Again, I need not point the geologist to the mysteries of the glacial epochs, which grow darker and darker as he looks for a competent cause for their production. He must know that the great ocean of vapors that hovered for unknown time over the earth in the loftiest heights of the atmosphere, such as now are seen on two of our neighbor planets, could not have fallen to the earth without covering it in the higher latitudes with measureless masses of snow, resulting in excessive refrigeration. I need but point him to the fact, proven by the coast surveys of the world, that the oceans have encroached upon the land to such an extent since the last glacial epoch that they stand now fully thirty fathoms deeper than they did in pre-glacial times. I need only point him to that grand clock-work of worlds shining from the firmament—every scintillating point, every rolling sun, is a witness of nature’s eternal order, and proclaims that uniformitarian principle of world evolution, by which the philosophic investigator must stand. The geologist must build on this rock of uniformity in the evolution of worlds. The earth has evolved along this line, and the wreck of annular conditions is seen on every page of its rocky volume.
In the year 1875 I published a little volume entitled “The Earth’s Aqueous Ring.” In it I stated my convictions, and gave reasons therefor, that all the glacial periods the world ever saw were produced by supra-aerial vapors descending from an annular system that revolved about the earth from the remotest geologic ages to the flood of Noah, which was itself produced by the fall of the last remnants of those upper waters. These claims I am fully prepared to substantiate, whatever opposition may be brought against them.
Isaac N. Vail,
Elsinore, Cal., July 6, 1892.
Transcriber’s Note
The following changes were made to the text as printed:
Page 3: “rings of agueous vapor” changed to “rings of aqueous vapor”
“decent at the poles” changed to “descent at the poles”
5: “the same No matter” changed to “the same. No matter”
6: “Kelper’s “Third Law”” changed to “Kepler’s “Third Law””