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would be two causes conjointly conspiring to account for the Polynesian 
continent, and an extension of Central America (eastward), beyond the West 
Indian isles ; perhaps thus realizing the famed Atlantic isle. A subsequent 
change in the inclination of the axis, on the melting of the ice-caps taking 
place, there would be a tendency to restore the equilibrium as it was at first ; 
the equatorial region would sink, and the sea would rise ; and as the centre 
of gravity shifted under these circumstances, the sea would overflow many 
low-lying countries ; so that there would be local effects of inundation at 
different places, more or less, all over the world. In support of this theory, 
Mr. Belt alludes to Easter Island, in the south-east Pacific Ocean, a small 
island, but in which are gigantic idols quite out of keeping with the extent 
of land and the existing population, but which, if forming the summit of a 
hill, or low mountain overlooking a vastly extended plain, then their 
position and character is comprehensible. Every nation has some account of 
a deluge, and Mr. Belt’s theory seems, at all events, to be in harmony with 
the facts of a universal inundation. You will therefore see that in the 
glacial phenomena there are results just the same as Professor Challis has 
deduced from an assumed increase in subterranean heat ; but the advantages 
of the glacial theory are that you have evidence of an enormous abstraction 
of water from the sea, and then a subsequent return, and which could not 
be effected without great disturbance in the distribution of land and sea. 
A very good account of these theories will be found in the address of the 
President of the Geological Association for the present year. 
Kev. W. B. Galloway. — I am very glad to have heard Mr. Henslow’s 
remarks, and to have received from him the information, that a change in 
the earth’s axis is now regarded as a probable cause of the Deluge by some 
geologists, because I brought it forward myself some time ago, and some 
points referred to to-night appear to me to require an allusion to some 
of the particulars which I then brought forward. In the Book of Job 
there is a cause assigned for the shaking of the wicked out of the earth, 
and that cause is a change in the earth’s axis. The passage in Job runs : 
“ Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days, and caused the 
day-spring to know his place, that it might take hold of the ends of the 
earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it ? ” Now the sunrise or 
day-spring being caused to know its place, and to take hold of the ends of 
the earth, indicates a change of its place and annual range ; and a change of 
the place and range of sunrise must be due to a change of the earth’s axis. 
It must necessarily be so ; the inclination of the sphere to the ecliptic being 
the cause of varying of the place of sunrise, sometimes to the north and 
sometimes to the south ; and the increased range of its varying to points 
much further to the north, and further to the south of due east, so as, in a 
manner, to “ take hold of the ends of the earth,” being a necessary effect of 
the increased obliquity of the earth’s axis. That remarkable passage we can 
place in connection with the Gentile tradition. We know that Pythagoras 
in his travels picked up many truths from patriarchal tradition, which he 
