Read an Excerpt

. copy. It has not only thrown wonderful light upon the physical and chemical constitution of the sun, fixed stars, and nebulae, and comets, but it holds out a prospect of obtaining definite evidence as to the nature of our so-called elementary bodies. The application of the generalisations its reia- of thermotics to the problem of the dura- geology. tion of the earth, and of deductions from tidal phenomena to the determination of the length of the day and of the time of revolution of the moon, in past epochs of the history of the universe ; and the demonstration of the competency of the great secular changes, known under the general name of the precession of the equinoxes, to cause corresponding modifications in the climate of the two hemispheres of our globe, have brought astronomy into intimate relation with geology. Geology, in fact, proves that, in the course of the past history of the earth, the climatic condi- tions of the same region have been widely different, and seeks the explanation of this important truth from the sister sciences. The facts that, in the middle of the Tertiary epoch, evergreen trees abounded within the arctic circle; and that, in the long subsequent Quaternary epoch, an arctic climate, with its accompaniment of gigantic glaciers, obtained in the northern hemisphere, as far south as Switzerland and Central France, are as well established as any truths of science. But, whether the explanation of these extreme variations in the mean temperature of a great part of the northern hemisphere is to be sought in the concomitant changes in the distribution of land and water surfaces of which geology affords evidence, or in astronomical conditions, such as those towhich I have referred, is a question which must await its answer from the science of the f...