FAILURE OF CLIMATIC THEORIES. 5 



There probably never was an upheaval of such mag- 

 nitude in the history of our earth. And to produce 

 a deflection of 3° 17' (a deflection which would hardly 

 sensibly affect climate) no less than yfr of the entire 

 surface would require to be elevated to that height. 

 A continent ten times the size of Europe elevated two 

 miles would do little more than bring London to the 

 latitude of Edinburgh, or Edinburgh to the latitude 

 of London. He 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 miles, far less half-a-dozen 

 degrees. It does not help the matter much to assume 

 a distortion of the whole solid mass of the globe. 

 This, 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 elevation 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 " Geological Magazine," for June, 

 1878. And Professor Haughton, in a paper read 

 before the Royal Society, April 4, 1878, published 

 in "Nature," July 4, 1878, entitled, "A Geological 

 Proof that the Changes of Climate in Past Times were 

 not due to Changes in the Position of the Pole," has 

 proved from geological evidence that the Pole has 



