 

 Arctic circle was by such means to be shifted down 

 to our latitude, yet it would not bring an Arctic 

 climate along with it, but the reverse. This hypo- 

 thesis being in its turn abandoned, it was next 

 assumed that the earth's axis of rotation must have 

 been moved so as to carry our island up to the Arctic 

 regions. But to shift the axis of rotation even so 

 much as 3°, upheavals and subsidences of a magni- 



