PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL AND POLYTECHNIC SOCIETY Of the West Riding of Yorkshire, AT THE FIFTY-SECOND MEETING, HELD IN THE AT TWELVE O'CLOCK AT NOON. JAMES BROWN, Esq., M.P., in the Chair. The following gentlemen were elected Members of the Society-Rear Admiral Sir James Clark Ross, F.R.S., W. B. Wrightson, Esq., M.P., of Cusworth, J. W. Childers, Esq., of Cantley, James Brown, Esq., M.P., of Rossington, and E. Sewell, Esq., of Fulneck. The Chairman having read letters of apology from the President, the Earl of Ripon; and also from the Earl of Dartmouth, and Earl Fitzwilliam, for not being able to preside at the meeting, called upon the Rev. W. Thorp, Vicar of Misson, to read the first Paper : ON THE GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF THE SECULAR EXPANSION OF THE CRUST OF THE EARTH, THE INCREASE OF ITS ORBIT, AND THE EFFECTS PRODUCED THEREBY, PROPOUNDED BY CAPTAIN DRAYSON, R.A. REV. W. THORP, VICAR OF MISSON, NOTTS. AS BY THE Geology is closely allied with nearly all the sister sciences : with botany, enabling her to decipher the fossil flora; with A Wheldon zoology, as teaching the affinities of her fossil fauna; with chemistry, as determining the constituents of her minerals, earths, and salts; while hitherto she has had little connection with astronomy. It may be, however, that the new light thrown on astronomy by Captain Drayson, in his published book "The Earth we Inhabit," may enable us to unravel many of the mysteries connected with the early history of this planet; for if Captain Drayson's theory explain the origin of the magnificent flora of the carboniferous era and its extension to Melville Island, a gradually decreasing climate through the immense periods of the Permian, Saliferous, Oolitic, and Cretaceous systems up to the Tertiary-the reasons why probably the solar year has been formerly shorter; and also if it explains the presence in our island of large icebergs and an arctic climate, then this theory must inevitably have also an important bearing on practical astronomy; for, if in this northern hemisphere the expansion of the earth's crust is causing land to recede from the equator, it must be causing the latitudes of places, as measured by the stars, to periodically vary, and this is the case. Thus, between the years 1845 and 1858 (13 years) the Observatory of Durham moved 290 yards; that of Oxford 133 yards; between 1827 and 1858 (31 years) that of Edinburgh moved 1,373 yards; and that of Cambridge 300 yards; between 1845 and 1858 (13 years) that of Berlin moved one mile and 100 yards (1,893 yards); that of Christiana travelled north 3,600 feet during 12 years, (1,200 yards.) Then, also, if the earth's orbit is increasing, the sun will not continually appear in the same constellation, and there will be, as it is called, a precession of the equinoxes, so that after a lapse of years there will be a difference of at least several days in the year. Thus in the year 1582 Pope Gregory found the vernal equinox, which in the year 325 fell on the 21st of March, then fell on the 11th of March, therefore in |