I'UESIUENT’s adduess. 
167 
endeavour this evening has been to draw your attention to the 
following points : — 
That through the secular cooling of our Planet the Poles became 
first fitted for the reception of life. 
That in Palajozoic times the North Pole possessed a climate as 
warm, at least, as that now enjoyed at the Equator. 
That the temperature at the North Pole during the Miocene 
period, though gradually cooling, supported a flora which has spread 
southwards. 
That in all probability animal life likewise originated at the 
Poles, and spread towards the Equator. 
That the difference of length in day and night at the North 
Polo is not now, ami need never have been, a bar to the existence 
of plant and animal life there, and that the abnormal extension of 
the northern ice, during the Glacial episode, was due to the 
accumulation of snow and ice-cap on the old hind-surfaces around 
the North Polo, and its retreat, to the depression of the land, and the 
influx of the warm waters of the Atlantic to the Polar Basin, and 
consequent removal of glaciation ; whilst a continuous rise of the 
land, and conseipicnt shutting Out of the oceanic waters, would in 
the course of time reproduce another Glacial epoch. 
