13 
quantity, of the coal plants ; so that in fact there is to be 
explained not only an extra-tropical climate extending up to 
Melville Island, but a universal greater quantity of light 
and heat extending over the whole globe, especially over the 
whole northern hemisphere. 
Now to account for the sun's reaching the polar regions 
so as to be vertical or nearly so over Spitsbergen, Melville 
Island, &c, Captain Drayson will demonstrate that there is 
a movement of the earth which has hitherto not been fully 
understood. This movement being a slow secular inversion 
of the poles, which after a series of years brings the polar 
regions immediately under the sun. Thus, in the time of 
Hipparchus, 99 years before Christ, the present pole star in 
his catalogue was 12° from the pole, while now it is only 
1° 27', so that there has been a variation in the direction of 
the earth's axis since his time of ten degrees, thirty-three 
minutes. 
And that this change in the position of the earth's axis is 
a probable one, is proved by the positions of the axes in the 
other planets, e.g., in Mercury the sun is directly over his 
polar regions, the very position of the earth's axis at the 
time required for the production of the coal flora. In Uranus 
the north pole is turned completely away from the sun, and 
hence his satellites appear to retrograde, while in reality they 
revolve round their planet in a similar direction to the other 
satellites. I would ask any one to carefully examine the 
positions of the planets as above sketched out, (Plate II) 
and he will perceive at once that Mercury with the north 
pole pointed directly to the sun, — or even that Yenus, within 
15° of the tropics, at her poles, — would derive a full and suffi- 
cient quantity of heat and light for all the purposes 
demanded ; while the Earth, or Mars, or J upiter, with their 
polar axes in their present positions, would have little heat and 
light in their polar circles ; while the south poles of Uranus 
