A NEW THEORY OF THE DELUGE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 184, 5 August 1871, Page 4

A NEW THEORY OF THE DELUGE.

From the Melbourne Daily Telegraph we learn that Mr. William Walker alias Tom Cringle, has started " A Theory of Deluge," if we may so designate the chimera, and on this proposal the Telegraph makes the following remarks: — "Mr. William Walker is away from us, but that is nothing. Age does not wither, nor latitude stale his infiuite variety. In London he is Tom Cringle still. He has devoted his attention of late to cyclial deluges, and has published his views iv a handsome little volume which he has made due haste to send us, and which we are grateful to receive, notwithstanding the shock its coutents are calculated to convey. Tha uncomfortable conclusion at which Mr. Walker hivs arrived is th»t " Noah's flood" was the result of a disturbance of the equilibrium of the ocean — the inevitable consequence of a change of its centre of gravity, which will occur again. He quotes M. de Hod, to the effect that fourteen such deluges have occurred, and his own independent observations point to the arrival of the fifteenth. Australia is rising, the "ice cap" at the North Pole is increasing, the world, which we know, has a singular list already, will get tilted a litttle more, and the water will rush to the other side. The result is feelingly depicted. 'The South Pacific, the vSouth Atlantic, and Antartic Oceans will be suddenly poured across the equator, and submerge the Northern Hemisphere; the high grounds rising above the level of the southern oceans will form the archipelago of a new Polynesia. Australia, by the Great Barrier Reef being laid dry, will be pined to New Guinea, and thus acquire a new eastern sea-board 1200 miles loug, between which and the present Australian Coast will be a wide valley, now the navigable channel for ships bound northwards, which would soon be covered with cocoanuts, palms, and other beautiful flora lof the Southern Hemisphere; while England, Scotland and Ireland will become whiit they were before the last catastrophe which happened in the opposite direction.' The perils of our friends iv England should, indeed, induce a general application for passage warrants. A few families, Mr. Cringle anticipates, may escape to the mountain ranges, but they will survive "only to fall back into a state of torpid barbarism, which shows no gleam ot hope in its utter desolation." London Bridge itself will not be left for the historic New Zealander to muse upon. The time, it appears from the "profound work" of Mons. Alphonse Joseph Adhemar, entitled Revolutions de la Mer, may be accurately calculated. The oceanic cataclysm — a good word, Mr. Walker, a very good word — will occur 6300 years hence. Mr. Cringle's evele is completed, therefore, in a little under 9000 years, calculating from Noah's Deluge, according to the chronology of tho learned Usher. We shall only stop to point out that our author differs from the illustrious Mr. Muddle in Maryati's novel, whose cycle was fixed at 33,494 years. Mr. Muddle's catastrophe is the furthest off, and we prefer that."