METER THREE DAYS AT rAKRINGDON. 
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 tlie 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 FAERINGDON.— POSITION OF 
SPONGE-GEAVEL. 
By C. J. A. Meyer. 
Early in September of the present year, I accompanied my friend 
Mr. C. Evans in a sliort excursion to Parringdon, with a view to 
examining the well-known " Sponge-gravel " pits of Little Coxwell ; 
