A NEW DILITVIAN THEORY. * MR. BERGH'S Essay on Periodic Inundations
presents a new theory of the mode in which those great alternations of submerg- ence and emergence were effected, which the solid portion of the earth's surface is known to have undergone. Geologists have generally referred for the causes of these phenomena either to internal 'disturbances, producing elevations and depressions of the land, or to the alteration of the beds of seas by the slow accumulation of detritus, or to the joint action of both these land movements. They have regarded the ocean as a passive instrument of the great inundations and denudations, and it never seems to have occurred to them that the ocean can have undergone secular changes of level, or have shifted its bed from any other cause than the encroachment upon it of the land. Mr. Bergh, however, assigns an astronomical reason why vast changes of the level of the ocean should occur, with the regularitrof the diurnal tides, within a succession of periods, each of them comprising 20,984 years. In that space of time, the earth's perihelion—the point of its orbit nearest to the sun— completes one revolution. Now it is assumed that the level of the ocean necessarily. varies with the position of the perihelion. When that point is south of the equator, the ocean preponderates towards the southern hemisphere, and vice versa. When it is in the first degree of Capricorn, the southern tropic, as it was 613 years ago, the ocean is at its maximum level in the southern hemisphere, and at its minimum in the northern. When it de- scends from that point, the level shifts from the southern to the northern hemisphere, very gently at first, but more rapidly and with proportionately destructive violence in the latter part of its course. This violent perturbation of the earth's surface is con- tinned throughout an equal space of the perihelion's ascent from the equator towards the tropic of Cancer ; and when that point is reached the distribution of dry land and water is the reverse of that which now exists. The northern continents are hidden beneath the accumulated waters ; and the southern continents are left dry. Thus within the space of 20,984 years, which corresponds to an entire revolution of the perihelion, there are four distinct -periods, two of repose, and two of disturbance, the former being happily three times as long as the latter. While the perihelion is passing through the four northern signs, from the first degree of Taurus to the first degree of Virgo, the high level of the waters in the northern hemisphere remains, practically speaking, un- changed. Here, then, we have a period of comparative tran- quillity enduring through one-third of the perihelion's revolution, that is to say, 6996 years. A similar period of repose exists while the perihelion is passing through the four southern signs, from the first degree of Scorpio to the first degree of Pisces ; and the two .together make 13,992 years during which man and other terrene animals enjoy, either in the southern or the northern hemisphere, a sure immunity against any general cataclysm. The times in which every great process of this kind for changing the face of the habitable lobe is begun and ended, are while the perihe- lion is descending from north to south of the equator, from the first degree of Virgo to the first degree of Scorpio, through one- sixth of a revolution, and while it is describing an aro of equal measure in its ascent through the opposite signs, from the first degree of Pisces, to the first of Taurus. In each of these times, which severally amount to 3498 years, the equilibrium of the ocean is subverted, and men and animals are driven from the in- creasing inundations to seek refuge on the mountain-tops, some of which may remain as islands when the deluge has attained its highest level, or to migrate to the lands left dry in the opposite hemisphere by the receding of the waters. Mr. Bergh finds that his theory accords closely enough with the date assigned to the last great deluge recorded by Moses, and re- membered in the traditions of so many ancient nations. It is now 613 years, as already stated, since high water-mark was at- tained on the southern side of the equator, that event having hap- pened when the perihelion arrived at the first point of Capricorn, A.D. 1247. Counting back half a revolution from that year, we come upon B.C. 9245, as the epoch of the deepest submergence of the northern hemisphere. The reflux of the waters towards the dry lands of the central and southern regions of the earth
would begin 3498 years later, and be completed in another 3498 years, that is to say, in the year B.c. 2249. The difference be- tween this date and that which the received system of chronology assigns to the Noachian deluge, viz. B.c. 2348, is remarkably small, and admits of the simplest explanation. There is mani- festly nothing inconsistent with Mr. Bergh's theory in the sup- position that the whole history of the Noachian deluge—the de- struction of animal life over a wide region, the escape of a rem- nant in an ark, and their descent from it upon a mountain-top, which had been left dry by the waters flowing away from it to the south—that all this should have been enacted one hundred years before the actual termination of the inundating period.
A n Rowe On the Causes of Pistant Alternate Periodic Inundations over the Low Lands of each. Hemisphere, 4.e. By Augustus Bergh. Published by Ridgway.
Ethnology and zoology may borrow some hints from the theory of periodical deluges alternately affecting each half of the globe. Southern islands were formerly continuous with continents from which they are now severed. Asia, Australasia, and South Ame- rica, were divided from each other by narrower seas, amid which may have lain islands which made the passage easier from one mainland to another.
Northern nations have still before them an unexpired term of 2885 years, during which they may expect to retain possession of their present seats, undisturbed by a general watery catastrophe
• The sea will then begin to encroach on their coasts, and they will have to abandon to it all their lowlands step by step, until at last nothing will be left to them but the insulated summits of their highest mountains. Here a remnant 'of them may remain, probably to relapse into barbarism ; but the bulk of their popu- lation, instructed by science in the nature of the pending change, aided by the matured resources of navigation, and having many centuries allowed them for the accomplishment of their exodus, will be able to transport themselves, their moveable property, and the whole growth of their civilization, to the new lands left dry for their reception on the other side of the equator. It is a saddening thought, even though more than a hundred generations will elapse before it is realized, that the dear home of the Eng- lish race must perish in the next great oceanic commotion, and that four figures serve to count up with mathematical exactness the time when deep down beneath the waters, once ruled by its sons, shall lie :- This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England !
But since it cannot be helped, let us take what comfort we can, and some comfort there is in the consideration that, if all be right in Mr. Bergh's theory, it puts a spoke in the wheel of Lord Ma- caulay's New Zealander, with whom we have been bored so long. We indulge the hope that we shall outlive his existence as a rhe- torical hack.
The truth or falsehood of the new theory hangs upon the answer to this dynamical question : is the increased force of attraction, exerted upon the waters of the earth when our planet is in the perihelion, and nearer to the sun by about three millions of miles than when it is in the aphelion, sufficient to affect their equili- brium in the manner indicated by Mr. Bergh ? Leaving the de- cision of the question to the competent authorities, we may safely assert that whatever popularity Mr. Bergh's theory may obtain, will in no degree be due to any literary shill he has shown in presenting it to his readers.
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