EEVIEWS. 



428 



EEYIEWS. 



An Essay on the Causes of distant Alternate Periodic Inundations over the Loio 

 Lands of Each Hemisphere. Bj Augustus Bergh. London: James Bidgway. 



There are some topics now under discussion and investigation by geologists 

 which possess an interest even greater than any w^hich have yet been worked 

 out by any previous efforts. Colonel James, in some excellent articles in the 

 Athenseum," has shown that an evagation of the poles has not only been pos- 

 sibly caused by the projection and upheaval of mountain ranges, but that pro- 

 bably even this may be reckoned amongst those causes which produced the 

 former higher temperature of certain regions of our globe which are now within 

 the temperate and arctic regions. And more than one essay, too, has of late 

 been written with a view to proving the possibility of periodic floods. 



In the modest treatise before us some important facts and doctrines are 

 brought under attention. " Inquirers," says our author in his preface, " in 

 their investigations of the different strata would discover cliffs and bays in the 

 interior of a country similar to those observed in their rambles along the 

 line of sea-coast, and the same view of steep abruptness or escarpments, with 

 vegetable and anima-l remains, in the interior as on the coast. Such discoveries 

 would naturally lead them to consider that the whole country must have been 

 submerged by the ocean at some distant period ; and on further investigation 

 they would find that these inundations have not only once occurred, but that 

 at several distant periods the ocean had encroached on the land, and the land 

 thus been covered by the ocean. New layers of rocks, sands, gravels, and 

 other marine productions had been the means of producing, successively, newer 

 strata and newer countries. The geologists would consequently arrive at the 

 conclusion that aU these changes of strata and animal remains presented to 

 their view must have arisen from an overwhelming ocean." 



Our author then endeavours, " by consulting the noble science of astronomy'-, 

 to find a cause for these periodical disturbances and encroachments of the 

 ocean ; and his work consists of " considerations on the motion of the major 

 axis or revolution and change of the line of apsides of the earth's orbit ; "its 

 causes, and the effect produced in its orbital revolutions through the ecliptic 

 from one hemisphere to the other, involving a certain number of years. 



" Astronomers have observed that the line of apsides of the earth's orbit has 

 a motion thiwgh the whole ecliptic; and it is observed that the major axis 

 does not always point to the same star, or, what is the same thing, the "earth is 

 forced onwards beyond the perihelion point every year to a certain extent, at 

 the rate of 61". 761, as is proved by observation of the stars. * * That 

 part of the earth's orbit which is nearest the sun — the perihelion — is three 

 millions of miles nearer than the aphelion, or most distant range of the orbit ; 

 and when the earth is at its perihelion point, it is (owing to the sun's force) 

 carried more rapidly through that part of its orbit, that is, at the rate of about 

 sixty-one minutes per day. This increased motion," our author considers, 



must necessarily increase and accumulate the waters of the ocean in the lati- 

 tudes of the southern hemisphere, where the direction of the forces has its 

 chief action. In consequence of these forces, the ocean has so increased in 

 mass that it extends from the Pole to about thirty degrees of south latitude. 



" We also find that the southern continents and islands have their southern 

 extremities worn into acute angles, while those of the northern are obtuse, 

 further proving that the united action of the solar and perihelion forces has 



