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THE GEOLOGIST. 



years, aud we think tliese natural causes and effects are the same, past, present, 

 and to come.' Eorgetting that our last three thousand jears have passed 

 quietly along a parallel ^vith the equator, and will so continue until the peri- 

 helion point" shall arrive at eleven and three-quarter degrees of south declina- 

 tion, when its parallelism becomes angular, in which angularity the ocean 

 follows towards the equator, and then our tranquility ends. But what are 

 three thousand years of repose ? Not one-fourth of the thirteen thousand nine 

 hundred and ninety years. It may appear to us, because we have three thou- 

 sand years of comparative quiet, that it must continue so ; and so it will for 

 perhaps three thousand yeai s longer, after which, we may, with some degree of 

 certainty, assure our friendly geologists that our tranquil state in the northern 

 hemisphere will cease. It has about eleven thousand years of comparative 

 repose, and has, as above stated, about three thousand more years to expect, 

 after which posterity must think of travelling southwards, as the antediluvians 

 had to do nortliwards about six thousand years ago ; and no doubt our pos- 

 terity of the northern hemisphere will be compelled to abandon their lands for 

 the southern, as their ancestors were forced to do towards the northern hemi- 

 sphere ; for, as already remarked, in about three thousand years after the pre- 

 sent, we shall have timely warning given us, by the gradual advance of the 

 ocean towards the equator, and its ultimate inundation of our northern lands. 

 Hence it is evident that these advances and retreats of the ocean uniformly in 

 twenty thousand nine hundred and eighty-four years are the sufficient and chief 

 great causes of the change, and of the otherwise unaccountable appearances 

 which are presented to our view when we investigate the various strata and 

 perceive these oceanic wrecks. What an ample and clear explanation is then 

 afforded of the singular intermixture thus found of varied organic remains, of 

 marine and land animals, vegetables, &c., and their amazingly varied matrixes 

 and beds ! These intermixtures, &c., clearly prove how often they have been 

 turned over and over again; and how deposits have been alternately formed on 

 laud, in seas, lakes, or fresh and salt water, and they likewise coitfirm how 

 often the perihelion has made those important revolutions, from which spring 

 such momentous and surprising results, and which will necessarily produce the 

 same effects ad infinitum''' 



The author repeats that he can perceives no great evil or misfortune in these 

 physical changes, which are not abrupt, as timely warning is given for one 

 thousand seven hundred and forty-nine years, while the perilielion is passing 

 tlu'ough Pisces, and the sciences of astronomy and navigation, with the art of 

 sliip-building will give our posterity every means of foreseeing and avoiding 

 the danger. 



In res])ect to the obliquity of the ecliptic, our author thus speculates. " If 

 we treat it astronomically, we imagine that it might have originally had an 

 angular expansion of forty-five degrees, or even ninety degrees, and constantly 

 diminished to its present rate, or perhaps became less anguLar at the last 

 catastrophe or convulsion of the earth's sui'face. On the contrary, if our 

 speculations take a mechanical direction, we can imagine that the immense 

 breadth of land of the Asiatic continent, with the immense masses of lofly 

 ]nountains, formed by tlie chain of the Caucasian, Tartarian, and Himalayan 

 juountains, might drag or pull over the cartlv's pole in an easterly direction, 

 and become at once the meridian of both poles of tiie equator and ecliptic, 

 whicli are about twenty-three degrees twenty-eight minutes apart, and if our 

 earth had not this inclination, its pole would probably have been located at 

 Batlur s Bay, for, according to the observations of Captain Sir James Boss, the 

 magiieiic ]iolc was observed in seventy degrees five minutes seventeen seconds 

 north latitude, and ninety-six degrees forty-six minutes forty-live seconds west 

 hmgitude. AVifli regard to tlie diminution of tlie ecliptic angle, we conceive 



