Nevada County picayune., 1889-07-31

rope were some thousands of year:
 ago covered with coating of ice The traces of it's action remain il striated rocks, and immense bowl
 ders torn from the mountains O.
 which they formed a part and carried to considerable distances. Similar effects of this glacial action are seer in the southern parts of South Amer ica and elsewhere on the earth's surface. On the other hand tho islands north of Siberia and fal within the polar circle are filled witt the bones of animals that must have accumulated when there prevailed a torrid heat What do these signs oi a climate that once prevailed in To- calities where another climate entirely different is now found indicate Simply that the angle of the axis oi the earth and the ecliptic has l changed several times since life began on it's surface. This is the astrono- i mers that is some of them say cannot happen again, because the earth has assumed the form of an oblate spheriod, that is, it is hattened at the poles, and has consequently an equatorial diameter greater by twenty-seven miles, more or less, than its polar diameter.
 The form given by scientists to the earth is undoubtedly nearly cor rect. It is the form that any ball of plastic matter would assume if made to revolve rapidly around any given axis. It being acknowledged that the poles of the earth have several times changed positions, was not be- fore each change the difference between the equatorial diameter and polar diameter even greater than it Is nov on account of the greater plasticity of the earth mass in those early geological epochs! Perhaps skeptical astronomers will rise and explain what reasons there were for these changes of place of the poles that do not still exist; and, if they were the result of celestial accidents such as contact with comets or other heavenly bodies, changes ill the sun, or subterranean action whether those causes do not still operate and may not again exercise as potent an influence. We know that some GOO years ago parts of Greenland were habitable that are now covered with ice and snow. This would seem to suggest causes still in operation. Any one who observes the weather knows that for the last quarter of century the springs have been later and colder, and that the greater frequency of cyclones and tornadoes indicates some radical change of climate. Ask any observant man of three score and ten what was the character of the seasons fifty years ago, and ten to one he will tell you that the winter broke up and fruit trees were in blossom month earher than now.
 But this is not all X careful eX- animation of map of the world will show that the Northern and South ern Hemispheres are unequally bal anced as regards the distribution of land and water, Nearly all the land is north of the equator, there being south of that line only the southern part of Africa and South America, Australia and some islands of no great importance. Here is another element of instability, the northern half weighing, as has been ascertain ed by an accurate calculation, many billions of tons more than the south ern half. Therefore a suppostion that the flatness of the poles is the same, but this is based on geodetic surveys, nearly all of which have been made in the Northern Hemis- phere. Take body of any form, and if the parts are not equally dis tributed about it's axis, if one end of 1t Is larger or heavier than the other, 1t will, in popular parlance, "wob- ble :" that is, if it has freedom of movement. What is to prevent the earth's wobbling or deviating slight ly from it's plane of rotation, if one end of it is heavier than the other or has not precisely the same form The greater diameter at the equator tends to steady it, but were the rela- tivn anUla of the axis chanupi no