A change in the obliquity of the ecliptic would alter the level of the sea. As to the last elevation, it seems almost certain that about 11,700 years ago the general sea-level on the northern hemisphere was higher than at present, that was the period of the 25-foot beach; and 60,000 years the age of the 40-foot beach.1 The alternate warm and cold periods, in north and south, during the glacial epoch, explain the distribution of many plants and animals. As the cold became intense, they invaded the equatorial lowlands ; and the inhabitants of these migrated to the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the south, the southern hemisphere being then warmer. On decline of the glacial epoch, as both hemispheres regained their former temperature, animals and plants again changed places, those not able to do so would die. Warm zones, whether of land or sea, being almost equivalent to life, it is evident that the growth and distribution of plant and animal life are greatly governed by climatic agents. Every planet, for a certain long period, presents more of its northern than of the southern hemisphere to the sun at the time of nearest approach; and then, during a like period, presents more of its southern than of the northern hemisphere. Summers and winters are more or less contrasted as the eccentricity of orbit increases and decreases, having the least and greatest eccentricity one or two millions of years apart: a response is found in the changed functions of living creatures, in the perpetual ebbings and flowings of species. By slow, inevitable change, by elevation and subsidence of land, climate is altered; every habitat of life ages for a time, and is, in turn, made new again. Parts, at one time, thickly peopled; at another, are deserted. Every extensive region has its own meteorologic conditions, and every locality differs in its structure, its contour, its soil. Southern animals lived in our own land during the warm periods of the glacial epoch, and northern animals during the cold. A surface would remain without seed or germ for many ages, afterward life abounded; and when the ice-sheet was again spread, things animate and inanimate were ground to powder. Notwithstanding, it is doubtful whether any other than mountain glaciers existed previous to the great glacial epoch; many geological facts show that a former warm climate "Climate and Time," pp. 407-409: James Croll. Consummate Strategy. 79 extended over the whole globe. Naturalists and palæontologists and geologists, of reputation, decide against the former glacialisation of the tropics, sub-tropics, and much of the temperate zones. Before the glacial periods of the north and south high latitudes, a tropical and sub-tropical flora and fauna existed where they do now, and these, having a vast ancestry, still remain. Remarkable deposits in South Africa and in Hindustan, which some geologists attribute to icecarrying; other geologists just as strongly deny. In whichever way the question be settled, the history of our earth shows the work of a "consummate strategist; who, from his mount of observation, directs the movements of a great army, nowhere setting at nought the laws of energy, but exhibiting and enforcing those laws in delicate, beautiful, marvellous, victorious operations." The facts are a manifestation of energy underlying all phenomena, extending to an infinity of worlds in variety of operation and mystery of life. There is continual passing from movement to repose, ceaseless oscillation from life to death, from death to life; flowing from a past to a future eternity. "What can be a stronger stimulus to the zealous exercise of our best powers, than the conviction that though we may never be able to attain to 'absolute' truth, yet we can be for ever approaching to it, ever striving upwards so as either ourselves to reach, or to help our successors to reach, a still loftier elevation whence a yet more comprehensive view may be obtained. 'Tendre à la perfection sans jamais y prétendre' will ever be the animating spirit of the genuine philosopher, as the 'forgetting of things behind, and reaching forth unto the things before,' of the greatest of Christian Apostles, will continue to the end of time to nerve the efforts of every true aspirant after moral excellence." 1 All-sustaining Power is everywhere manifested in the universe, alike the cause of all and essence of all. Beyond His infinitude can nothing extend, before or after His eternity can nothing be conceived. How we, the imperfect, are united to the Perfect, and things temporal to the Eternal, human eye cannot see. The universe is not an enclosure, nor infinity an extension, nor time a limitation of the Eternal. The infinite series of advancing conditions is expressed by Leibnitz in a mathematical symbol, the "Mental Physiology," p. 412: Dr. W. B. Carpenter. hypothesis of the hyperbole. We conceive from every given state of the universe a preceding less perfect state. Nothing hinders the supposition, and we give it endless extension within the infinity and eternity of God. With the telescope, we contemplate the magnitude and numberlessness of worlds; with the microscope, we discover life extending beyond life, surpassing all imagination. Time will never fail to conquerors in knowledge, and the regret of Alexander that there were no more worlds to win, will not be ours who march for ever to new discoveries of intelligence and power. Astronomic Realities. The sun rules a wonderful variety of planets, and a more wonderful variety of life. As fuel for his fire, he gathers out of space cosmical bodies and the forces represented by their velocity. These chips in the great workshops of Nature, this dust from the mighty grindstone of the universe, which the artificers, Attraction and Repulsion, cast aside, are passed through fire that they may quicken and sustain worlds of life. Close round the sun, Mercury flies in dazzling splendour with unmatched velocity; nearer than Mercury, another planet, Venus, in her beauty, alone; Earth, with her one satellite; next, ruddy Mars, with two attendants; then hundreds of tiny orbs careering, many coming almost within hail of their fellows. Then that wonderful outer family of planets, the least of which exceeds in size the volume of all the minor planets and asteroids combined. The vast globe of Jupiter and family of satellites; giant Saturn, of ringsystem, and primary attendants, the outermost at range of four and a half millions of miles; Uranus and Neptune, brother orbs, wide apart, and so distant from Saturn that the full span of Jupiter's orbit scarcely brings them together. Uranus, and possibly Neptune, rotating from east to west unlike other planets-their moons revolving in the same retrograde direction. Thence, pass through vast space to those binary, triple, multiple systems, where sun moves round sun with trains of planets and satellites, glorious creations, sparklets of God's mansion. Separated, star from star, by enormous intervals of black or stippled ground; intervals themselves open, with revelation of depth and height rich indeed to the imagination. Seen by unaided eye, the glory of many worlds is but the scintillation of a needle-point. Different orders of vapours, The Palace of Splendour. 81 fluid nebulæ, first germs of worlds in infinite series of suns and stars; suns that seem to be members of a new system of higher order, stars which have no dominating centre; prove the sky to be various and complicate beyond all that the wisest thought. Cloudlets-gaseous, stellar, irregular, planetary, ring-formed, elliptic; those light forms of the Milky Way, with shapes fixed or variable; governed by unseen mysterious influence-gravity. There, a green star with deep blood-red companion; there, one of orange hue, accompanied by blue or purple satellite; white orbs mingled with red, light or dark; purple, ruby, vermilion; "a casket of variously coloured precious stones." Our spirit stops at the centre of creation, the capital of the universe, whence are the laws which govern and uphold all worlds. Who can describe the throne of might! the palace of splendour! the inner abode of Deity! What line shall measure, what space contain, what time reckon, the roll, the circle, the vast procession of million clustered suns? painter pictures, no poet describes, no heart conceives, the grandeur of that source whence flow infinite and eternal streams of goodness! No Is it a dream, these worlds crowding the sky with more, and exceeding gorgeous dwellings, than any earthly city of myriad abodes? Will they pass from thought, leave no trace, as the baseless fabric of a vision? No: all are of use in the vast design, carry to the invisible universe memories and memorials of great transactions, every star is a footprint of God. We look upon them, as links of light in the sky to join past, present, future, into that vast course of time which moves within the eternity of God. We remember what of love and fear, of joy and sorrow, dwell in one heart; how many hearts throb in the little star of Earth; how numberless are the greater stars; until, translated in spirit by the wonderful, the soaring view, our souls full of grateful memories approach the eternal. Oh! "to have Attentive and believing faculties. To love the voice of waters, and the sheen To thrill with the rich melody of birds G |