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streams is dependent upon difference of temperature, the equa- 
torial waters would be deflected more into the northern than 
into the southern hemisphere, and thus the eccentricity, by influ- 
encing indirectly the physical causes at work, may be regarded 
as materially influencing the conditions which produce the last, 
and probably all other yet more ancient glacial epochs. 
The temperature of our country is known to depend upon 
the influence of those oceanic waters which are warmed in the 
Grulf of Mexico. When — as they have done as we suppose for 
80,000 years — these waters come to our shores charged with a 
certain residue of that tropical heat which they have gathered 
by convection from equatorial lands, they yield it up for our 
benefit, producing that equalisation of temperature in which 
the British Islands rejoice. 
If, in the progress of change — which is the law of nature — 
there eventually should occur an alteration in the eccentricity 
of the Earth’s orbit, and consequent upon it, a deflection of 
the Grulf Stream southward, the hills and valleys of now fertile 
England would again be brought under the influence of ex- 
treme continuous cold, and there would be a renewal of another 
Grreat Ice Age. 
