144 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



may be and doubtless are lakes of molten matter near the surface, the center is 

 at last solid. 



Of course as time went on the earth's heat would radiate into space, as does 

 that from the sun to-day. A crast would form as a result of this cooling 

 down, which crust would become thicker and thicker. At last the heat would 

 be so tempered — as the ever thickening crust would hold back the imprisoned 

 heat — that the waters until now driven as dense fogs and clouds far off, 

 enshrouding the earth with the mists of darkness, would settle down upon the 

 earth and for the first time we would have land and water. 



There is good reason to believe that at first the water covered much more of 

 the earth's crust than it does to-day. There were then no mountains, and very 

 probably only shallow oceans. The present continent of North America was 

 marked out in a small A^-shaped mass of land, which with its vertex in 

 Northern New York extended northeast through Canada and northwest 

 through our own northern peninsula. 



With the exception of this small nucleus continent all of the United States 

 and of North America Avas one boundless sea, if we may except a few islands — 

 one or two in the Missouri region, a few strung along the Rocky mountain 

 trend, and a long narrow one, jDOssibly a peninsula, stretching from New Eng- 

 land south, as the Alleghany mountains mark that region to-day. Thus we see 

 that our own northern peninsula was there when the young world was lisping 

 its first prattle and doing its little part in that grand old anthem — the music of 

 the spheres. Europe had no continental beginning, as she started as an archi- 

 pelago. While our land started as a continent and builded thereon, Europe 

 had only isolated islands and used these as so many nuclei, from which she 

 fashioned her little self into a continent. 



Some of you may wonder how we know all this. The handwriting on the 

 wall of the everlasting rocks is so plain that there can be no mistake in the 

 reading. 



All the rocks of the world, except those just referred to, show clearly by their 

 structure and appearance that they were formed by the wearing and transport- 

 ing action of water. Every reading person knows with what tremendous force 

 the ocean waves dash against the rock-bound shores. Weil is it that the 

 engineer knows it, else such structures as the Eddystone light-house, built of 

 the best material that the engineer can find or make, and monuments of the 

 very highest type of engineering skill would crumble much sooner than they 

 do. No rock or substance is so hard that it can resist this mighty tearing force 

 of the ocean waves. And thus all down the ages this ceaseless, resistless, awful 

 power has been grinding and piling up the rock, and thus have been builded up 

 the continents and islands which now adorn our world home. All the upper 

 rocks of our vast territory, with the exception of that already referred to — 

 and quite possibly that is no exception — and the insignificant rock areas of 

 lava, which are of volcanic origin, have all been ground up, carried often for a 

 long distance, and thrown down to be trodden upon by the heavy foot of time 

 till the rock beds are again as solid and hard as were those from which the rock 

 particles were torn. The loose earth, which is bread to the nations, is only 

 these same rocks again ground up by water, ice and frost, that they may the 

 better minister to the pressing needs of vegetable life. Now as all the great 

 rock beds or layers have been thrown down by the ocean waves, it is evident to 

 all of you that the lowest of these rocks must be the first formed. We positively 

 know that these rocks are often many miles in thickness. What a signal illus- 

 tration is this of God's mighty power, and the almost endless train of years in 



