Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1885-07-24

will be some difference III different
ATTITUDES, owing to the fact that the
suR's rays are only vertical at the
equator, but it will be comparatively
small. There would be no nights long
enough In any part of the planet to
leave time for the formation of large
quantity of ice. Consequently, all
we have to do to account for the ages
of time when the climate, as geology
tells us, was the same all over the
world, is to imagine the earth with a
perpendicular axis in place of an axis
at an angle with the plane of the
ecllptlc, as It now is.
The angle today is % % and g..
But the Chinese astronomer Choo
Kung, who measured the angles /, 100
years before Christ, made it % PA,
and subsequent measurements, made
in b. @. $50. $50 and SO, and in A. D.
461, $50, $50, 1000, 1879, 1887, 1900 and
1850, by celebrated astronomers,
Greek, Chinese, Arabian and French,
give the angle as follows at the respec~
tive dates: 23:49, 23:46, 2S:41, % 80,
1885, 1854, 1882, 1881, $3.50,
% % 81, 2S:27-3s. A succession Of
figures like these conveys little mean
ing to the unmathematlcal mind; but
the meaning is clear, nevertheless.
The obliauity of the axis has dimin-
ished steadily for the last 5000 years,
and the dimlnutlen amounts in all to
% 81, showing that its tendency now
is toward the perpendicular at the
rate of AS every 100 years. This
means that the polar circle is being re-
duced at the rate of 1, 33S meters-or
roughly, l, 465 yards-every century,
or fourteen and a half yards every
year, the temperate zone being increaS-
ed proportlonately 1t will take the
axis 176, 946 years to move at its pres
ent rate through the distance which
now separa es it from the perpendicu-
lar.
AS long as the axis remained per
pendicular the climate, as has been
said, was uniformly hat, and in Green
land and Spitzbergen pomegranates
grew. One day the axis began to
change. AT first this had slight eff :
feet For ages the modification was
trtling; even at the tertiary period
there was still no ice, and snow, when
it fell. soon disappeared. Bat by de
grees the zones were traced. Round
the pole the change was already com
plete, and the radiation of the earth
overcame the solar heat; and the
night the day, SO that masses of ice
were formed. The quarternary period
was entered; man appeared in our
continent; the angle of OBJ
liquity of the axis being about Is
aud the polar belt, about 1000 miles
in extent, finished at the southern
part of Spitzbergen. The glacial
epoch had begun. What, then, was
the maximum OF the inclination of the
axis when our earth was divided into
two belts of extreme cold (when gla-
ciers covered the greater part of
Europe) and torria heat9 Not less,
certainly, than 81 probably 40.
Taking, however, 25, and assuming
that the deviation of tie axis proceed
ed at the same rate as its return is 60
ing on now, then 1852, 900 years elapsed
between the first movement and the
day when lie axis began to turn.
This check seams to have taken place
at the end of the quaternary period
when the earth had assumed much
about the general conditions that we
see to~day. 1t necessarily required
other thousands of years to effect a
change of climate in the opposite 9i
rection. The alteration Is clearly
manifested in the geological strata by
the i'm migration and emigration of the
reindeer. There would have elapsed,
then, since the axis began its back
ward movement until assuming
So to be the maximum of inclination
So, 554 years, which with the 176, $40
years that have still to be traversed
ere the axis once more becomes per-
pendicular, would give 262, 500 years
as the total period between the first
movement and the moment of extreme
inclination. Already the glacial per>
iod is considered at an end in southern
Scandinavia, and the Swiss glaciers
are nothing to what they We're. New
ertbeless, $4,000 years must elapse
before glaciers disappear.
As to the age of man upon the earth
assuming that he did not appear until
the lower stages of the quarternary
period, in which his bones first are
fouzd, it is certain that the climate
was much warmer in Europe than it
is now. On my calculations man has
been 223, 11S years on earth, and $40, :
054 years have passed siace the axis of
the earth moved out of perpendicu-
lar.