1881.] A Geological Idea of Lord Bacon's. 527 
Lord Bacon was not a physicist, and not at all a mathe- 
matician, but surely a man of great philosophical instindts. 
As Englishmen may be proud of this countryman, some 
scientists amongst them may perhaps feel disposed to atten- 
tively read an article which shows the causation in the 
position and distribution of these points. 
A planetary mass divided into planets, similarly as did 
Biela’s comet. 
The earth turned off the moon and rings, as Saturn has 
got them. 
The rings returned to the earth, and spread out into 
envelopes. 
Rings away from the planet are disturbed by sun and 
moons, so are envelopes in contadt. A distant ring revolves, 
and envelopes in contadt continue to revolve. Their slack- 
ened rotation generates fridtion and heat, which depend on 
the relative weights, densities, molecular conditions, and 
stages of evolution. 
The polar axis is not only shorter than the equatorial, but 
both axes have a long and a short branch. Measured me- 
ridians confirm this. This means unequal density of the 
hemispheres ; consequently an unequal distribution of sea, 
west and east, south and north. The eccentricities of both 
axes are the same ; they co*determine the mutual adtion of 
the inner planet with its envelopes. South and west are the 
more condensed hemispheres ; they exceed north and east 
in the mass of sea, not only in proportion to surfaces of sea, 
but they possess by a regionally greater depth of sea a fur- 
ther excess of water, amounting for each of the respedtive 
hemispheres to 1-29*78 of the mass of the sea. 1-29*78 of 
the axis of the orbit is the difference of greatest and least 
distance of earth and sun. The eccentricity of the polar or 
equatorial axis is 1-3546 the square of the eccentricity of 
the orbit. The sea, in the mean 15,180 feet deep, is 1-3546 
of the mass of the earth. 
The fluid remnants of descended rings of catastrophic 
rains, or downpours of solids, liquids, and gases, during 
periods of earthquakes, eledtric commotions, and magnetic 
constitutions, are the sea. 
The sea is an envelope decomposed into four rings, — two 
equatorial, two polar. 
The solid envelope has a less density than the mean one 
of the earth. It is separated from a nucleus by a mere 
elastic stratum, becoming locally solid, liquid, and gaseous. 
The envelope thus may slide on the nucleus. 
The weight in motion of the sea rings adts tangentially on 
