620 president's address. 



volatile substances would commence to fall as rain. In this way, 

 prior to the condensation of water, such bodies as salt would fall 

 like snow, or perhaps as brine, and afterwards, when the water 

 condensed, would l)e dissolved, and so the primitive ocean would 

 be saline. The tirst sea would be a boiling one, the water being 

 continually vapourised and falling again as hot rain. Obviously 

 all the saline matter in the earth would not be subject to the 

 solvent action of the hot primitive ocean, as large quantities 

 would be combined with and mixed up with the other solid 

 substances. 



We now have our young world with its hot ocean, probably 

 Salter than it is at present, because vast quantities of water which 

 are now contained in the sea would then be floating as a dense cloud 

 around the earth. As the process of cooling and condensation 

 went on the ocean would become less saline and cooler, and so 

 better fitted for the establishment of living organisms. We 

 have evidence that the earliest forms of living things originated 

 in the sea. and from thence by slow degrees spread to the dry land. 



The ancients considered the world to be a flat disc-shaped 

 body, surrounded by a river, which they named Oceanus, hence 

 our present name. Quite three-fourths of the earth's surface is 

 covered l)y the sea, this being equal to an area of about 

 140,000,000 square miles. The earth is, of course, not truly 

 spherical in shape, but is flattened at tiie poles and bulging at the 

 equator, though most people have a greatly exaggerated idea of 

 the extent of this polar flattening. In reality it is not nearl}' as 

 great in proportion as that of an orange, to which the earth is sa 

 often likened. The longer or equatorial diameter is about 7,927 

 miles, and the shorter or polar 7,900, a difference of onlj'^ 27 

 miles, which is equal to 1 in 300, or for a globe 25 feet in 

 diameter, a flattening of half an inch at each pole, an amount 

 quiie imperceptible to the eye. 



The saline matter in tiie ocean is continually being added to 

 by that washed out of the earth by rain and carried to the sea by 

 rivers and percolation. In this connection a recently published 

 analysis by Mr. A. G. Levy of water from the Siniplon Tunnel is 



