MEYER THREE DAYS AT EARRINGDON. 



sun's combustion or incandescence, the thicker" the atmospheric 

 stratum round a planet and the denser its condition, and the bigger 

 the planet and the more remote its position from the sun, the denser 

 it would be, — the greater would be the amount of heat and light 

 derived from the passage of the sunshine through it. In this way 

 it might happen that the distant planets, having enormous atmo- 

 spheres, may be better lighted up and warmed than we have been in 

 the habit of regarding them. It is difficult to conceive, moreover, 

 that orbital velocity is not productive of some amount of heat in our 

 atmosphere by friction ; and this in the larger orbits, where the 

 rate of the planet is higher, must be greater in amount, and propor- 

 tionate to the speed and size of the moving object. If the carbonic 

 acid has been consolidated out of our atmosphere, oxygen has been 

 extracted also ; and if we are to regard the bulk of our atmosphere 

 as diminished by the chemical combinations of its gases with terres- 

 trial solids during the progress of vast ages, we may regard this di- 

 minution of its bulk as gigantic, — perhaps as fully a half-part since 

 the commencement of the Palaeozoic period. 



By these remarks we are not ignoring the sagacity of Mr. Sterry 

 Hunt's suggestions ; they are very valuable and in the right direc- 

 tion. Our object is to submit that there may be cosmical reasons 

 for great changes of climatal temperature, and others besides those 

 we have hinted at ; but it would be futile to look to cosmical causes 

 unless we were prepared to admit the wonderful remoteness of the 

 early periods geology has made known to us, — but which, after all, 

 are only on the very threshold and entrance of the research into 

 the great past existence of our planet that went before the earliest 

 traces of its history our science has yet detected. 



Some day we shall inquire what foundation there really is for the 

 supposed former higher temperature of our earth at all ? Perhaps 

 we shall not find as much reason for the doctrine as some people 

 suppose. 



THEEE DAYS AT EARRINGDON.— POSITION OF 

 SPONGE-GRAVEL. 



By C. J. A. Meyer. 



Early in September of the present year, I accompanied my friend 

 Mr. C. Evans in a short excursion to Earringdon, with a view to 

 examining the well-known " Sponge- gravel" pits of Little Coxwell ; 



