NOTES AND QUERIES. 



37 



5. That the increments of quantity and momentum of the seas act by slow 

 degrees on the land of the affected hemisphere, so as to produce sufficient space 

 for their own accumulations, till in sufficient time the space occupied by the 

 land is reduced in proportion to the accumulating spaces occupied by the seas. 



6. That as the seas encroach on the land in one hemisphere they retire from 

 the other, on the known principle of their equilibrium ; but, during the operation 

 of the perihelion maxima, they are also accumulated in volume sufficient to make 

 new encroachments in the land, adding more and more to their momenta in each 

 following year. 



7. That (in 1812,) the perihelion forces operate in maxima on the 31st of 

 December, over the parallel of twenty three degrees seven minutes south ; that 

 these forces are now moving northward, at such a rate as that in the year 4,719 

 they will arrive at a middle southern declination ; in 6,163 will act over the 

 equator; in 8,207 will advance to a middle northern declination, producing 

 sensible effects on that hemisphere ; and, between the year 8,207 and 15,181 

 will probably be the means of covering the northern hemisphere with sea, 

 nearly as the southern hemisphere is covered at present. 



8. That in tracing the progression of these forces through former periods, it 

 appears that they passed the equator to the south about the year 4,002 

 before Christ, producing probably such terrestrial phenomena as those described 

 in the first chapter of Genesis ; and that they reached a middle southern decli- 

 nation about the year 2,258, pioducing probably such sensible effects in that 

 hemisphere, as are described in the Mosaic and other accounts of the deluge. 



9. That this motion of the perihelion forces over different parallels of terres- 

 trial latitude, by producing an alternate prepondency of seas in both hemispheres, 

 sufficiently accounts for the marine strata, and for all the marine phenomena 

 observed upon or under the surface of the land, the gradual operation of chemical 

 agencies being sufficient to account for the substantial changes in the bodies 

 themselves. 



10. That, if the frequent discovery of tropical remains in the latitude of 

 Britain, be considered as evidence that these remains were natives of these 

 latitudes, the change of climate may be referred to the diminished angle 

 formed by the planes of the equator and ecliptic, which takes place at the rate 

 of fifty-two seconds in a century, and of a degree in above six thousand nine 

 hundred years ; and which would have been equal to forty-five degrees at seven 

 revolutions of the perihelion point, or one hundred and forty-nine years ago." 



This paper is signed " Common Sense." It certainly may take rank as an 

 honoured curiosity of geological literature. — George E. Roberts. 



Flint Implements in the Dritt. — The recent finding of some Mint 

 Implements, evidently the work of man, in a stratum which geologists have 

 been accustomed to consider of a date long anterior to the human era, has 

 given rise to much discussion and conjecture; some appearing ready to admit, 

 (though no human remains were found with them) that this discovery carries 

 back the creation of man to an almost incalculably remote period ; though so 

 many existing facts tend to demonstrate his comparatively recent origin — 

 facts' that are quite independent of scripture-chronology, or the testimony of 

 tradition. 



By what means these manufactured flints become imbedded in the formation 

 referred to is a question that, perhaps, can never have a perfectly satisfactory 

 solution ; but an idea that seems to have some possibly explanatory bearing on 

 the point, was suggested to me in reading the other day an account of the 

 construction of the Thames Tunnel. 



In the course of making the excavations for this work, the difficulties that 

 arose from the nature of the soil in some parts induced the contractors to pro- 

 cure a diving bell, for the purpose of examining the bottom of the river. On 



