320 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



a thin crust. That the temperature of the earth in remote 

 times was much higher than it is now, is proved by 

 many phenomena. Among other things, this is rendered 

 probable by the equal distribution of organisms in remote 

 times of the earth's history. While at present, as is well 

 known, the different populations of animals and plants 

 correspond to the different zones of the earth and their 

 appropriate temperature, in earlier times this was distinctly 

 not the case. 



We see from the distribution of fossils in the remoter 

 ages, that it was only at a very late date, in fact, at a com- 

 paratively recent period of the organic history of the 

 earth (at the beginning of the so-called csenolithic or tertiary 

 period), that a separation of zones and of the corresponding 

 organic populations occurred. During the immensely long 

 primary and secondary periods, tropical plants, which 

 require a very high degree of temperature, lived not only 

 in the present torrid zone, under the equator, but also in 

 the present temperate and frigid zones. Many other 

 phenomena also demonstrate a gradual decrease of the tem- 

 perature of the globe as a whole, and especially a late and 

 gradual cooling of the earth's crust about the poles. Bronn, 

 in his excellent " Investigations of the Laws of Development 

 of the Organic World," has collected numerous geological and 

 paliBontological proofs of this fact. 



These phenomena and the mathematico-astronomical know- 

 ledge of the structure of the universe justify the theory that, 

 inconceivable ages ago, long before the first existence of 

 organisms, the whole earth was a fiery fluid globe. Now, this 

 theory corresponds with the grand theory of the origin of 

 the universe, and especially of our planetary system, which, 



