FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. 
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the crystalline ami sedimentary rocks, individually and collectively." 
This is certainly somewhat startling. " Mr. E. Hopkins endeavours to 
prove his theorem," says a writer of the present day, " by the general 
principles of the polnrity of matter, the ascertained meridional structure 
of the crystalline rocks, the distribution of metalliferous deposits, &c. . . 
The fact of the general meridional structure of crystalline rocks is pretty 
clearly established; and Mr. Hopkins adds, from his own observations, 
additional proofs of the extent to which this formation prevails over the 
surface of the globe." 
But the most surprising part of the hypothesis is that in which it is 
affirmed that the solid parts of theearth's surface are, by the same influence 
(terrestrial magnetism), perpetually, though slowly, moving from the 
south to the north, this being represented as affording the only solution 
to certain obscure problems which have long puzzled geologists and 
astronomers. The rate of the meridional progression is estimated as high 
as one minute (one-sixtieth of a degree) in three years, or one degree in 
180 years; so that in 2,700 years the northern parts of Australia will 
be right under " the line," and in 3,600 years the Orkney and Shetland 
Isles will be nearly on a level with the north pole ! " Supposing this 
rate of movement to be constant," says the writer quoted above, "the 
spot on which London stands must have been in the equator some 9,180 
years ago, and the whole of England will be within the arctic circle in 
about 2,800 years hence. Thus may be explained the phenomena of 
organic remains of plants, which must have lived and died on the spot 
where they are found, though the climate now around them is utterly 
unfit for their existence. Thus also may be explained the position of 
the stars since the altered period of the earliest authentic records of 
astronomy. Instead of the precession, of the eq^idnoxes, or the bodily 
oscillation of the globe, Mr. E. Hopkins maintains that a slow but 
steady movement of the crystalline surface of the earth, from pole to 
pole, would account for all the phenomena." 
Where will imagination carry u^ — or, rather, future generations, 
when they find themselves all safely lodged at the north pole ? 
Magnetism, after all, is but one of the many physical forces which have 
acted, and still continue to act, upon our globe ; and why should that one 
be regarded as theorigin of all the others, any more than heat, electricity, 
or motion Mr. E. Hopkins must answer this question before his 
hypothesis can be submitted to serious consideration. 
• Consult on this question, Grove's " Correlation of Physical Forces." — Ed. Geol. 
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