MR DENTON'S LECTURES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 6238, 8 February 1882, Page 3

MR DENTON'S LECTURES.

The last of MrDenton's first course of lectures on " The Story of the Earth " was given in the Garrison Hall last evening to a very large and enthusiastic audience. The subject of the lecture was " The Glacial Period and Age of Man," In the course of his lecture Mr Denton said that the strangest time in the history of the planet was the Glacial period—a period indicated by the gravel, clay, and boulders which lay over a considerable portion of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Not long ago it was supposed that there was a time —- .a very recent-time—wien.the very, tops of the highest:3nonntain3 werecovered, .and geologists thought that they saw in these boulders evidence of the general deluge. That, however was clearly a mistake. They %vere not made by a general deluge, because they would then have been as universal as the' deliige; and the facts were confined within certain limits. Theilit was iound that it would require from eight to ten times as much water as belonged to the planet to cover it with a universal deluge. No gist to-day.believed that since man had been on the planet there had ever been a general deluge. Since man had been on the globe there had been widespread and devastating floods, and in consequence of such floods no doubt, millions of human beings had been swept off the face of the globe, and in consequence nearly all nations had their written'or traditional history of some great deluge. The (ji-eeks, for instance, had a tradition of a deluge from which only one man and one woman were saved. Vast changes had been made on the earth's surface by glacial action, the evidence of which could be seen in this part ot the world, and very clearly in the neighbourhood of Lake Wakatipu.. In some cases in JMirope and America great blocks of stone had been carried by glaciers 300 and 400 miles One theory which was put forward as account™S if» the £lacial age in Britain was that 1(>0,000 years ago the winter of the Northern .Hemisphere was estimated to have been 28 days longer than the summer, and that there was a gradual change bringing about the warmth. This theory he could not accept • for m jNew Zealand, where in winter the globe was three millions of miles farther from the sun than it was in summer, the winter was not so cold as at Boston, though we in Otago were farther from the equator, and when it was winter in Boston the world was nearer the sun. If 3,000,000 of miles did not make any difference, 8,000,000 miles would not make such a monstrous difference. Then the planet Mars was 50,000,000 miles •farther from the sun than the earth, and the snow-caps at the poles of Mars were, relatively, no longer than those at the poles of the earth. The coldest parts of the planet were not the parts nearest the poles; and when # these points were passed, the cold diminished. It could not be set forth positively, but the theory the lecturer advanced was that it was the magnetic intensity that caused the greatest cold, and that at some time in the, history there had been a sudden and violent change in the magnetic poles of the earth, caused by the planet being struck by an immense meteoric mass. Prior to the glacial period man had existed, for his remains had been found in the glacial deposits ; and Lyell one °f the most careful of writers, stated that 100,000 years in all probability separated us from the rude hunters, the evidence of whose existence had been found along with the remams of extinct monsters. A graphic description of the manner in which land was formed by the rivers and eaten away by the ocean concluded the last, and probably.most interesting of an exceedingly interesting course of lectures. : • ....:.• .

A new cor.-se.of lectures will be given by Mr Denton, the first.of which will.be delivered in the Garrison Hall to-morrow (Thursday) evening ; subject—"The Races of Mankind • their Origin and Destiny." .