ocean, like two immense rivers, we ask what becomes of the superabundance of water resulting from all these sources? How does it happen that the Atlantic, which receives such a great quantity of sweet, and consequently lighter water, maintains its equilibrium of weight and saltness with the Pacific, whose immense width offers such a vast surface for evaporation, and consequently whose waters must be heavier and more salty? Scientific reasoning answers without hesitation, a priori, by means of submarine currents. Observation confirms the hypothesis of science. There is a species of whale called spermaceti, whose habits show a preference for the temperate zones very different from the right whale, which never passes the frontiers of the frozen regions. In observing the migrations of the spermaceti whale, we follow them from the eastern even to the western shores of America, around Cape Horn, which they double notwithstanding the cold polar current whose rigor they could not brave were it not for a submarine current, drawing the warm waters of the Atlantic toward the south pole, and thence into the Pacific Ocean.

The proof of an inferior counter-current, which carries the water of the Atlantic into the Arctic Seas, is more striking still. The spectacle which these seas sometimes offer to the navigator is strange. Masses of ice drift from the north to the south. from Baffin's Bay, carried by a surface current; while these mountains of accumulated ice, whose top emerges to a great height above the waters, and whose base sinks into the sea to a depth seven times as great, go back again from the south to the north, drawn by the submarine counter current that carries the warm waters of the Atlantic to the pole. Why, both at the north and south, are the currents coming from the Atlantic inferior? and why do they sink under the counter surface currents? The reason is simple: the waters which form them arriving in the intertropical regions are charged with the salts left by evaporation, and consequently become heavier as well as warmer. Here, still, the divine foresight is marvelous. Suppose that the hot waters destined to carry the heat of the torrid regions to the poles should course over the surface of of the sea, they would never arrive at the end of their voyage, since they would lose on the way by constant radiation the caloric with which they were charged. The low conducting

power of the cold strata that serve as their bed, on the contrary, is wonderfully proper to preserve uninjured the treasures of heat which they go to distribute in the frozen regions.

Where does this mysterious submarine current, which thus goes, with its shroud of ice, to carry to the north pole the warm waters of the tropics, stop? Where does the change begin which makes the inferior a surface current, to give back to the Atlantic the waters which it has taken from it, after having been deprived of all the caloric with which it was charged, to the advantage of the frozen polar regions? What phenomena does the sudden disengagement of caloric produce in the bosom of a temperature whose rigors surpass the imagination. Where go the flocks of sea fowl, that set out every year in spring from the northern shores of America, and make their way toward the mysterious solitudes of the north? Where the troops of whales that, fleeing from the harpoon of the fisherman, disappear under the ice, and interpose between themselves and their enemies an impassable barrier for the purpose of placing their offspring in inaccessible regions? For a long time all these questions have been offered to science as enigmas not to be solved.

However, in 1852 and 1853 Inglefield, Belcher, and Perry, sent to search for the unfortunate Franklin, caught a glimpse of a sea without ice beyond 79° of north latitude. Filled with the noble ambition of resolving this magnificent problem, Dr. Kane set out from New York in 1854, and pushed resolutely into the hitherto unexplored Smith's Strait, even beyond 82° of latitude. For two years blocked in by the ice, the intrepid voyager braved the formidable temperature of these desolate regions-the somber and melancholy kingdom of chaos, night, and death.

Once, profiting by a favorable opportunity offered in summer, Kane went in advance, but soon a formidable barrier of accumulated ice rose before him. It was the last rampart that jealous nature had opposed to the bold man who had come thus even to the pole to snatch from it the secret of its mysteries. A narrow channel presents itself; it is open. Wonderful sight! As far as the eye could reach a sea free from ice opened to the view, whose limpid waves, obedient to the breath of a gentle breeze, came mildly to caress the feet of the ravished traveler.

Innumerable flocks of birds, and troops of seals and sea-wolves, sported on the water and the shore, presenting the wonderful spectacle of movement and life in the midst of quiet and death.

Behold then here the mysterious basin suspected by science and discovered by the instinct of animals more infallible than itself, in which the warm waters of the Atlantic, after having melted their covering of ice, empty themselves. The influence of this current is such that it suddenly elevates the temperature 20°. Thus the phenomenon of evaporation is renewed here, consequently this polar basin is covered with a canopy of fog and vapor, which covers it as with a thick vail, and which, often seen afar by sailors, propose to their minds a new problem. What is the comparative temperature of the two hemispheres? It seems to be about the same to 50° of latitude north and south, but beyond this it becomes sensibly colder in the southern hemisphere. In order to explain this M. Julien borrows from M. Adhémar his ingenious theory of periodical deluges, a new theory that calls to its aid both astronomy and geology, and of which, en passant, we cannot refrain from a rapid notice.

By virtue of an astronomical law, based upon the principle of universal attraction, and on the constant parallelism of the axis of the earth, the globe travels over that part of the orbit near the sun quicker than it does the aphelion. And we find that it is during the autumn and winter of our northern hemisphere that the earth traverses the shortest distance of its annual journey. Our winter then is shorter than that of the southern hemisphere. The difference in our epoch is about one hundred and sixtyeight hours, or seven days. Thus, according to M. Adhémar, the difference of temperature between the two poles is explained. This philosopher goes further. Relying upon the astronomical phenomenon called precession of the equinox, he thinks that, owing to the periodic change of the seasons, the ice is accumulated successively at each pole, and consequently, displacing the center of gravity of the earth, the two hemispheres have been and ought to be in turn submerged.*

The precession of the equinoxes amount to about 50", as every one knows, (about 61" if we take into consideration planetary attraction,) which is remarked in the periodic return of each season. As a consequence, the years are not of an exact duration from one spring to another, and the seasons, by a slight and con

In the present state of the globe, the ice of the southern pole accumulating through so many ages, during a longer and colder winter, has inclined the center of attraction toward the south, and submerged the southern hemisphere. The period of this geological revolution, according to M. Adhémar, will be about 10,500 years. The year 1248 of our era, the epoch in which the earth was at its perihelion, is assigned by him as the commencement of the new period which, by the insensible change of the seasons, and progressive accumulation of ice at the north pole, ought to submerge in its turn the northern hemisphere, and gradually elevate the southern hemisphere above the waters. Thus in a little less than ten thousand years this change will be accomplished.

Many facts agree with this theory. According to M. Adhémar, the actual center of gravity of our globe inclines toward the south about 1,800 yards. In its abrupt shores, its deep waters, its prominent capes, the southern hemisphere presents all the marks of submerged continents; its numerous islands appear to be but the peaks of the higher mountains which are engulfed. On the other hand, the northern hemisphere, with its numberless lakes, its isthmuses, its interior seas, its lagunes, appears to have recently arisen from the bosom of the waters. It is worthy of remark that the land, compared to the water, from north to south follows a decreasing progression with mathematical regularity.

stant change, correspond successively to each one of the constellations of the zodiac. It is on this account that, at the commencement of the modern era, the spring commenced in the constellation of Aries, and now this season, retrograding, begins when the sun enters the constellation Pisces. It is thus that the year is some seconds shorter than it was in the year 2000, and a century of this age has become about a quarter of an hour shorter than a century then.

Hipparchus (150 years before Christ) first established these celestial phenomena. Newton found the cause of it in his grand law of attraction; but d'Alembert has the glory of first giving it a scientific solution. (See Babinet, de l'Application des Mathématiques.)

The duration assigned by MM. Babinet and Adhémar to this great astronomical cycle, in which each season ought to return to the constellation from which it departed, presents a notable difference, which we will here notice. According to the first, this revolution through all the constellations will take place in 26,000 years, and according to the second in 21,000. Cannot this difference be accounted for by supposing that the one has taken for the base of his calculations an annual change of 61", regarding the planetary attraction, and that the other, neglecting this influence, has calculated the celestial revolution at the rate of 50"?

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The erratic blocks of stone observed on the surface of the earth invariably follow a course from north to south, and seem to have been drawn by the last breaking up of the polar ice. If you ask the mountains, they will answer that the slope by which their summits are inclined in the same direction was impressed upon them by a deluge coming from the north. The study of the geological constitution of the environs of Paris argues the existence of three successive deluges. Certain other facts, such as the invasion by ice of certain Arctic regions formerly habitable, the slow progress of the glaciers of the Alps, as established by the paleontologist Agassiz, etc., appear, moreover, to prove that our hemisphere is growing colder.

Let us add that the theory of M. Adhémar agrees in an essential point with the recital in Genesis. If the last geological revolution began about 11,000 years ago, that is to say, 10,500 years before the year 1248, the equilibrium between the two poles ought to be effected in about 6,000 years, and this would bring it to the epoch in which the northern hemisphere, the cradle of the human race, emerged from the bosom of the waters and became habitable.

Such is in substance this ingenious theory. Following the example of M. Julien, we will leave to the author the right of pronouncing upon its scientific value. The ocean, like the atmosphere, is but an immense body, whose currents and counter-currents, like arteries and veins crossing each other by incessant circulation, in turn carry from the center to the extremities, the molecules vivified by the solar heat, and return the impoverished molecules from the extremities to the center that is, to the heart, the seat of life.

Where goes, for example, that immense ocean river called the* Gulf Stream, whose breadth is fourteen leagues, depth a thousand feet, initial force five miles an hour, and whose banks and bed are strata of cold water, carrying off every day from the torrid regions a sufficient amount of heat, according to Maury, to melt mountains of iron, and in urgent billows rolling its tepid and blue waters across the Atlantic? Heated

*The Gulf Stream was observed for the first time in 1770 by Folger, the captain of an American whaler, who informed Franklin of it, and drew from memory a chart of its course, the correctness of which has since been recognized.