The Action of the Winds in Determining the Form of the Earth 1 | Nature


The Action of the Winds in Determining the Form of the Earth 1 | Nature

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IN view of the most recent discoveries in the region of physics, especially with regard to the nature and properties of forces, it became necessary eo ipso for dynamical geology to give up


as unsatisfactory the division of geological forces into “igneous” and “aqueous,” and to substitute a division of them into “primary” and “secondary”; of which the former explain all the


motions which we observe on and in the earth, according to their origin and nature; while the others—one might call them “agencies” to distinguish them from the first—would teach us what and


how great changes in the figure of the earth's surface are produced by the bodies so moved, through reciprocal action on each other. Sensible of this inevitable reform in dynamic geology,


the author of an essay entitled “The Action pf the Winds on the Configuration of the Earth,” sought to call attention to the gaps hitherto existing in physical geography, and especially to


show what a mighty and yet hitherto very little observed agent the wind is, considered as one of these secondary geological forces. In the following paper the author offers to the readers of


NATURE a résumé of his memoir.


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