3 
for computing the age of any given land or formation can be 
obtained from upheavals. 
I need not refer to the slow upheavals along the coast of 
Greenland, Norway, and Sweden, as they are neither uniform 
nor continuous in their movements. Lands often rise gradually 
for a certain time, then remain stationary at the same elevation 
above the sea, and again subside. No computations can be 
founded on such irregular and uncertain mutations. I alluded 
to the upheavals in Australia in my former paper, to which I 
beg reference. I shall next refer to another movement of the 
earth which has not been duly attended to, although it is the 
most important of all the changes ; viz., the movement north - 
ward , which produces climatal and geographical changes. The 
evidence of the lands having not only upheaved, but also 
moved en masse from the tropics to the Arctic region, is as 
strong and conclusive as the proofs of their having been 
raised from the deep. 
Before proceeding to consider in detail the northerly move- 
ment of the lands, I shall give a brief description of the 
currents of the ocean, and endeavour to show that terrestrial 
matter generally is subject to the same law of movement from 
pole to pole. The currents of the ocean are well described 
in Captain Maury's Physical Geography of the Seas , to which 
I beg reference for details. These currents commence in the 
Antarctic region, and after flowing along the various configura- 
tions of the coasts in the Indian, Pacific, and the Atlantic Oceans, 
terminate in the Arctic Circle, and become absorbed therein. 
These oceanic streams carry with them the vegetable forms of 
the southern climes into the Arctic basin, by means of the 
Gulf-stream in the Atlantic, and the Japanese stream in the 
Pacific. 
The northerly actions of the Gulf” and the “ Japanese ” 
streams are so well known as not to require further comment 
on this occasion. The actual rate at which the ocean moves, 
as a whole, from south to north, is not yet ascertained ; but 
there are strong reasons for believing that the entire ocean 
changes place in less than seven years. 
A bottle thrown into the sea off Cape Horn in 1837 was 
picked up on the coast of Ireland a few years afterwards. 
This northerly action of the ocean alone causes very im- 
portant geological changes, inasmuch as it not only carries the 
debris of the vegetation of different climes to the northern 
hemisphere, which become deposited in high latitudes, but it 
also conveys a large amount of fine sand and mud, held in 
suspension, from the mouths of great rivers (like the Amazon 
