THE ROBERT E. COWAN COLLECTION 
 
 I'RBSKNTED TO THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CHLIFORNIR 
 
 HY 
 
 C, p. HUNTINGTON 
 
 JUNE, 1807. 
 
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4 
 
 1 
 
 THE 
 
 <^ 
 
 COOLING GLOBE; 
 
 * 
 
 1 
 ! 
 
 THE MECHANICS OF 
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 1 
 
 BY 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 - 1 
 
 C. F. WINSLOW, 
 
 1I.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "COSMOGRAPHY.-" -'PREPARATION- OF THB EARTH FOR THE IXTELLECTCAL RACES." | 
 
 AXD OTHER DISCOURSES. 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 •• And Grod said. Let the waters under the heaven be gath 
 let the dry land appear; and it was s< 
 
 ■ 
 
 ered together unto one place, and 
 )."' — Gex. i. 9. 
 
 f OFTM '^ \ 
 
 UNIVERSITY J 
 
 \ 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 
 WALKER, WISE, AND 
 
 COMPANY. 
 
 245, Washisgtox SxRiirr 
 
 
 1865. 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
THE 
 
 COOLING GLOBE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE MECHANICS OF GEOLOGY. 
 
 BY 
 
 C. F. WINSLOW, M.D., 
 
 AUTHOR or " COSMOORAPHY," "' PRKPARATIOX OK THE EARTH FOR THK INTKU.KCTL'AL RACES. 
 AND OTHER DI.SCOURSES. 
 
 And God said. Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and 
 let the dry land appear; and IT WAS SO."' — Gkn. i. 9. 
 
 OPTKK 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 C^LIFORH\L 
 
 BOSTON: 
 WALKER, WISE, AND COMPANY, 
 
 245, Washington Street. 
 
 1865. 
 
1 
 
 Ts^^i 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 
 
 Walkei!, Wise, and Company. 
 
 In the Clerk'.s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PRESS OF .TOHX WILSOX AND SON, 
 
 15. Watki: Street. 
 
TO 
 
 HIS EXCELLENCY, JOHN A. ANDREW, 
 
 ffirobernor of fHassacijusctts, 
 
 WHOSE ENLIGHTENKD STATESMANSHIP — EVERYWHERE CONSPICUOUS IN THIS REMARK 
 ABLE ERA OP OUR NATIONAL HISTORY — HAS BEEN ESPECIALLY" DISTINGUISHED 
 BY FORESIGHT IN POSTERING PUBLIC EDUCATION, IN POUNDING TEM- 
 PLES OP LEARNING, AND IN ENCOURAGING THE PROGRESS OP 
 GENERAL SCIENCE, — THE ONLY SOLID BULWARKS OP 
 AMERICAN CIVILIZATION AND COMMON LIBERTY, 
 THE VERY '' ARK OF THE COVENANT " 
 OP OUR REPUBLIC, 
 
 ^)^t Mobmg ^agcs mt rtsptttfuUg J^cbuakb 
 
 BY HIS F H I E N D, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 The two memoirs herewith presented to scholars and 
 thinkers, and intended to be permanent contributions to 
 knowledge, were read before the Boston Society of Nat- 
 ural History: the first, at the meeting of Oct. 5, 1859 ; 
 the last, at the meeting of Jan. 4, 1865. 
 
 The geological proposition which I have attempted to 
 demonstrate is, that the globe, when first giving birth 
 to life and rudimentary forms, was much larger in all 
 its diameters than now. 
 
 When walking in darkness, we step timidly. When 
 the sun rises, we tread boldly. No doubts now remain 
 in my mind upon the important subject involved in the 
 subsequent discussions. 
 
 - When led to, and while pursuing, researches which 
 have ended in these disquisitions, the opinions of the 
 ancients were unknown to me. Geology, in its solid 
 conceptions, however, is only of recent birth. It be- 
 longs to this century. It is still in infancy ; and the 
 indefatigable labor of the largest intellects will be long 
 in bringing it to maturity. The opinions of antiquity 
 
b INTRODUCTION. 
 
 are interesting, only as showing the sagacity of acute 
 minds. They are valuable, because, although without 
 scientific foundations or forethought when recorded, 
 they were prophetic, and exhibit a clear comprehension 
 of geographical facts, lost sight of, indeed, in this truly 
 scientific age, in the development of geological and as- 
 tronomical theories. 
 
 Plato imagined that an immense space where the At- 
 lantic Ocean is now extended, was filled by land. 
 
 Pliny transmits the traditions of many sudden sub- 
 mergences of cities, lands, and mountains, and of the 
 production of bays and gulfs, by this cause. He says, 
 " The earth feeds upon itself," — a crude idea, but point- 
 ing toward truth. 
 
 Nothing was positively known by the ancients : and 
 nothing more was imagined, until the true scientific 
 period, ushered in by Copernicus, began to dawn ; when 
 Leibnitz, the first to perceive that our planet originated 
 in a molten state, inferred that, in cooling, it must neces- 
 sarily shrink. He truly imagined the mechanism by 
 which its irregularities of surface ha-ve been produced ; 
 that, in shrinking, immense caverns would be formed, 
 into which the surface w^ould sink, thereby forming 
 oceans, and leaving land above water. This was in 
 1683. Nothing was thought of these ideas. 
 
 Deluc, in 1779, reiterated the same conjectures. But 
 geology, like all science, needed facts for its organiza- 
 tion into system ; and, at that time, geology, as a science, 
 did not exist. Deluc and his views were forgotten. 
 
 Within the last fifty years, scientific inquiry has been 
 active and fruitful. The necessity felt by enlightened 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 governments for investigating the resources of their do- 
 mains has led to geological surveys, employing some 
 able observers, and ending in solid acquisitions of knowl- 
 edge. But from these acquisitions has sprung a science 
 vitiated by the opinions of modern European geologists, 
 that all visible lands have been upheaved from the bot- 
 tom of the seas. 
 
 The object of the following discourses is to overthrow 
 these opinions, to place Geology beyond theory, and to 
 establish it, as a science, on solid foundations ; in a 
 word, to Americanize it. 
 
 tH^ 
 
^ 
 
 GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 READ BEFORE THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
 Wednesday Evening, Oct. 6, 1859. 
 
GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 Perhaps nothing has so much retarded the solid prog- 
 ress of geology as a single aphorism laid down by Sir 
 Isaac Newton, and accepted by subsequent astronomers. 
 He concluded, after certain mathematical computations, 
 that the unequal diameters of the earth at its poles and 
 equator were the result of centrifugal force exerted at 
 the equator, in consequence of planetary rotation. 
 
 What mathematicians pronounce unalterable law, 
 speculative philosophers and the boldest thinkers shrink 
 from questioning. 
 
 For nearly two centuries, the present obliquity of the 
 earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic has been main- 
 tained by astronomers as a stable fact ; and the physical 
 results of unceasing rotation are supposed to become 
 more pronounced and permanent from age to age. 
 Even within three years, an eminent geologist of the 
 United States has declared his conviction, that the North- 
 American continent is undergoing steady geological de- 
 velopment from the embryonic form impressed upon the 
 earth's crust as it began to shrink by the radiation of 
 
12 GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 its primal heat. More recently still, a noted Harvard 
 professor of mathematics has announced an opinion, 
 based on purely geographical considerations, sustaining 
 this view ; and he expresses the conviction, on what he 
 considers indubitable proof, that the obliquity of the 
 earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic has never under- 
 gone the slightest change since the dawn of creation. 
 Indeed, the eternal fixation of the earth's axis at an 
 inclination of 23° 28' to the plane of its orbit seems 
 to have become a settled astronomical idea ; and the 
 explanation of all geological anomalies, such as the lo- 
 cation of fossil flora and fauna of tropical species in the 
 temperate and frigid zones, has been bent to conform to 
 it. For instance, to account for the wide distribution of 
 coal measures, it is believed that there was a carbonif- 
 erous age of incalculable duration, during which our 
 planet was bathed in perennial summer, from pole to 
 pole, notwithstanding it then revolved upon its axis and 
 around the sun in the same manner as at the present 
 time. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, geologists have, heretofore, 
 been satisfied with these explanations, and have bowed, 
 without a question, to the doctrines of the astronomers 
 and mathematicians. The views of the former have 
 been shaped to conform to the alleged discoveries de- 
 duced from the demonstrations of the latter. Although 
 naturalists have been constantly filled with wonder at the 
 discovery of fossil organisms wholly out of place, their 
 opinions respecting the origin of these things have been 
 clouded, and their inquiries circumscribed, by the asser- 
 tions of Newton and his followers. They have paused. 
 
GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. ^.-«*«-'^ 13 
 
 as if paralyzed by reverence, at the announcements 
 of that great philosopher ; and reposed, as if the end of 
 knowledge had been reached. They have interrogated 
 nature for no other explanation of these climatic anoma- 
 lies. Devoid, in general, of tastes for cosmical research ; 
 neglecting the study of central forces ; and not compre- 
 hending the form, power, and play of agencies radiating 
 from, or shut up, and quietly or convulsively acting 
 within, the bowels of planets, — they have overlooked 
 those mighty facts and possibilities which would elevate 
 physical geography and geology to their legitimate rank 
 among the sciences ; and which, indeed, would equally 
 contribute to advance our knowledge of astronomy. 
 
 Newton's severe mathematical turn of mind seized 
 upon the smallest facts, and followed them to the most 
 comprehensive conclusions. The falling of an apple led 
 to his immortal discovery of gravitation ; the twirling of 
 a mop, to the centrifugal tendency of matter to move 
 from the poles toward the equator of rotating planets. 
 Thus it will be perceived, that a purely mechanical idea 
 lies at the basis of all computations and experiments, by 
 which it has been demonstrated that the equatorial 
 diameter of the earth is twenty-six miles greater than its 
 polar diameter. Experiment and observation showed 
 a certain inequality ; numbers determined its quantity. 
 The same idea led to telescopic examination and micro- 
 metric measurements of other planets, by which it is 
 ascertained that all are more or less spheroidal ; yet 
 Jupiter's shape, although apparently agreeing with 
 theory, is so strangely outlined as to lead to the belief, 
 that there is not that equable distribution of matter 
 
14 GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 by centrifugal motion, which should be expected in a 
 plastic body subject to so rapid a rotation. 
 
 Admitting the theoretical possibilities of these me- 
 chanical conditions in planetary masses (whose central 
 forces, however, are wholly regulated by solar influ- 
 ences, and not subject to the accidents of centrifugal 
 mechanics, as I have shown elsewhere, in my memoir 
 on the "Central Relations of the Sun and the Earth"), 
 does it follow, that the present inclination of the earth's 
 axis to the plane of the ecliptic is permanent, and that 
 no internal disturbances can arise to suddenly and pro- 
 foundly modify this inclination ? 
 
 I have for some time ventured to entertain doubts 
 upon these points ; and the reasons for these doubts, and 
 for contrary opinions, are derived from the application 
 of the simplest physical laws to this great geological 
 problem. 
 
 An illustration will more clearly open this subject, 
 and will more forcibly present the facts and principles 
 upon which this inquiry is founded. 
 
 Any homogeneous and perfect sphere — a marble, for 
 instance — will fall from a state of rest, in a vacuum, 
 without rotating or changing its position. But change 
 the form of that body to a spheroid, or project moun- 
 tains or sink depressions on various parts of its surface, 
 it will change positions, partially rotating, and fall, with 
 its heaviest hemisphere, that is, with its longest diam- 
 eter, or major axis, toward the earth. The active 
 intellect can multiply illustrations of this sort without 
 end ; and they involve the simplest principles of physi- 
 cal law, — principles which are of universal application 
 to an atom or a world. 
 
GEOLOGICAL REVOLUIIONS. 15 
 
 This planet (discarding rotation) is only a marble of 
 enormous dimensions and heterogeneous nature, falling, 
 in a vacuum, to the sun. Whatever may have been the 
 cause of its primitive irregularity of form, the slightest 
 preponderance of matter at one point of its surface or 
 another will necessarily alter the relations of its poles 
 to the plane of the ecliptic. The diameter of the globe 
 at the equator is twenty-six miles greater than at the 
 poles; and the inclination of its axis to the plane of 
 the ecliptic is adjusted by laws of gravitation so fixed, 
 that it can never alter, unless the relative amount of 
 matter in the hemispheres be disturbed. Should this 
 disturbance ever occur from any cause whatever, or in 
 any manner, the degree of axial inclination must shift, 
 either suddenly or slowly, according to the agency 
 operating to produce disturbance of equilibrium. For 
 instance, suddenly transplant Greenland from its present 
 connection with the bottom of the Atlantic to the south 
 of Australia, what would be the geological and the geo- 
 graphical changes upon the surface of the whole globe ? 
 As small as Greenland is in superficial extent, the earth 
 would instantly feel the disturbance of its equilibrium, 
 and the inclination of its axis to the plane of its orbit 
 would become sensibly aff'ected. The physical results, 
 and changes in distribution of organic life, that would 
 necessarily follow, would be universal in character and 
 extent. Similar consequences would naturally follow 
 the slow elevation or submergence of continents. This 
 conclusion is unavoidable. But the present state of the 
 earth's surface, the vast inequalities of its crust, em- 
 bracing its varied and entire stratilogical phenomena, 
 
16 GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 clearly suggest that all its aspects are wholly indepen- 
 dent of the mechanical results of centrifugal motion, 
 — an idea to which geology, with all its magnificent 
 contemplations, and the great truths to flow from 
 its boimdless developments, has been enchained, since 
 the rocks first claimed the attention of observers and 
 thinkers. 
 
 Having discarded this astronomical impediment to 
 geognostic progress, and laid down a principle on 
 which paleontologists can hereafter proceed with firm- 
 ness and solid success, I will note a few facts, and 
 deduce from them the mechanism by which geological 
 revolutions have been produced, and through which 
 have resulted the present shape of our planet, and its 
 polar relations to the plane of the ecliptic. 
 
 The fixst series of facts to which I would ask atten- 
 tion is that where it is indisputable that the earth's 
 crust, in small areas, has suddenly sunk below sur- 
 rounding levels. Such a spot is Kilauea, embracing a 
 circumference of nine miles, on the slope of Mauna 
 Loa, in Hawaii, where the walls of the pit are six 
 or eight hundred feet in perpendicular depth. This 
 area was ingulfed at some remote period, into the 
 Plutonic caverns of Hawaii ; and around the ridges of 
 its debris, still projecting from the floor of the pit, the 
 lava rises and breaks away and falls, at long intervals, 
 like the tides of the ocean, which rise and freeze around 
 the coast of other half- sunken islands. 
 
 A similar spot is Thingvalla, the seat of the ancient 
 Althing, in Iceland, well described of late by young 
 Lord Dufi'erin. This, however, is greater in extent 
 
GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 17 
 
 than that of Kilauea ; and, happening to be nearer the 
 coast, it became partly overwhelmed by the sea. 
 
 A portion of the site of old Callao is said to have sunk 
 in an instant, on the 28th of October, 1746. Ships 
 now anchor above its dwellings, and mephitic gas is fre- 
 quently ejected from the bottom of the bay. 
 
 The quay of Lisbon was ingulfed, with equal sudden- 
 ness, on the 1st of November, 1755 ; and a large area 
 near New Madrid, in the Valley of the Mississippi, 
 vanished, in the midst of a terrible earthquake, on the 
 16th of December, 1811, and was overwhelmed by the 
 floods of the river. 
 
 These submergences, preceded by terrific subterra- 
 nean thunders and convulsions, disclose the remarkable 
 geological fact of cavities beneath, of great depth, whose 
 dimensions must be greater than the superincumbent 
 masses received into them. These statements conclu- 
 sively settle the question of subterranean cavities on a 
 small scale ; that is, from two to twenty and thirty miles 
 in extent, into which the superincumbent crust may 
 plunge, and be overwhelmed with water, or with the 
 plastic matter of the nucleus. Records of phenomena 
 of this kind are very numerous. 
 
 From these minor facts, it is easy to ascend to greater, 
 and show the same relation of superficies to internal 
 cavities and canals, by the evidence of strata of identical 
 character, exposed on opposite coasts, headlands, and 
 many river channels, in consequence of the submer- 
 gence of intervening areas of the crust. The great 
 lakes of North America, the Mediterranean Sea, the 
 German Ocean, and the English Channel, are but 
 
 3 
 
18 GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 larger expressions of the same geological events. The 
 limestones of Cuba and Yucatan are but continua- 
 tions of the former sea-bottoms of North America ; the 
 sudden collapsing of which upon the condensing nu- 
 cleus of the planet gave origin to the Gulf of Mexico, 
 and Caribbean Sea, with its linear groups of isolated 
 fragments, and to the southerly dip of this northern 
 continent, — in the midst of which catastrophe, as the 
 globe swayed from its former equipoise, the oceans 
 swept to the new equator, and perhaps effected that 
 remarkable drift action so conspicuous in our hem- 
 isphere. 
 
 From these illustrations, we may ascend to still more 
 grand displays of similar submergences, where the evi- 
 dence is clear and positive, although different from that 
 heretofore presented. I will first allude to the ingulf- 
 ment of a continent that once occupied the present 
 area of the Indian Ocean, the scanty vestiges of which 
 manifestly disclose its former existence. Among these 
 vestiges is the remarkable island of St. Paul's, which I 
 have personally explored. It is the top of some vast 
 volcanic mountain, like Cotopaxi, or Popocatapetl, 
 which lingers above the waves as did the chimneys 
 of some of the houses of old Callao, for a while after 
 its submergence. One side of the crater was split off 
 in the catastrophe, and sank many hundred feet deeper 
 than the existing island, admitting the sea more than a 
 hundred feet deep within its basin ; while a needle of 
 immense dimensions stands out from the main land, 
 an unmistakable sign of the nature of the accident, and 
 contradicting all possibility of upheaving action. 
 
GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 19 
 
 So, in the broad Pacific, the long chains of atolls, as 
 ingeniously divined by Darwin, plainly betoken the ex- 
 istence of submerged mountain-ridges, and of craters, 
 which, in former ages, played an important part in 
 throwing off the heat of the shrinking nucleus, and pre- 
 paring the globe for the destructive cataclysms which 
 have divided the geological ages. The evidence of 
 sunken craters, derived from lagoon formations, is 
 strengthened by the half-sunken crater of St. Paul's, 
 in the Indian Ocean, just described ; while, the coral 
 chains of the Laccadives and Maldives, further north, 
 are only a repetition of the same phenomena, much 
 more largely distributed, in the tropical latitudes of the 
 Pacific. 
 
 Partial subsidences of great areas are as palpable 
 as total submergences. The general dip southward of 
 North America is a remarkable example of this ; and 
 minor ones are as numerous as the water-sheds and syn- 
 clinal valleys throughout the planet. 
 
 But the question will naturally be asked in this stage 
 of our inquiry. What substantial evidence now exists of 
 empty spaces beneath the crust ? — what more than the 
 mere presumption of their former existence derived 
 from appearances of Kilauea, the great lakes, British 
 Channel, and other illustrations 1 
 
 The reply to this question immediately brings into sys- 
 tematic requisition an important series of facts heretofore 
 neglected by physicists ; those remarkable subterranean 
 thunders long observed, many of which are noted in Hum- 
 boldt's writings, and have been heard by my informants 
 in the mountains of California, and by myself in the 
 
20 GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 western part of Mexico, unaccompanied with the slight- 
 est perceptible motion of the ground.* I need hardly 
 refer to the records of science to recall the terrible 
 thunderings, which, on the 12th of April, 1812, sud- 
 denly startled the inhabitants of Venezuela, and were 
 heard over an area of ninety-two hundred square miles ; 
 while over six hundred miles distant, in the north- 
 east, the volcano of St. Vincent poured forth a copious 
 stream of lava. By this phenomenon, we may safely 
 declare, in, view of the present state of our knowledge, 
 that the eruption of molten rock into a vast cavern, or 
 chain of caverns, deep down below the bed of the Car- 
 ibbean Sea, found its way to the surface, among the 
 West-India Islands, decomposing water or atmospheric 
 air, and igniting explosive gases in its passage ; which 
 reverberated through, and plainly disclosed, the exist- 
 ence of enormous voids underlying the northern and 
 eastern portions of South America. 
 
 A similar phenomenon occurred, in 1744, in New 
 Grenada, where subterranean sounds resembling the 
 discharge of cannon w^ere heard over a large area ; 
 
 * Since the composition of this discourse, the author has extensively travelled in 
 the Andes and the coast-regions of South America, where he has observed these phe- 
 nomena repeatedly. In the Andes, at Riobamba, the terrific subterranean thunder- 
 ings were very frequent, and seemed to proceed from the direction of the violently 
 active volcano of Sangai, over thirty miles distant. These profound bellowings, rolling 
 along for indefinable distances, and reverberating with continuous rumblings, were 
 generally unaccompanied with the slightest motion. Sometimes, however, there was 
 sensible quivering of the ground, which I have felt in the stillness of night, while lying 
 in my bed in Riobamba, and when I have been travelling during the da}'. I have 
 observed the same phenomena, also, both west and north of Cotapaxi, when I sup- 
 posed they proceeded from the subterranean caverns extending beyond the flanks of 
 this active volcano. 
 
 Similar phenomena I have observed often at Guayaquil, where the sounds and 
 motions appeared to come from the direction of the Pacific, following up the Gulf, and 
 proceeding eastward towards the Andes. I have felt the jars of these subterranean 
 detonations, while on board a steamer lying in the river. 
 
GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 21 
 
 while Cotopaxi, eighteen thousand feet higher, and 
 four hundred and thirty-six miles distant, sent forth 
 a violent eruption. Here is another suggestive fact, 
 like the preceding one, where molten floods, moved by 
 repulsive forces, were elevated nineteen thousand feet 
 above the level of the sea, and perhaps three hundred 
 thousand feet from their source ; and, in their passage 
 from the central fires, opened communication with im- 
 mense subterranean cavities, exploding gases which 
 resounded several hundred miles, beneath the northern 
 and western part of South America. 
 
 During the violent earthquake of New Grenada, in 
 February, 1835, subterranean thunders were heard 
 simultaneously at Popayan, Bogota, Santa Martha, 
 Hayti, Jamaica, and on Lake Nicaragua. At Carac- 
 cas, they continued seven hours, without any movement 
 of the ground. These facts, with various others, have 
 been collated by Humboldt ; and in the last, as in the 
 other two, the same phenomenon is exhibited, indicating 
 an area of 14° of latitude by 25° of longitude, em- 
 bracing a large portion of Central America, the West- 
 India Islands, and the whole northern part of South 
 America, — an area of one million and fifty thousand 
 square miles, to be more or less undermined, and liable 
 to sudden submergence. 
 
 All these facts — to say nothing of others similar or 
 varied in their expression, and indicating even broader 
 continental ranges exposed to future subsidence — are 
 solid evidences, so far as they can be traced, and applied 
 in all their bearings, to substantiate the geological posi- 
 tion laid down, and the conclusions maintained in this 
 
22 GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 discourse. While they lay foundations for the broadest 
 discussions, they elevate geology into its true position 
 among the sciences, by opening a new field to the 
 philosopher, stored with the boundless wealth of past 
 time. The modus agendi of subsidences has been 
 heretofore only matter of conjecture, and an unsolved 
 problem in the physics of the globe. Leibnitz — that 
 greater than Newton, in the general amplitude of his 
 understanding and acquirements — was the first to sug- 
 gest the original igneous condition of the planet, and 
 its gradual shrinkage from the persistent radiation of its 
 heat. Cordier, more recently, has reiterated this opin- 
 ion, and fancied that it must, as a matter of course, 
 become wrinkled, like a drying aipple, in undergoing 
 this process ; and that thus the strata have been slowly 
 folded, the continents and mountains uplifted, and 
 oceans formed. Geologists generally have settled down 
 upon this theory of upheavals ; and James D. Dana, the 
 most accomplished scientist in this country, has endeav- 
 ored to systematize the idea, by an ingenious disquisition 
 on " Geological Development," which is radically de- 
 fective by reason of its inapplicability to universal 
 conditions. But the illustrations which I have pre- 
 sented, and the facts upon which I demonstrate the 
 modus agendi of sudden ingulf men ts of vast areas, 
 while they exhibit the penetrating sagacity of Leibnitz 
 respecting the effects of radiation of heat, disprove the 
 theory of Cordier, and the speculative developments 
 of Dana ; and present geology to scholars in such as- 
 pects, and based on such principles, that there is no 
 problem, however obscure heretofore, that does not re- 
 ceive a ready solution among its deductions. 
 
GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 23 
 
 By these sudden ingulfments of great areas, the equi- 
 poise of the world would be disturbed, the inclination 
 of its axis to the plane of its orbit would be modified ; 
 the oceans would instantly change their beds, leaving 
 myriads of aquatic animals on dry land, or embedded 
 in drifting sediments, and exposing water-lines on the 
 margins of rivers, lakes, hills, and islands. Terrestrial 
 animals would be suddenly transferred, perhaps swept 
 by floods from temperate to frigid regions. New expo- 
 sures to the solar rays would supervene, profoundly 
 affecting the isothermals, so that the glaciers of the 
 poles would be dislodged, and set in motion over broad 
 regions ; and the theory of moving ice, suggested by a 
 gifted naturalist, which heretofore has been so embar- 
 rassing to geologists, w^ould be transformed into a living 
 and immortal truth. 
 
 From this point of view, also, the more profound 
 secrets of the globe will become better understood ; 
 such as the penetration of the ocean into seething cav- 
 erns, which, becoming vast reservoirs, and retorts for 
 the solution of silex and metals, collapse again in the 
 process of time, and press up their contents through 
 fissures, in the shape of metalliferous-quartz veins ; such 
 also as the origin and phenomena of certain earth- 
 quakes, and of subterranean thunders, of salt mines, 
 of immense petroleum deposits, and, among other 
 things, the unnatural warmth of the gulf- stream, by 
 the return of heated waters from sub-oceanic fissures 
 in the Bay of Mexico. 
 
 It does not absolutely follow, because planets are 
 spheroidal, that thek oblateness springs from the cen- 
 
24 GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 trifugal effects of rotation. It is an established law, 
 that all bodies fall with their major axes, or heaviest 
 diameters, toward their centre of gravity ; and since it 
 is now unquestionably ascertained that causes lying 
 within the bowels of the earth, and wholly indepen- 
 dent of the action of centrifugal force, are periodically 
 operative to change its shape, and modify the inclination 
 of its axis to the plane of its orbit, it becomes an object 
 of interest to geologists to inquire if the earth's diam- 
 eter at the poles was not even greater when organic life 
 was first created than its present equatorial measure- 
 ment. It is reasonable to believe that it must have 
 been so ; for, when all the greater and minor changes 
 which can be readily traced are contemplated in the ag- 
 gregate, I must confess my conviction, that the planet has 
 diminished many miles, in all its diameters, since or- 
 ganic forms were first introduced into its seas ; and, if 
 so, it becomes self-evident, that those seas, from being 
 very shallow, and of universal distribution in the primal 
 ages, have become deeper, and divided by ever- changing 
 coasts, sweeping, with every modification of the earth's 
 equipoise, over old lands, and collecting into new basins, 
 until their present geographical limits were defined by 
 the last great catastrophe, which, judging from recent 
 discoveries, must have occurred since the creation of the 
 human race. These events must be necessary conse- 
 quences of the physical constitution of our planet, and 
 of the action of its central forces ; and I have little 
 doubt that the further pursuit of this inquiry will lead 
 to a certain sort of chronological accuracy respecting 
 those grand dynastic revolutions, which, in the his- 
 
GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 25 
 
 tory of the globe, have divided its geological epochs, 
 when new conditions of climate, surface, of magnetic 
 and organic forces, springing from its successively 
 new and nearer relations to the sun, combined for the 
 production of new and more elaborate forms of vegeta- 
 ble and animal life. So numerous are the evidences of 
 vast continental revolutions that it is physically impos- 
 sible that the equipoise of the planet should not have 
 been many times profoundly disturbed ; and, if so, the 
 present inclination of its axis to the plane of the eclip- 
 tic must be an event of comparatively recent occurrence. 
 The evidences derived from earlier geological conditions 
 leave no doubt of the earth's former polar, or almost 
 polar, relations to the sun's vertical beams. 
 
 The various inclinations of the axes of the other 
 planets to the plane of the ecliptic strongly substan- 
 tiate these deductions. The extreme difference of 
 inclination in that of Jupiter, and in that of Uranus, 
 — the first, perpendicular ; the last, almost transverse, — 
 demonstrates causes at work, which, inferring from what 
 we know of the constitution, forces, and revolutions of 
 our own globe, must proceed from the centre of their 
 respective spheres. We find, indeed, the moons of 
 Uranus pursuing retrograde paths ; thus pointing us to 
 the wondrous fact, that his revolutions of surface have 
 been so vast or numerous, as to completely reverse the 
 ordinary and original direction of the poles ; so much 
 so, indeed, as to produce a retrograde rotation, which 
 his satellites, by well-known cosmical laws, must neces- 
 sarily follow. The retrograde motions of the satellites 
 show a remarkable local peculiarity : but, by geological 
 
26 GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 deductions, this anomaly is satisfactorily explained, and 
 a uniformity of design, origin, and construction through- 
 out the system, is established. 
 
 The pursuit of this wide geological inquiry opens 
 into the realms of astronomy ; and we behold the sub- 
 limest of sciences becoming tributary to the rocks for 
 the explanation of its most difficult problems. 
 
 The inequalities of surface in the heavenly bodies 
 nearest the earth show the same causes at work within 
 their bowels, which, acting within this globe, have pro- 
 duced the countless disturbances of its rocks and oceans. 
 Change the relative bulk of matter in either hemisphere, 
 and the planet would sway in space, and turn its longest 
 diameter to the sun. New poles and a new equator 
 would be established. The degree of axial inclination 
 to the plane of the ecliptic would become greater or 
 less ; and according to the extent and suddenness of these 
 changes of equipoise would be the movements of the 
 seas, the exposure of reefs and shallows, and the over- 
 whelming of old coasts. The climate everywhere would 
 be changed, and the destruction of entire genera of plants 
 and animals would ensue ; or, such profound alteration 
 of terrestrial forces be effected, that former ranges of 
 distribution would be annihilated, and old forms would 
 take on new expressions of development, until, at last, 
 as in the present epoch, the subtlest principles of na- 
 ture would become elaborated into a frame-work of 
 atoms, — a compound of all the past in plan, substance, 
 form, force, and instinct, — with an internal fitness added 
 for companionship with the great creative Thought. 
 
RADIATION AND GRAVITATION 
 
 APPLIKD TO 
 
 GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 READ BEFORE THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
 Wedn£si>at Evknino, Jan. 4, 1865. 
 
29 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Radiation, as a cosmical fact of immense and univer- 
 sal significancy, was justly the discovery of Leibnitz. 
 Gravitation v^as equally the discovery of both Newton 
 and Leibnitz. While the latter agent has been allowed 
 its real value, as a force of universal and creative activ- 
 ity, and has elevated astronomy to the loftiest ranges of 
 exact study ; the former has been employed only in a 
 speculative sense ; and, so far, has led theorists to no 
 knowledge of its truly practical and effective agency, as 
 a co-worker with gravitation, in the present economy 
 of the physical universe. The nebular theory in as- 
 tronomy, and the upheaval theories in geology, have 
 exhausted the wits of their advocates ; although physi- 
 cal facts are known, which, if candidly weighed, would 
 reduce all these speculations to absurdity. 
 
 The time has arrived for ingenious theories, however 
 renowned their authorship, to yield to the commanding 
 voice of inexorable nature. 
 
 The effects produced upon our planet by the radia- 
 tion of its heat are only counterparts of circumstances 
 transpiring in all planets, and in all cosmical masses, 
 
 ^ OP THK > 
 
 <^^IVERSITY 
 
30 PREFACE. 
 
 however vast their dimensions, or however remotely 
 separated from each other. While gravitation pervades 
 all nature, and, however atomic in its accommodations, 
 is, nevertheless, a strictly astronomical and world-sustain- 
 ing agent ; radiation, more local, assumes cosmological 
 functions, and becomes the world-maker and world-per- 
 fecter. As will be seen in the following discourse, it 
 prepares the globe for those sudden and terrific revolu- 
 tions which end in preparing its surface for new forms 
 and races of plants and animals. Studied from this 
 point of view, it becomes magnified into a great visible 
 and practical fact, no longer to be overlooked by geolo- 
 gists. It is the veritable fulcrum of their science ; and 
 is as important to the progress of their department of 
 knowledge as gravitation has been to the developments 
 of astronomy. Both are equally efibctive forces in the 
 hand of God. Both were the handmaidens of his 
 power, when Chaos sprang to light and life. Both 
 are the angels of his love and wrath. Both silently 
 obey his mandates in the evolution of progressive good. 
 
31 
 
 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION 
 
 APPLISD TO 
 
 GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 I HAD the honor, on the 5th October, 1859, to read a 
 memoir before this Society, advocating a system of ter- 
 restrial changes different from the current theories of 
 geology. It attracted no attention, received no notice, 
 and excited no discussion. The views then advanced 
 were the result of much reflection upon the struc- 
 ture' of the earth, after extensive travel, and vigilant 
 observation of its surface. Larger opportunities for 
 investigation have only confirmed the general views 
 at that time initiated ; and I now, respectfully and 
 earnestly, invite the attention of geologists and physi- 
 cists to that subject, as I shall herein present it, and 
 solicit them to examine it in all its aspects and devel- 
 opments. 
 
 Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and 
 believed in the straitest doctrines of the Jews. But 
 questionings at last fell upon him as he journeyed ; and, 
 after groping awhile in darkness, his eyes suddenly 
 opened to marvellous light and truth. Geology has 
 its Qamaliels ; and we have all been brought up at 
 
32 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 their feet. The doctrine of upheavals by slow or ac- 
 tive igneous processes is an established idea among all 
 scholars and theorists ; and it is as firmly fixed in the 
 minds of geologists as were the law and prophets in 
 the minds of the Hebrews. 
 
 The general irregularities of the earth's surface ; the 
 broken and dislocated conditions of rocks everywhere, 
 from the highest mountain summit to the lowest fossilif- 
 erous strata and the bottom of the deepest mines ; the 
 presence of marine forms, high above, and far removed 
 from, their ocean homes, and of coal-fields full of 
 tropical plants, under the earth and sea, and in arctic 
 regions, — have, from the days of earliest knowledge, 
 excited speculative curiosity, and, beginning with Leib- 
 nitz, have stimulated thinkers to attempt solutions of 
 these wonderful problems. 
 
 The declarations and authority of two notable men, 
 more than the statements of all others, have retarded 
 the advancement of general knowledge. The person- 
 ages to whom I allude are Moses and Newton. The 
 authority of the former weighs, even now, too much 
 with observers and natural philosophers ; and I am free 
 to say, that the severest truth, as it lies in nature, cannot 
 be faithfully sought nor found, until we rise above all 
 the sacred traditions of the ancients. Indeed, it is only 
 after throwing off all shackles of church and school, 
 and striking the rock with our own inspired rod, that 
 we can obtain that living truth which shall water the 
 earth with its unfailing fountains. 
 
 Whatever may have been the retarding influence 
 of the Jewish legends upon the free expansion of the 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 33 
 
 human intellect, nothing has more hindered the devel- 
 opment of cosmographical truth than the mathematical 
 authority of Isaac Newton. The discoveries of Coper- 
 nicus (born 1473), Tycho Brahe (1546), Galileo (1564), 
 and Kepler (1571), opened modern science for the 
 application of the mathematics. A century later arose 
 Newton and Leibnitz, born about the same time, the 
 first in 1642, the last in 1646, whose studies embraced 
 all the departments of physical nature. Peers in all 
 the elements of intellectual greatness, endowed with 
 similar gifts, equally discoverers of gravitation and of 
 fluxions independently of each other, they appear to 
 have been sent by Providence for the highest special 
 purposes ; and their names must forever remain the 
 proudest in the history of the exact sciences. The re- 
 searches of Leibnitz convinced him that the earth, at 
 some former period, had been in a state of igneous 
 fusion. Its oblateness having been ascertained, New- 
 ton made computations by his new methods of notation, 
 and announced that the centrifugal force incident to the 
 rotation of the planet was just sufficient to produce 
 the diff'erence between its diameters at the poles and 
 equator. This difference is now known to be not far 
 from twenty-six miles. All experiments and observa- 
 tions demonstrate a certain inequality ; but it is now 
 known, that the oblateness of the opposite hemispheres 
 is dissimilar. 
 
 The mathematical deduction of Newton has so influ- 
 enced the opinion of physicists, and the developments 
 of geology, that while all appearances of the earth's 
 
 crust indicate numerous, successive, universal, and sud- 
 
 6 
 
34 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 den changes of climate, and of the aqueous and solid 
 materials which compose and envelop it, no man has 
 ventured to question, or attempted to disprove, the ac- 
 curacy of his demonstrations and conclusions. They 
 remain settled doctrines in the physics of the globe to 
 this hour. Geological theories have been narrowed and 
 moulded by them ; and the alleged experimentum crucis 
 announced by the illustrious author of the " Principia " 
 has given them the appearance of infallibility. 
 
 All irregularities of the earth's surface are studied 
 from this point of view. It is declared by astronomers, 
 that the relation of the axis of the globe to the plane of 
 its orbit has never changed since its creation, except, 
 possibly, by slow and returning librations from tropic to 
 tropic. Astronomy and the mathematics are the oldest 
 sciences ; and have been respected as the most sublime 
 and exact of all the departments of physical learning. 
 Geology, of later birth, has held itself humbly sub- 
 ordinate to them in all its aspects and speculations. 
 Astronomers have promulgated planetary laws, declar- 
 ing them invariable ; while geologists have contented 
 themselves with simple observations of rocks and fossils, 
 and striven to harmonize their doubts with the possible 
 errors of their lawgivers. Astronomers and mathema- 
 ticians having declared the movements and shape of 
 planets unchangeable, geologists have quietly accepted 
 the belief, that the present size of our globe has been 
 always the same. While conscious of many violent 
 changes upon its surface, they have endeavored to 
 reconcile their observations with astronomical theories, 
 and have decided that all geographical and geological 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 35 
 
 phenomena are results of slow and insensible upheavals 
 and depressions occupying indefinite periods of time ; 
 that an upheaving mechanism within the globe is the 
 active agent in producing all visible distributions of land 
 and water and dislocated strata ; that, while one conti- 
 nent comes up, another goes down ; that these changes 
 are alternate ; and that all move in harmony with some 
 general mechanical law which controls the rotation of 
 the earth, swells the equator, flattens the poles, and 
 maintains its axis for ever with the same inclination to 
 the plane of the ecliptic. 
 
 Such is the doctrine, thus expressed in general terms, 
 in which we are educated, and wherein I was myself 
 orthodox, until my eyes were opened as I journeyed from 
 country to country by sea and land. Thus formerly 
 believing, and desirous to account for these phenomena 
 of upheavals ; knowing other planets to be uTegular in 
 form also, and supposing all cosmographical changes 
 and dynamical movements might depend on some unit 
 of force, I, for many years, labored to reduce phenomena 
 observable in comets, in the movements of the heavenly 
 bodies, and in the movements of the surfaces of planets, 
 to philosophical system. In the course of those inves- 
 tigations, I discovered and demonstrated the existence 
 of a repulsive force, co-extensive, co-eternal, co-existent, 
 and co-equal with the force of gravitation ; and published 
 the results of my inquiries in March, 1853. The sug- 
 gestion of such a force was an innovation upon the 
 accepted doctrines of astronomy. As some know, my 
 humble treatise remained unnoticed for several years ; 
 and, at last, was reviled, in 1857, by Benjamin Pierce, a 
 
36 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 famous professor of mathematics, and by Thomas Hill, 
 now President of Harvard University, whom I am proud 
 to honor as a profound and modest geometer, without a 
 living peer. 
 
 It was declared, that the existence of such a cosmical 
 force was not necessary to assist mathematicians to a 
 knowledge of celestial mechanics, and that therefore it 
 did not exist ; that the assertion of such a force vitiated 
 literature, was superfluous in science, and embarrassing 
 to the simplicity so apparent in the nebular hypothesis, 
 and in the general system of nature, as planned, created, 
 and sustained by God. These, perhaps were powerful 
 arguments ; but, fortunately for science and for truth, 
 " The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the Ar- 
 mament showeth his handiwork ; day unto day uttereth 
 speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge:" and 
 the most dogmatic schoolmen, when convinced, bow to 
 this evidence with alacrity ; for on the following year, 
 1858, ever memorable in the annals of astronomy, ap- 
 peared that wonderful comet discovered by Donatti, and 
 which is distinguished by his name. The great equatorial 
 telescope of Cambridge revealed to the elder Bond the 
 positive existence^ in that body, of the cosmical force which 
 I had already demonstrated. But, to make its existence 
 the more certain, Professor Pierce applied the expe- 
 rimentum crucis of his mathematics to Mr. Bond's 
 observations, and, as the result of his analysis, declared 
 repulsion to be, not only a universal cosmical force acting 
 in harmony with gravitation, but that he was its original 
 discoverer, in like manner as Newton was the discoverer 
 of gravitation. Lest any may suppose this curious state- 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 37 
 
 ment an exaggeration, the fact, over his own signature, 
 may be found printed in the "Boston Courier," of 
 Thursday, Nov. 11, 1858. 
 
 I refer to this subject in this connection, only because 
 it is involved in the history of my own special pursuits, 
 and in the developments of this discourse, leaving facts 
 and dates to the annals of American science, which will 
 finally be as severe as fate in settling the merits of all 
 men, when their standing, ambition, and controversies 
 become nothing and avail nothing. 
 
 Being satisfied with the application of my hypothesis 
 to the movements and phenomena of cosmical bodies, and 
 having proven that earthquakes and volcanic eruptions 
 hold inverse numerical relations to the length and sweep 
 of the radius vector, depending therefore upon solar 
 causation, I, nevertheless, have not been able to recon- 
 cile many geographical and geological anomalies observed 
 by myself, with the theory of upheavals as a result of 
 cosmical repulsion. I therefore resolved to study that 
 subject more carefully, and to travel over new fields to 
 confirm or disprove my former views. Those views, 
 borrowed entirely from the geologists, have undergone a 
 radical change. The doctrine which I initiated in my 
 memoir on " Geological Eevolutions," read before this so- 
 ciety on the 5th of October, 1859, I shall now attempt 
 to establish by a more thorough treatment. 
 
 Plainly stated, the propositions are these : That the 
 irregularities of the earth's surface (and of all planets), 
 i.e., our physical geography, are the results of sudden de- 
 pressions and ingulfments by which the globe has, from 
 time to time, been absolutely reduced in size, and violent- 
 
38 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 ly careened, in different directions, toward the sun ; that 
 these events and consequent cataclysms have occurred 
 many times since vegetable and animal life appeared in 
 its primeval seas, rendering it probable, that the earth, 
 when first giving birth to life, was from two hundred to 
 three hundred miles larger than now in all its diameters ; 
 that upheavals, while they really do exist, are excep- 
 tional and limited, as in the case of volcanoes, dikes of 
 igneous material, earthquakes, and slight oscillations of 
 coast, — all which are attempts of the repulsive force to 
 upheave, and resolve matter back to its elementary dif- 
 fusion, counteracted and rendered abortive by gravita- 
 tion. 
 
 Such are the principal points of this thesis ; proofs to 
 sustain which, will be succinctly presented in the subse- 
 quent disquisition. 
 
 Gravitation is admitted by all. astronomers and physi- 
 cists as an established fact and universal law ; and is be- 
 yond discussion. It controls the position of all bodies 
 upon, and suspended around, this planet, and establishes 
 their equilibrium according to the major amounts of 
 matter in their different diameters ; the major diameters 
 always tending toward its centre. It may be illustrated 
 in countless ways by the simple process of weighing 
 bodies of angular and spheroidal forms. Bodies, what- 
 ever their form, size, or weight, when suspended, and free 
 to move in all directions, and settle into equilibrium, will 
 finally assume that position toward the centre of the 
 earth, which coincides with the greatest number of parti- 
 cles ; in other words, with the greatest density or weight 
 of that diameter which is immediately perpendicular to the 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 39 
 
 surface, and in a line with the radius between it and the 
 earth's centre. Let any given body of any size or form 
 or weight be thus suspended, adjusted, and tranquil in 
 equilibrium ; if undisturbed by internal or external ac- 
 tion, it will remain for ever at rest. Let any force within 
 its surface disturb the relations of its various parts, its 
 original equilibrium will be destroyed ; and it will imme- 
 diately change its adjustments to the centre of the globe. 
 Let its form be changed by any external action, either 
 by cutting off a portion ; or, if it be a malleable body, by 
 hammering ; if an iceberg, by melting : the effect will 
 be the same, and instantaneous or slow, according to the 
 application of external force. A thousand acts and ex- 
 periments of this sort, observable in every-day life, will 
 serve to illustrate the operation of this common law. 
 All matter and masses within the range of the earth's at- 
 traction are bound to its centre by this method of action 
 of this law. It is the operation of gravitation in pro- 
 ducing geological changes, which I propose to unfold 
 in proceeding with the sequel. 
 
 That we may study its action in a wider sphere, where 
 it begins to assume cosmographical developments, let us, 
 for a moment, discuss the moon's relation to our planet. 
 We will discard, in this connection, all discussion and 
 speculation respecting the causes of rotation of the 
 heavenly bodies, whether they arise from internal forces, 
 or external impulses communicated by nebular condensa- 
 tions. The moon, as all know, presents one of its hemi- 
 spheres only, to the inhabitants of the earth, and revolves 
 on its axis in the same time that it performs its synodic 
 revolutions. Astronomers consider this " a very singu- 
 
40 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 lar feature." They declare that it belongs to all satellites 
 of all planets, that its cause is unknown, and that " It is 
 one of those dark points which stir us to profounder in- 
 quiry concerning the scheme in which we are." I quote 
 the language of a distinguished European professor of 
 astronomy. Now, if we apply the common law of gravi- 
 tation to this singular feature in our satellite, untram- 
 melled by theory of any sort, the problem will solve 
 itself with extreme simplicity, and, at the same time, 
 illustrate the application of the same law to still wider 
 fields of research. The moon, suspended in space, and 
 in a comparative vacuum above the earth, yields in all 
 its parts to gravitation, and settles in equilibrium toward 
 the earth's centre ; just as an orange will gravitate, or 
 a pear, an anvil, a huge bowlder, or a loaded ship, or an 
 iceberg in the ocean. Orange, pear, anvil, bowlder, 
 loaded ship, iceberg, and moon all follow the same law ; 
 and those of their diameters which contain the most mat- 
 ter, in other words, the greatest weight, assume that 
 position towards the earth's centre, which gravitation de- 
 mands by its inexorable force. Unlike the other objects, 
 however, the moon moves around the earth, free, in every 
 point of its orbit, to sway toward the earth's centre in 
 such a way, that its heaviest or major diameter shall 
 always remain perpendicular to the earth's surface ; and 
 the axis of that diameter will always exist as a projec- 
 tion of the radii of the earth over which it moves in 
 its synodic revolutions. This is self-evident, and cannot 
 be otherwise, if gravitation be a universal truth. 
 
 Of course, this demonstration forcibly illustrates the 
 existence of a great cosmical law of repulsion, now ad- 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 41 
 
 mitted by astronomers, which holds the satellite at definite 
 distances from, while gravitation fixes its relative position 
 to, the earth. Both acting together define its orbit ; 
 while the moon itself, as a simple object suspended in 
 space and weighed by the earth, turns its heaviest axis 
 toward it, like any other mass of matter of different form, 
 size, or composition. 
 
 Thus is explained that anomalous feature in the moon*s 
 motion, or rather in its state of rest, which has hereto- 
 fore been an inexplicable problem, in consequence of its 
 being entangled with projectile and nebular hypotheses, 
 and not being considered a simple body, subject through- 
 out its structure to the law of gravitation. 
 
 Now,. as gravitation is a central force, and is exerted 
 by the sun upon the earth, in like manner as the earth 
 acts upon the orange, pear, anvil, ship, iceberg, and the 
 moon, let us permit ourselves as geologists to boldly study 
 the earth from material, rather than from mathematical 
 and astronomical points of view. 
 
 Discarding, as in the case of the moon, all discussions 
 relative to the causes of rotation in the heavenly bodies, 
 we will consider them as simple masses of matter, with 
 gravitating relations to each other. The larger masses 
 always control the movements of the smaller; and all 
 act upon each other in the directions of their largest or 
 heaviest diameters. Thus you see nearly all the planets, 
 whatever their distances in the remoteness of space, con- 
 fined in the narrow compass of the zodiac ; and every 
 one of them moving toward and around the most pon- 
 derable diameter of the sun. Eclipses, transits, opposi- 
 tions, and conjunctions constantly occurring in our solar 
 
42 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 system, are sufficient proofs of this. And, if this point 
 of philosophical deduction be extended into the broadest 
 cosmical expansions, it will appear plain to the profound 
 thinker, that, while the sun causes the earth's heaviest 
 diameter to preponderate towards its own heaviest diame- 
 ter, the same circumstance must also indicate the region 
 of space where those masses exist, which impress upon 
 the sun its spheroidal shape, and control its equatorial 
 motions. As the object of this paper, however, is not to 
 dilate upon cosmical physics, nor indulge in speculations 
 of any sort, but only to show the relations of celestial 
 dynamics to geography and geology in their physical 
 aspect, I will draw and confine attention to our own 
 planet, and to the changes that transpire upon its 
 surface. 
 
 The equinoctial plane is inclined to the plane of the 
 ecliptic, to the extent of 23° 28' ; but the general ful- 
 ness of the equatorial regions of the earth is such, that 
 astronomers declare it subject, through foreign influences, 
 to periodical librations from tropic to tropic, embracing 
 cycles of many thousand years. Some have supposed 
 that these alternate and insensible oscillations would ac- 
 count for the many changes which have evidently taken 
 place in the sea's level at different epochs. Geologists 
 of practical acquirements cannot perceive, in this as- 
 sumption, sufficient cause to account for many extraordi- 
 nary facts within the range of their observation. But 
 this statement of mathematical astronomers demon- 
 strates the general truth, that the equatorial regions of the 
 planet are the most ponderable ; and that its equilibrium 
 is sensitively affected by perturbing causes. Now, it 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 4S 
 
 matters not, as a necessary consequence, how causes 
 operate upon this globe to produce disturbances in its 
 equipoise. They may act from without. They may act 
 from within. Causes acting externally lie in the do- 
 main of astronomy, and require no attention, especially 
 since such causes have been shown, in my published 
 discussions of earthquake and volcanic phenomena, to 
 end in displays of force, which appear to be re-actionary 
 from the centre to the periphery of cosmical bodies. If 
 discussed at all, they will only add weight to the sequel 
 and burden of this discourse. Causes acting withm 
 the crusts of planets, and their results, become, then, the 
 legitimate and exclusive points for consideration. As- 
 tronomy and mathematics are left behind. Our study 
 becomes purely cosmographical ; and, confined to this 
 globe, brings us face to face with the puzzling problems 
 of physical geography and geology. 
 
 How were the irregularities of the surface of the 
 earth produced] How came undecomposed and entire 
 mammoths enveloped in ice near the north pole ? How 
 came fossil tropical vegetation of more remote ages 
 buried and cropping out in arctic regions? How came 
 conglomerates, hundreds of feet in thickness, and scores 
 of miles in area, massed together, without regard 
 to size or arrangement of material] How came the 
 rocky structure of the globe, and geological deposits 
 of all ages, broken up and dislocated, inverted and 
 slanted in all directions ? Every geological age has had 
 its drifts and its overturns. What agency or mechanism 
 produced them ? How came the remains of extinct ele- 
 phants ten thousand feet above the ocean, and five hun- 
 
44 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 dred feet deep in silt, in one hemisphere ; while, at the 
 antipodes, they are below the sea ? How came moun- 
 tain-chains and old volcanoes submerged and quenched 
 in the fathomless depths of the Pacific and Indian 
 Oceans 1 How came old corals, and marine forms of 
 endless sorts, in the heart of every continent? 
 
 Let us interrogate, — not Moses nor the prophets, not 
 Newton nor the geometers, — but the earth, and let it 
 answer. 
 
 The ancients supposed the earth unchangeable, and 
 tliat it had eternally existed as it appears to us at the 
 present time. Leibnitz first comprehended the evidence 
 that the earth began to exist in a state of igneous fusion, 
 and that life must have had a comparatively recent be- 
 ginning upon its surface. He further conjectured, that 
 its radiation of heat had produced contraction of its 
 mass. From his time to Cuvier, and even to our own 
 time, a succession of physicists and naturalists have 
 stumbled on through the mazes of discovery, puzzled by 
 their own observations, doubting their own senses, and, 
 naturally enough, theorizing upon the problems en- 
 countered at every step. Every great philosopher has 
 astonished his age by his new announcements, and still 
 truth has been only progressive. In the activity and con- 
 fusion of inquiry and speculation, important landmarks 
 in science have been sometimes lost and forgotten. In- 
 deed, in the course of researches, since I began to write 
 this paper, I find that Leibnitz, in his studio, imagined 
 and divined, in 1683, what my own observations by 
 travel have compelled me, for several years, to suspect 
 and search after, and at last conclusively believe, — that 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 45 
 
 vast caverns exist beneath the earth's crust, the roofs of 
 which falling in make large basins which receive the 
 seas, and that what remains above the water becomes 
 dry land and mountains. I find, also, that Deluc, a sa- 
 gacious observer and profound thinker, who studied the 
 Alps and Jura, published similar views in 1779, a cen- 
 tury later. Deluc said, " Ancient continents have sub- 
 sided, the sea, overflowing this depressed space, has left its 
 ancient bed dried up, which forms our continents." But 
 subsequent theorists, adopting the mathematical conclu- 
 sion of Newton respecting the earth as a spheroid, and 
 desirous to harmonize all discoveries in physics and nature 
 with the sacred cosmogony of Moses, have conceived that 
 the internal fires are a mechanism perpetually at work 
 to upheave the crust, while depressions are only conse- 
 quences ; or, that one follows the other so as to allow the 
 earth to maintain the same oblate figure and general size. 
 Notwithstanding the accumulations of knowledge, a cen- 
 tury after Leibnitz, it is said, by an authority no less 
 eminent than Flourens, that Deluc did " not perceive the 
 true mechanism which is the upheavmg of mountains ;" 
 that " he stops at the apparent mechanism^ which is the 
 subsidence of plains." It is possible that Deluc did not 
 understand the re-action of the central fluid mass upon 
 the crust of the planet ; and I think it questionable 
 whether it is yet perfectly understood, although I was 
 once orthodox in the present ruling faith. In the days 
 of Leibnitz, nothing was known of geology, or of the 
 data which compose existing science : even in the 
 time of Deluc, but little progress had been made in this 
 department of knowledge. It is only of late that geolo- 
 
46 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 gy has crystallized into solid system. It now invokes 
 truth, wherever it will explain her problems, and rejects 
 error, wherever it palpably appears. Still, the opinions 
 of Leibnitz, respecting the radiation of heat from this 
 cooling globe, have been applied by Cordier to a theory 
 of condensation, which, more lately, has been explained 
 by Dana, as resulting in corrugations, or puckerings of the 
 crust, as the shrinking of an apple puckers its skin ; by 
 which process, continents and mountain-systems are gradu- 
 ally developed, and elevated from the bosom of the waters. 
 In all the theories of upheaval, however, geologists ad- 
 mit (because the fact cannot be rejected) that violent 
 movements of the seas, and violent convulsions of the 
 whole world, have, at some time or other, supervened. 
 
 Thus the discussion culminates upon the great ad- 
 mitted facts, that the oceans have, from time to time, 
 violently and suddenly moved, and that the planet has 
 been also profoundly convulsed, and its surface over- 
 turned. How can the surface of the globe be violently 
 overturned] How can the oceans be suddenly and vio- 
 lently moved I Isaac Newton and his followers cannot, 
 necessarily, believe in any violent overturns, nor sudden 
 movements of the waters. Geologists, however, have 
 unequivocal evidence that both these phenomena have 
 occurred at various times. Isaac Newton and the as- 
 tronomers say, the earth has always maintained the same 
 obliquity to the plane of the ecliptic, and that alternate 
 summer and winter have prevailed in the northern and 
 southern hemispheres from* the beginning of time. 
 Geologists, supposing these opinions of astronomers to 
 be infallible, and knowing that tropical climates have 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 47 
 
 existed at the north pole, and that glacial cold has pre- 
 vailed in what are now temperate zones, have indulged 
 the unnatural error, that the earth, enjoying universal 
 warmth, once bloomed in universal verdure ; and that, 
 subsequently and quite lately, a climate so intensely cold 
 has prevailed, that our temperate latitudes have been 
 clothed with ice full fifteen thousand feet in thickness. 
 Astronomers and physicists must laugh at such fancies of 
 the geologists ; and geologists must doubt their own reason 
 also, when all know, that if the earth has maintained its 
 present axial relations to the sun, even admitting its 
 librations, its summers and winters, its heats and its cold, 
 would always be nearly the same. The assumption of the 
 astronomers sets at nought the presumption of the ge- 
 ologists. We must, therefore, seek other causes ; and if, 
 in the severity of our inquiry, we find reasons to doubt 
 the positions of both, we must stand upon the facts, and 
 let the mathematicians change their bases of calculation. 
 Geologists will welcome any theory which can solve their 
 problems, reduce their observations into system, and 
 bring their science into harmonious relations with 
 natural laws. 
 
 When geologists abandon all hypotheses, and rely 
 upon the earth alone for evidence, the fact becomes ap- 
 parent, that the globe has never been stable, long at a 
 time, in its equatorial aspects toward the sun. It has, 
 beyond all question, as my observations and reasoning 
 teach me, been subject to sudden and frequent changes 
 of equipoise. It hangs in a vacuum, and is more sensi- 
 tive to disturbances of equilibrium than any thing upon 
 its surface by which we may illustrate the action of 
 
48 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 gravitation. For instance, a ship is loaded for sea, and 
 her drafts are measured. If you shift a ton of her cargo, 
 or her anchor, from bow to stern, or from side to side, she 
 inclines according to the change of weight. But the 
 facility of the ship's motion is impeded by the friction of 
 the medium in which she rests. It is unnecessary to 
 multiply illustrations upon this point. The earth sails 
 in a vacuum, and is not hindered, in any of its move- 
 ments, by any resistance ; and its surface holds the same 
 relations of gravity towards the sun that a ship holds to 
 the centre of the globe w^hile floating upon a calm 
 ocean. Even admitting the doctrine of upheavals of 
 continents by indirect action of the sun or otherwise, 
 the effect would be the same upon its equilibrium, al- 
 though not so great as to admit that the globe, when 
 it first brought forth life, was much larger, and that im- 
 mense and sudden depressions had taken place, into 
 which the oceans had rushed, leaving new land and 
 mountains on a new earth. 
 
 Now, since the earth is a sphere of molten matter, 
 hardened on its surface by radiation of heat ; floats in a 
 a vacuum suspended between the equally powerful, but 
 unequally acting forces of solar repulsion and solar at- 
 traction ; is sensitive to the slightest causes tending to 
 disturb its equipoise ; will turn toward the sun without 
 resistance, like any other mass of atoms free to gravi- 
 tate to an attracting centre, according to its major-axial 
 amount of matter, — now, considering these well-known 
 postulates, none will doubt the sequences, when causes 
 can be shown which will tend to disturb its equi- 
 poise. 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 49 
 
 The positions presented and insisted upon are these : 
 That, when the globe was cool enough to admit the ex- 
 istence of the simpler forms of organized life, it was 
 much larger in all its diameters than it is at this time ; 
 that cataclysms which have occurred, and divided 
 time into geological ages, have arisen from sudden 
 disturbances of the earth's equilibrium, its major axis 
 always violently turning toward the sun ; that these 
 events have supervened many times, in consequence of 
 the progressive radiation of heat having contracted the 
 fluid nucleus, making immense voids between the crust 
 and molten mass, into which the crust has suddenly 
 sunk, creating vast basins whereinto the waters have 
 rushed, resulting in new oceans, new plateaus, islands, 
 and mountains, in the disruption of strata, and in a 
 general wreck of Nature, and so disturbing former re- 
 lations of matter and force as to impart to the globe 
 new equatorial directions ; and that, as a necessary con- 
 sequence of these events, the shorter axes of the globe 
 — what at present are our poles — are not the result of 
 flattening by rotation, but by a sudden falling-in of sur- 
 face somewhere, breaking the symmetry of the sphere, 
 and producing an irregular spheroid : from which it 
 follows, as a final corollary, that each great division of 
 time has been ushered in with new equators and new 
 poles, and that the demonstration of Sir Isaac Newton 
 respecting the oblateness of the planet being the result 
 of its rotation is an error, and unworthy of further con- 
 sideration among geologists. 
 
 Physical geography shows the earth to be irregular 
 and unequal in all its latitudes and longitudes. The 
 
 7 
 
50 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 northern and southern hemispheres are not symmetrical. 
 The antarctic region displays a continent with its sub- 
 terranean caverns vented by a burning mountain ; while 
 the arctic presents a vast depression bounded by abrupt 
 coasts, and containing deep seas which flow between the 
 Atlantic and Pacific. The interior of every continent, 
 and the heart of every sea, smoke with the fire of that 
 everlasting burning, which, ushering in the creation of 
 the planet, proclaims, as eloquently as the voice of God 
 can utter, the processes which have hollowed out its 
 bowels, and fashioned its surface, and fitted it for life 
 and instinct and intelligence. The causes which pro- 
 duce these irregularities and diff'erences lie and act 
 within the globe. All know the eff'ects of radiation of 
 heat. It is the same in a planet as in a furnace full 
 of melted rock or metal. Radiation results in crystalliza- 
 tion, either regular or amorphous. Heat is convertible 
 into magnetism, and is its equivalent everywhere. If, 
 upon the surface of the globe, we be unconscious of the 
 radiation, from its incandescent nucleus, we are not ig- 
 norant of terrestrial magnetism, nor of the necessity of 
 its agency in crystallization. If, then, internal heat as- 
 sume the form and function of terrestrial magnetism, 
 crystallizing all rocks, or metals and their compounds, 
 pouring its surplus currents into space, and kindling the 
 very fires of the sun itself, we no longer wait for knowl- 
 edge of the process through which the molten nucleus 
 of the globe shrinks, and by which vast voids insensibly 
 ensue between the nucleus and the crust. Earthquakes 
 which jar the planet from pole to pole, which prostrate 
 cities by instantaneous blows, which raise a thousand 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 51 
 
 miles of coast a few inches, or a few feet, and let them 
 dawn again ; volcanoes, the merest bubbles and vents of 
 bursting worlds, whose eruptions of all sorts are visible 
 in every hemisphere ; terrible detonations, whose bel- 
 lowings are heard throughout hundreds* of leagues of 
 surface ; the simultaneous extinction of Vesuvius with 
 the submergence of a part of Lisbon ; the agitations of 
 Hecla, and the movements of the waters in the North- 
 American lakes, on Nov. 1, 1755, — all this class of phe- 
 nomena indicates and proves the existence of immense 
 subterranean voids. There is abundant evidence to 
 show that they exist in this age. Their capacity we 
 cannot measure. The present surface of the earth is 
 comparatively recent. The last great cataclysm is, geo- 
 logically speaking, not very ancient. Accumulating 
 evidence compels us to believe, that one of these de- 
 structive events has occurred since the human race was 
 created. The facts I have presented plainly indicate 
 that another is in the course of preparation. Each 
 of these vast periodical voids is filled by coUapsion of 
 the surface. The planet must reel under these sudden 
 and violent transpositions of matter and force, and must 
 oscillate in its orbit to and fro, before settling into 
 stable equilibrium, with new equatorial aspects toward 
 the sun. The major diameter will always preponderate 
 toward the major diameter of the solar centre. The 
 minor diameters are never produced, and never have 
 been produced, by diurnal rotation. The theory on 
 which this result has been asserted fails when applied 
 to the form of some other planets. Every theory 
 which will not cover all well-determined facts is pal- 
 
52 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 pably fallacious, and ought to be discarded by exact 
 science. , 
 
 "When we examine the general configuration of the 
 earth's surface, and especially its mountahi- systems, it 
 becomes apparent that their anticlinals can as well re- 
 sult from depression of their flanks as from the upheaval 
 of their axes ; and, taking this fact in connection with a 
 constantly condensing nucleus and increasing voids be- 
 tween the crust and nucleus, it is much more reasonable 
 to suppose the former mechanism to have prevailed 
 J:han the latter. 
 
 By a more detailed survey of the surface, we observe 
 minor irregularities, so unequal and unconformable in 
 various particulars as to reduce the theory of upheav- 
 als to ABSURDITY ; iuasmuch as we are compelled to 
 regard the upheaving force (which is no other than 
 the molten nucleus) as acting like the irregular dis- 
 charge of so many batteries of different power beneath 
 the crust, forcing up one area more than another to 
 form lesser and greater hills, and, at the same time, 
 acting as an aggregate, pressing as a unit, beneath en- 
 tire hemispheres, so as to elevate certain lines many 
 thousand miles in length, from twenty to fifty thousand 
 feet high from the bottoms of old and deep oceans. 
 
 When this theory is contrasted with that which I am 
 so bold as to advocate, the same facts will be presented 
 under new and more natural aspects. Each succeeding 
 cataclysm, considered as a universal catastrophe, must 
 leave the globe a wreck, like the ruin of some im- 
 mense cathedral whose dome and arches have fallen in. 
 Cornice and frieze, pillar and entablature, broken and 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 53 
 
 dislocated, lie at all angles of inclination, and in the 
 utmost confusion. So it is with the ancient rocks and 
 more modern strata. Only to this mighty wreck have 
 been added the outgushings of molten matter into fis- 
 sures, creating dykes, and the unsparing movements of 
 oceans sweeping loose materials and perishing forms 
 of all sorts, from one place to another, partially covering 
 up and disguising the desolation, and softening the gen- 
 eral outlines of a new world. 
 
 However these remarkable changes may be effected, 
 whether slowly or suddenly, in one way or in another, 
 the equilibrium of the planet must be more or less dis- 
 turbed, and its tropical relations to the sun must undergo 
 slow or sudden modifications. Gravitation is a constant. 
 Geologists know that the form and features of the planet 
 have undergone frequent changes. If Newton has dis- 
 covered an eternal and universal law, the splendor of 
 his mathematical authority cannot subvert nor weaken 
 it. The calculus is positive, if it involve no error in 
 quantity nor development. If the spheroidal form of 
 the earth agree approximately with the deductions 
 of mathematicians from mechanical data, it can only 
 he accidental; for the rotation of the globe has evi- 
 dently no more to do with the flattening of its poles 
 than it has in hollowing out an arctic basin, or elevating 
 an antarctic continent. In the days of Newton, nothing 
 was known of geology. Great minds marvelled only at 
 the extent and revelations of the starry heavens. The 
 world w^as busy in bending all discovery into harmo- 
 ny with the sacred cosmogony. Scientific men have, 
 ever since, been misguided and hampered by sacerdotal 
 
54 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 ignorance and superstition, and by the arrogance and 
 viciousness of ecclesiastical domination everywhere. It 
 is only of late that geologists have dared to question the 
 real antiquity of the world, or attempted to reduce their 
 facts to science. Even now, men looked upon as great, 
 anointed by kings and senates and universities for the 
 splendor of their abilities, are writing books, distorting 
 facts, and wasting time in endeavoring to reconcile 
 modern science with the sublime fancies of the ancient 
 oriental philosophy. It is impossible to wed the living 
 to the dead, or to create a breathing mastodon from an 
 antediluvian skeleton. When geologists stand wholly 
 aloof from astronomical and theocratical dogmas, apply 
 high physics to their special pursuits, and walk boldy as 
 Nature and lleason lead them, many phenomena will be 
 simply accounted for which have heretofore appeared 
 inexplicable, and beyond the reach of man. 
 
 Thus, if we assume that the globe was one hundred 
 or three hundred miles greater in all its diameters when 
 its crust became hard, and was bathed with the earliest 
 seas, and when marine plants and trilobites and mollus- 
 ca began to appear, the lithological characteristics of 
 the palaeozoic ages will be more acceptably deciphered. 
 So, successively, with the carboniferous periods whose 
 vast areas have been folded up and overflowed, and 
 whose fields for reproduction have been so numerous 
 and extensive as to convince us that arctic America, dur- 
 ing those remote ages, presented tropical positions to 
 the sun. It will be the same, if we study the coasts of 
 this modern epoch. Their fresh exposures and abrupt 
 aspects, especially in the Pacific Ocean, where I have 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 55 
 
 obsei-ved them almost uninterruptedly from 38° north 
 to 14° south latitude, and around Terra-del-Fuego, and 
 along Patagonia, in the Atlantic, indicate sudden vio- 
 lence everywhere. The action of dashing waves and of 
 running water has been over-estimated by geologists. I 
 have observed this widely, long, and carefully. The in- 
 dications of violent abrasion do not proceed from this 
 cause, but from the breaking -off of continuous areas, 
 which, in vanishing into depths below, leave behind 
 them portions of their wreck in the form of reefs, or 
 precipitous rocks, or sugar-loaf peaks often projecting 
 hundreds of feet above the waves, like the Eock of Gib- 
 raltar and Apes' Hill on the opposite side of the strait 
 (the Colmnn(£ Her culls of the ancients), which, observed 
 from this point of view, will convince the scientist that 
 they were left standing when the intervening area was 
 submerged, together with the entire bed of the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea. If the forms, relative positions, and former 
 connections of reefs, rocks, islets, and sugar-loaf peaks 
 in general, be candidly studied by the light of both 
 these theories, — by that of slow upheavals and that of 
 sudden subsidences of surrounding areas, — I have little 
 doubt that the present doctrine of geology will become 
 greatly modified, and that the views I advance will be- 
 come the leading ones in the science. 
 
 When observation is pursued further, and shall 
 embrace certain larger and more isolated points with 
 perpendicular and profound sides, — such as the St. 
 Helenas and Fernando-de-Narhonas in the Atlantic ; the 
 St. Lorenzos, Chinchas, and Ballistas, in the Pacific ; and 
 the St. Paul's and Amsterdams in the Indian oceans, — 
 
56 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 a number of which I have specially noticed or explored, 
 I feel assured that they must be regarded as vestiges 
 of more extensive lands, which, in falling from greater 
 heights, have left these above the water, rather than as 
 primitive masses pushed up from immense depths by 
 such circumscribed and limited displays of force as their 
 form, height, and structure would indicate to have been 
 exerted upon them by present geological theory. 
 
 This entire subject, including, as it does, physical 
 geography at large, and geology in its minutest details, 
 requires candid study, and a re-survey from this new 
 and commanding point of view. 
 
 At the same time, I wish to state distinctly that I am 
 far from doubting or rejecting the dynamical agency of 
 repulsive forces within the globe, as a means to effect 
 limited changes upon its surface. Trap-dikes, inunda- 
 tions of lava from volcanoes, the upheaval of volcanoes 
 themselves, agitations and fissures of the crust by earth- 
 quakes, — all are the results of enormous dynamical 
 power, which acts from the centre to the surface every- 
 where, alike at the poles and equator, and in every 
 radius of the planet. While this power sustains the 
 roof, or never-ending dome of the planet's crust, it is 
 abortive in all its attempts to rend the globe, and reduce 
 it back to chaotic conditions. Gravitation, the con- 
 structive, ruling, and conservatiye agent, counteracts its 
 destructive tendency by neutralizing its power. 
 
 Igneous force may, indeed, be so concentrated, and 
 yet extensive in its action, as to impulsively and tran- 
 siently uplift a line of coast a few inches or a few feet 
 above its normal level. Molten matter, in circulating 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 57 
 
 through canals or caverns within the crust (the exist- 
 ence of which I discovered in 1856, on Hawaii, and 
 described as giving origin to some volcanoes by their 
 upward bursting from overstrained tension), may, in 
 consequence of its connection with the central fires, 
 slowly or suddenly uplift or draw down limited tracts 
 of surface. I am not unmindful of observations made 
 upon oscillations of surface, which may be traceable to 
 dynamical action of this character. But for igneous 
 force so to act as to upheave that mountain-system of 
 North and South America, extending from the Icy Cape 
 to Cape Horn, is a fallacy so monstrous and palpable, 
 that a mere glance at our physical geography should 
 lead us to detect and question it. When, however, this 
 long anticlinal, often indeed extending into double anti- 
 clinals, with broad, intervening valleys and basins, is 
 examined from the point of view upon which this dis- 
 cussion will place the candid physicist, he will discover 
 it to result from a falling-in of immense lateral exten- 
 sions, by which the globe has been absolutely reduced 
 in size. A personal and detailed inspection of the 
 physical features of the Sierra Nevada, and of the An- 
 des, will finally leave no doubt in his mind of the 
 correctness of this conclusion. 
 
 Further than this, the philosophical geologist will 
 discover, that the Andes and the Sierra Nevada are only 
 disfigured remains of vast plateaus, whose present alti- 
 tudes were, at some antediluvian period, populous with 
 warm-blooded quadrupeds now extinct ; and that all 
 signs within the range of observation demonstrate the 
 same physical changes to have transpired there, which 
 
58 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 are apparent in lower levels of the globe. There is, 
 therefore, every reason to suppose that the present 
 highest altitude of the Andes was, at one time, the 
 general or lowest level of the surface of the globe, and 
 that the bottom of the Pacific Ocean soared with its 
 lofty ranges of mountains far above them. 
 
 If so, then the diameter of the earth, at the poles, 
 must have been very much greater than now, at some 
 more ancient epoch. It must have been more than 
 twenty-seven miles greater to permit such equatorial or 
 tropical exposures to the sun as we know to be neces- 
 sary for the production of those vegetable forms which 
 abound in the coal measures of arctic latitudes. If it 
 was fifty or a hundred miles greater during any portion 
 of the carboniferous age, it might have been two hun- 
 dred during the " Taconic " period of the late sagacious 
 and lamented Mr. Emmons, and perhaps three hundred 
 or more, when the life-force began to fashion its pri- 
 mordial and rudimentary organisms upon its waiting 
 surface. 
 
 Did the necessities of this discussion demand it, I 
 might illustrate more at length the operation and effects 
 of this mechanism, in producing the multiform aspects of 
 marsh and lowland, plateau and mountain, which con- 
 stitute our present physical geography, and which have 
 been riven asunder and dislocated in such a manner as 
 to be incompatible with the prevailing philosophy. I 
 will defer, however, elaborate particulars for another 
 occasion ; meantime assuming the temerity to predict 
 that hereafter^ when this branch of inquiry shall have 
 been studied more profoundly, some great geologist will 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 59 
 
 arise, gifted also with the power of numbers, who 
 will measure the earth with rod and plummet, reduce 
 all rocks and strata to their natural order, and recon- 
 struct the globe in all the details of its ancient forms 
 and ages, with their legitimate flora and fauna, and 
 who will bring the system which I have the honor to 
 unfold on this occasion, into perfect harmony with all 
 other departments of natural science. 
 
 As a science, this branch of physics is, in itself, purely 
 cosmographical, connecting geology on one hand, with 
 astronomy on the other ; and, in its developments, will 
 tend to point out errors, and direct to new paths of dis- 
 covery in both. It conflicts with truth nowhere. It 
 throws light on problematical questions of much impor- 
 tance. It permits a rational solution of the theories of 
 some illustrious men, which, without its acceptance, can 
 never be harmonized with natural law. It explains the 
 evidences of glacial action anywhere, and in all geologi- 
 cal ages, while it rids the theory, as now advocated by 
 its celebrated author, of those incumbrances which must 
 for ever make it untenable. It dispels the darkness 
 which hangs over the speculations of those savans who 
 invest the earlier ages with universal and perennial heat, 
 thereby setting at nought those meteorological conditions 
 necessary to tropical fertility. It explains how the ante- 
 diluvian pachyderms have been violently transported 
 from life and pasture in temperate and tropical regions, 
 to sudden death and immediate congelation by polar 
 cold. It answers all the questions proposed in this thesis, 
 and a thousand more. But, above all, it makes the ways 
 of God upon the earth more clear to man. The veil 
 
60 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 that covers the origin and diversity of species is with- 
 drawn, and the path pointed out, which may yet lead to 
 the discovery of the transformation of physical into vital 
 force. Sudden transpositions of matter within and upon 
 the surface of the globe must necessarily disturb its 
 equilibrium. The consequent movements of its waters, 
 and changes of temperature, must equally involve the 
 destruction of many and the modification of all remain- 
 ing races. The plan of creation, although mysterious, is, 
 as we know from its history, progressive. Life is onward 
 and upward in its instincts and developments. Once 
 linked to matter, it becomes as unquenchable as the 
 stars. Every successive condensation, and change of 
 equipoise, in the globe, have been attended with such 
 fresh displays of morphological force, that there is now 
 scarcely a form existing that was originally created upon 
 its surface. Increasing condensation implies increasing 
 repulsion. Physical aggregates are composed of molec- 
 ulars. From the alternate and unceasing play of these 
 fundamental forces, spring those secondary powers of 
 magnetism, heat, light and electricity, which endow 
 insensible atoms with motion and sensibility. Con- 
 sciousness and intelligence, — immortal offshoots of the 
 Godhead, — the finite within the infinite, cannot exist 
 independent of these. Thus we catch a glimpse of the 
 Eternal, rising from matter to force, from force to motion, 
 from motion to life, from life to intelligence, and from 
 intelligence to the Creator of all. 
 
 In the old geological theory of the world, the zealous 
 student after truth and progress must plod for ever in an 
 endless maze. In this which I have attempted to unfold, 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 61 
 
 the twilight appears to me to be dawning, which shall 
 lead future generations of scholars to an accurate un- 
 derstanding of nature, and reduce all research after the 
 origin and phenomena of matter, force, life, and intelli- 
 gence, into such logical channels, that human reason shall 
 at last be crowned with a knowledge of the secret spring 
 of being. 
 
 Thus the speculative idea of Leibnitz, announced in 
 1683, lost for a century, revived by Deluc, and buried 
 again for several generations, assumes, under our dis- 
 cussions, definite scientific life and force, and crystallizes 
 around it the accumulating facts and developments of a 
 new philosophy. Ignorant of the extent of Leibnitz's 
 conjectures during my own practical explorations toward 
 the same point, I am only the more confirmed in the 
 verity and stability of my conclusions as operative and 
 positive realities, since they are strengthened by the 
 prophetic inferences of that wonderful mind. Were he 
 now living, illuminated by the blazing light of modern 
 discovery, no geologist would be able to resist the 
 potency of his demonstrations or authority. When first 
 advanced, the correctness of the opinion could not be 
 proven ; for geology was yet unborn. In the mean time, 
 human thought has been struggling up among dogmas 
 and systems, and has lost its way amid the endless con- 
 fusion of fact and fancy. Even in these ages of increas- 
 ing light, another century may yet elapse before science 
 and philosophy will accept, in its fulness, the idea of 
 Leibnitz, and the unfaltering extension of it presented 
 in this imperfect disquisition. But, however slow here- 
 tofore the progress of knowledge, whatever may be 
 
62 RADIATION AND GRAVITATION APPLIED TO 
 
 hereafter the decision of physicists and thinkers, there 
 is one formidable class of public teachers, who, for ever 
 jealous of free thought and inquuy, frowning upon 
 physical discovery, and lagging behind society in all 
 solid acquirements, will not venture to question the 
 possible truth involved in this discussion ; for it an- 
 nounces the fulfilment of the alarming judgments which 
 they preach. And well may they, in their turn, truly 
 fear and tremble ; for it proclaims, with an eloquence 
 as prophetic as the voice of Peter or Christ, that " the 
 day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in 
 the which the heavens shall pass away with a great 
 noise, and the elements shall melt with a fervent heat, 
 and the earth, and the works that are therein, shall be 
 swallowed up." — "But of that day and hour knoweth 
 no man." — " But as the days of Noah were, so shall also 
 the coming of the Son of man be." Nevertheless, the 
 mere assent of these opponents of intellectual progress 
 w411 not prove these predictions to be correct, any more 
 than their tortures, rebukes, and discouragements have 
 proved the discoveries of Galileo or Darwin to be 
 wrong. The final triumph of scientific truth will only 
 put its enemies and cavillers to the deeper shame. 
 
 To the really devout student of Nature, who loves 
 and cultivates science because it leads to the surest 
 knowledge of that Invisible Being whose marvellous 
 counsels are undivided, it will be pleasant to perceive 
 that a remarkable correspondence exists between the 
 physical changes herein delineated and the events and 
 mechanism as succinctly described in the sacred cos- 
 In no other manner could those events as 
 
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 63 
 
 there recorded be fulfilled : " Let the waters under the 
 heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let 
 the dry land appear ; and it was so." How could it 
 have been " so," unless the arch of the globe collapsed, 
 making a great continuous basin, wherein the waters 
 were gathered together, thus causing continents to ap- 
 pear? The idea of Moses is precise, and it has no 
 relation nor pointing to theories of upheaval. It does 
 not mean, Let the dry land be upheaved, and all the 
 waters under the heavens be displaced, and old lands be 
 overwhelmed; but " Let the waters be gathered together" 
 into a deep place, so that new lands may appear above 
 them. Nothing expressed in language can be more 
 definite. 
 
 Thus we see, that by a fearless pursuit of natural 
 truth, discarding all reverence for the worthless systems 
 of sophists, ecclesiastics, and theorists, we shall meet 
 with the greater satisfaction in the end. The end, in- 
 deed, we may be slow to reach ; but patient labor, 
 self-sacrificing travel, extensive observation illuminated 
 by the largest culture, candid comparisons of facts from 
 every theoretical point of view, broad generalizations 
 based upon rationalism rather than upon mathematics, 
 — in a word, fearless, able, and honest inquiry, follow- 
 ing the lead of Nature with the simplicity of a child in 
 the hand of his father, will, at last, raise Geology to the 
 high rank it ought to occupy, and establish it upon solid 
 foundations as an exact science. 
 
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