347 
producing thereby all the phenomena requisite for a practically universal 
deluge. 
As the reeling or nutation recurred, land which at one time was near the 
Pole and stood high above the water would at another stage of the nutation 
be plunged below the water as it approached the Equator, the climate being 
arctic under the former and tropical under the latter condition ; further, these 
alternations of depression and elevation and changes of climate would recur 
at intervals, until again the axis of rotation of the external crust coincided 
with that of the internal mass. It would be most improbable that the same 
spot of the crust would return to its former position at the Pole. The new 
position of the Pole, in the good providence of God, is such, that a wonderful 
balance between the accumulation of ice and its dissolution is maintained, the 
chief regulating element being the tidal waters, diverted by the projecting 
continent of America, the warmth of which moderates the climate of all 
countries bordering on the Atlantic, influences materially that of Spitzbergen, 
and slowly, it would appear, thaws the remaining old icc of the Glacial period. 
This theory affords a simple explanation of the changes of climate and 
physical geography which are proved to have occurred during the Glacial 
period, but have not received satisfactory explanations ; accepting this theory 
there remains no occasion to estimate geological periods of time by allowing 
2^ feet in a century as the rate of upheaval and depression of the surface 
through hundreds and thousands of feet. 
No such sudden destruction by water as that which overtook man at one 
period of his existence could have occurred under such gradual alterations of 
relative level of land and water. It is necessary to accept a cataclysm as the 
cause of such a catastrophe, aud it is my firm belief that such a cataclysm did 
occur. 
The extraordinary physical forces in operation during the Glacial, but un- 
known in any preceding period, are sufficient to account for all the geological 
peculiarities of that era, besides the crushing-up of mountains, the voluminous 
discharge of molten matter from the earth’s interior, the sweeping and dis- 
tributing power of water of varied depths moving over submerged hill and 
dale, here denuding, there accumulating, which forces were common to 
previous geological periods ; there was introduced the force exerted by ice 
resting and in motion as a river on the surface of the grounds, floating freely 
or trailing along the bed of the ocean, leaving distinctly the marks of its past- 
action on solid rocks and distributing extensively over the continents of 
Europe, Asia, aud America boulders, clay, gravel, and sand. It is unnecessary 
to enter into details of the operation of this glacial force. The like operations 
still continue, but not on the same grand scale. It is not philosophical to 
argue that all things continue as they were, and that we must take the natural 
operations of to-day as the measure of those which have passed away. “ The 
common ways of river denudation ” are insignificantly minute when compared 
with the ways of the enormous degrading, transporting, and dispersing forces 
to which I have referred. 
2 B 
YOL. XIII. 
