COAL IN ANTARCTICA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7829, 23 June 1909, Page 1

COAL IN ANTARCTICA.

PROFESSOR BICSERTON'S 7 , THEORIES. '..

' < Pi-cWsp'r A'i-tW. Bickeirtdn^ of fWaij-nortj'-'Park, Chri^tchurch.fwriting to the ■6jdiiey;Mornmg Herald, -says':-.'.' Since Ivhavevbeen dnf Sydney >Thave found •t"He';iAiiglo^Saxon -love 'of : daring ad^ventitPG ;.inuch 'excited. ,by tlie *Nlmrod expedition 'y: and the patriotic stirred by the fact that the British..flag has been placed on both the North ..and South magnetic poles, as well as on tne point nearest to either pole upon which the foot of! man has yet trodden. But the thing that seems to interest arid astonish men most is the question: However' was it possible that coal and limestone grew ■ m "Antarctica ? "The most popular conception appears to be that the angle of the earth's axis alters, so that'after eons of time the earth may tip right over, and the south be where the north is now. Even able men talk of great alterations of the angle of the inclination of the axis. Without any such suggestion coal might naturally have been expected m the Far South. The reason is quite plain—has been well: known for about 40 years. A.temperate polar climate has a definite astronomical cause; that was exhaustively investi- '■ gated by the great cosmogeologist, j Croll, aided by Darwin, Geike, I<ubbock, and other eminent men. 'The basic idea is simple enough; the whole theory involves wide knowledge of many sciences. Hence it is overlooked, or misunderstood, by geological specialists. "The simple basic idea is that, at very irregular intervals, say twice m a I million years, the earth is pulled by the other planets into a very long i eclipse, so that the sun may be 18 mil-1 Uoj}s of miles nearer the earth m the southern winter, than m the summer. The- winter."is 'consequently very mild, and, instead of snow, it is mostly rain falls on the Antarctic circle. Here comes Crbll's. theory. Snow packs up, and to be, got rid of must be melted or evaporated'; whilst rain runs off— forms rivulets, streams, and rivers, and away into the ocean, leaving the following summer's sun with genial earth on which to expand its energy m growing vegetables. This astronomical condition lasts—in one hemisphere, say the southern—for 13,000 years, then it occurs m the north, giving us coal m Greenland. "In my place, Wainoni Park, New Zealand, I planted pines a quarter of a century ago. They are now 3ft m circumference. Clearly when the sun has fifty times that period to do it m there is no wonder he forms coalfields m Antarctica, and 13,000 years afterwards m Greenland, where it is also found. Here is an actual astronomical vera causa. There is no mystery about it at all. Go to the Public Library and ask for Croll's 'Climate and Time J or for a simple statement of his great work ask for my book, ' The Romance or the Earth,' then you may study the whole theory m detail. I for one feel that the finding of coal and limestone so far south may help to make this wonderful and far-reaching theory of Croll s popular science, as it well" deserves to be." ;