Page:On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Earth.pdf/10

22 Just as single volcanoes have their periods of variation with alternating relative rest and intense activity, in the same manner the globe as a whole seems in certain geological epochs to have exhibited a more violent and general volcanic activity, whilst other epochs have been marked by a comparative quiescence of the volcanic forces. It seems therefore probable that the quantity of carbonic acid in the air has undergone nearly simultaneous variations, or at least that this factor has had an important influence.

“If we pass the above-mentioned processes for consuming and producing carbonic acid under review, we find that they evidently do not stand in such a relation to or dependence on one another that any probability exists for the permanence of an equilibrium of the carbonic acid in the atmosphere. An increase or decrease of the supply continued during geological periods must, although it may not be important, conduce to remarkable alterations of the quantity of carbonic acid in the air, and there is no conceivable hindrance to imagining that this might in a certain geological period have been several times greater, or, on the other hand, considerable less, than now.”

As the question of the probability of quantitative variation of the carbonic acid in the atmosphere is in the most decided manner answered by Professor, there remains only one other point to which I wish to draw attention in a few words, namely: Has no one hitherto proposed any acceptable explanation for the occurrence of genial and glacial periods? Fortunately, during the progress of the foregoing calculations, a memoir was published by the distinguished Italian meteorologist,, which relieves me from answering the last question. He examined in detail the different theories hitherto proposed—astronomical, physical, or geographical, and of these I here give a short résumé. These theories assert that the occurrence of genial or glacial epochs should depend on one or other change in the following circumstances:

(1) The temperature of the Earth's place in space. (2) The Sun's radiation to the Earth (solar constant). (3) The obliquity of the Earth's axis to the ecliptic. (4) The position of the poles on the Earth's surface.