The Alps In The Glacial Era.

tutes its own diminution : the glaciers shrink as the valleys ( Iccoon ; and , finally , ive have a state of things in which the ice ' has dwindled to limits which barely serve as a key to the stupendous operations of a bygone geologic age . To account for a glacial epoch , then , he adds , we need not resort to the hard h ypothesis of a change in the amount of solar emission , or of a ' change in the temperature of spree traversed by our system . Elevations of the land , which would naturally

accompany the gradual cooling of the earth , are quite competent to account for such an epoch ; and the ice itself , in the absence of any other agency , would be competent to destroy the conditions which gave it birth . Such is Professor Tyndall's idea of the Alpine region during the g lacial era . The ingenuity of this idea is obvious ; and to a certain extent we cannot see how it can be gainsaid . That the Aline

p valleys were scooped out by ice rather than by flood ; as , indeed , they still are ; seems evident : the glaciers are the great ploughs and harrows of nature , whereby , chiefly , its barren rocks were cut up aud powdered into fruitful soil ; for that glaciers flow , as it were , like rivers themselves , though far more slowly , from heig ht to hollow , bus been clearly proved ,- and it is mainly by means of this perpetual movement that their channels appear to have been excavated . This idea , however , is not very new : it

is almost coeval with the discovery of the glacial era itself . That glaciers , as they deepen these channels and descend to the low and warmer grounds , destroy themselves by thus coining within the influence of warmth which melts them away , is no less certain . But if this be all that is required as given data to explain the glacial era , how does it happen that glaciers could exist , as they once did , and as they now do not , so far below the lowest level of their present limits ; as morainesbouldersand

, , other evidence far beyond and below their present reach incontestabfy show ? Ex hypothesi , the present lowest limit of a glacier was its past lowest limit ; is in fact the lowest limit it could have ever gone ; but it has gone lower—much lower—in past time ; and this very fact alone seems to us to be fatal to Professor Tyndall ' s ingenious theory . Moreover , the glacial era w-as not merely an era of glaciers and moraines , but of icebergs and drift as well ; and low lands ,

in far southern latitudes , as well as high lands are strewed with the evidences of universal ice ; and not of ice alone , hut of ice and flood ; the manifest traces of which , moreover , indicate the north pole as a common cenere . The state of things in the great era of ice and flood , in short , must have closely resembled that which still exists in the arctic regions ; as if it were but the remnant of that same wide-spread icy mantle , traces of whose flowing skirts are still so visibleeverywhere almostover

, , all the northern hemisphere , whence it has now been gathered up or concentrated much more towards the pole . The arctic region is still just such a region of ice and flood as that of which geological evidence proves the wide-spread past existence far farther south , on low land as on high . In the arctic winter , snow and ice prevail , aud glaciers and icebergs are comparatively fixed ; but every summer there is a grand breaking up of the

whole , or nearly the whole , icy envelope ; and , doubtless , the scooping out of valleys , which may also be going on in winter , must go on in the arctic summer of ice and flood with tenfold power . Such seems to have been the glacial era of past time farther south : it was not a mere sterile and eternal winter of slow-moving glaciers , but an alternation of winter and summer , and of ice and flood , just such as still exists in the arctic regions ; and

, however positive astronomers may be as to the impossibility of certain cognate secular changes , regarding which their data jire admittedly very limited and uncertain , the conclusion is "resistible—and they must be instructed by geological factsthat the arctic region itself in truth extended , during the glacial era , or rather the era of ice and flood , far farther south than it now < J 0 CS m ti , northern hemisphere ; and probably also far farther

north than it now does in the southern . Noiv the alternations of summer and winter , and of ice and ™ ° d , in the arctic regions , are astronomically ruled by the ohli quity of the ecliptic , or the oscillation or pendulum ( figurativel y or popularly speaking ) of the sun into and out of either hemisphere , so prooducing summer and winter . And astronomers not onladmit the fact that the obliquity of the ecli

y ptic was at one time greater than it now is , but that it is still on wo decrease ; so that the plane of the' ecliptic is , and from t" « e immemorial has been , on the way at least towards a conwidencc with the plane of the equator . " The extent and limits ° 1 this diminution constitute the only question with astrono-

The Alps In The Glacial Era.

mers . They insist that the limits can only be very small ; while it would appear , from the geological facts , ( that these limits must he very considerable ; and it would be easy to show ( as indeed the writer of this has , to a certain extent , already done in the Scotsman newspaper , January 5 th , 1812 ) , that the " great uncertainty " in which candid astronomers admit this question to be involved is still farther increased , and to an extent which drives them entirely out of the field , by virtue of weapons

supplied by themselves . In the meantime we must conclude our cursory comment on Professor Tyndall ' s theory by merely remarking that it will , we hope , be seen , from what has been said , that we need not resort to the hard hypothesis of a change in the amount of solar emission , or in the temperature of space traversed by our system , for an explanation of the era of ice and drift ; becaiise we have shown how it is explicable , to the fullest extent , by simple and natural causes , in one sense still in actual operation .

Masonic Notes And Queries.

MASONIC NOTES AND QUERIES .

DISCIPLINE IS THE OLDEN TIME . In looking over the old records of a Scotch lodge , we find a minute to the effect that three brethren , whose names are given , had , for umnasonic practices , been suspended from Masonic privileges for the space of ninetynine years . —D . M . L . " EEFBESHMENT" A HUNDKED YEARS AGO .

The following bill of expenses attending the celebration of the Festival of St . John , presented to one of the leading lodges of Ayrshire , about the middle of the last century , will give the brethren of the present generation some idea of how their Masonic fathers " held high festival " in the olden time : — Item . By cash paid for If gross bottles 2 0 6

Coals , corks , and nails 0 3 10 Town officers .. 0 2 0 Seven fiddlers 2 17 0 Candles 0 10 10 Sugar 0 16 10 i Dinner 6 10 0 " Ale 0 16 6

Brandy 0 3 0 Kirk officers and bellman 0 1 6 Soldiers 0 26 Thepoor 0 5 0 Servants 0 2 0 One bottle Claret 0 3 6 Flambeaus 0 12 0

Lemons for punch 0 6 0 £ 15 16 Oi What with town officers , kirk officers , fiddlers , soldiers , and bellmen , the lodge must have presented a somewhat motley group , requiring , no doubt , the best services of square , plumb , aud level to preserve " the unity of the brethren , " as the thermometer rose to blood heat . — D . M . L .

KOVAL ARCH CLOTHING IN LODGES . E .. A . M . asks if it is usual to wear Royal Arch clothing in a Craft lodge ?—[ It is not now usual to do so . Years ago it used to be the practice , but that has long been deemed irregular . In Northamptonshire and some of the Midland counties , those who are Knights Templar when meeting in an encampment do not wear the Templar costume , but

adopt that of the Boyal Arch , with certain distinctive K . T . emblems . ] EOVAL AKCH LITEKATUKE . Having lately taken the Boyal Arch degree , I should be glad to know what books will afford me the best information on the subject . —B . A . M . —[ For this purpose consult Higgins ' s Anacalypsis , Dermot ' s Ahiman Bezon , aud Dr . Oliver ' s Historical Landmarks . There are also several other works , but we cannot give their titles in . print . ]