528 
A Geological Idea of Lord Bacon's. [September, 
the envelope ; it moves it, and produces friction and heat in 
the interstratum, during progressive condensation interrupted 
by expansion. This internal heat keeps the envelope mal- 
leable and pliable, and the tangential force of the sea lifts 
and folds a portion of it into continents equal in weight to 
the sea. The sea gets imbedded between the folds, and 
raises — by arrested motion and an excess of specific gravity — 
land above its level to a mean height of 1018 feet, 1-1478 of 
its own mean depth. 
As the crystal has its angles and faces as results of a past, 
thus has the earth its features as gradual results of the tan- 
gential work of the sea on the envelope, and through it on 
the interior. 
No law is absolute. The law of A is always interfered 
with by that of B. 
No relation of figures or features I give I claim to be 
absolutely correct. Carping at my figures may be some- 
times easy without being wise. 
Poles, equator, polar and tropical circles are features 
bounding zones which are the means for less regularly shaped 
meteorological zones. 
The arc from the pole to its circle is 23 0 28'; the remaining 
arc to the equator is 66° 32'. These arcs are 1 : 2*83. The 
extent of land to sea is 1 .-2*83. The density of the water 
in the sea to that of the envelope, and of the land to the 
mean depth of 1518 feet from sea-level, is 1 : 2*83. The masses 
of the water and the folded land are equal. That water 
contains salts and land rises above the sea are modifying 
details. 
23 0 28' goes twice into 66° 32', or thrice into go°, leaving a 
remainder of I9°34'. In all 2*83 and 3*83 times to complete 
the 3 and 4 we have to borrow 3 0 52' beyond the equator. 
The polar zones are like stones alternately thrown into the 
halves of a pond — they produce waves. 
The centrifugal aCtion of each hemisphere has its mean 
limit in the equator for the whole earth, — not for the sea, 
envelope, or nucleus separately. The 3 0 52' are nodal bands 
between waves 19 0 14' wide, propagated from hemisphere to 
hemisphere. 
The sinus of an angle of 3 0 52' is 1-2978 of the radius. 
There are connections. The inclination of the axis on the 
orbit and the eccentricity of the orbit are conflicting and 
compromising subjects of sovereign gravity. 
If the density of the earth had been equal north and 
south, not west and east, and the equator had coincided with 
the orbit, and the relative densities of sea and envelope had 
