THE MUSEUM. 



been in their days of activity, though 

 they may now be far inland as seen in 

 extinct volcanoes. Is water incessant- 

 ly wearing down the land, and trans- 

 porting its material from higher alti- 

 tudes to lower, and into lakes and the 

 ocean bed.^ So it always has done 

 since land first peered from the briny 

 deep. Yet, if it be true, that in the 

 infancy of our earth life, its surface 

 was one almost universal shallow ocean 

 (and such accords well with the script- 

 ural account as well as present scien- 

 tific belief), who cannot see that as to 

 relative power to effect a work in 

 world changes, fire must have been 

 constantly on the wane, while water 

 must have been constantly gaining ad- 

 vantage to effect geological changes; 

 for radiation of heat into cold inter- 

 stellar space caused fire to become 

 continually more deep seated in the 

 strata of our globe, and less and less 

 effective, while elevation of the land, 

 as one effect of this deeply imprisoned 

 heat, caused a constant increasing area 

 for running water to act upon, and as 

 a result larger rivers and streams with 

 corresponding increase of power and 

 more material to transport. 



What was not possible, but certain- 

 ly to happen with the growing age of 

 our planet, was contraction in bulk, 

 caused by radiation of heat, breaking 

 and displacement of the rocky strata 

 by this contraction, and the produc- 

 tion and liberation of great heat, by 

 this mechanical motion among the 

 strata. It does not seem possible that 

 any part of the earth's interior should 

 be a perfect vacuum, and if not we 

 may easily believe that the dykes and 

 veins formed in the strata as a result 

 of displacement, would serve as exits 

 to water, steam or melted lava as to 



which would be more available at that 

 particular place. And such displace- 

 ment, if considerable, made known by 

 the earthquake shock and volcanic 

 eruption would go hand in hand as we 

 find it in our age. 



The crystallization of this melted 

 matter, in these rocky fissures, by the 

 sorting power of crystallization, would 

 give rise to many determinate mineral 

 species. And the arrangement of 

 these, in the early ages of our world, 

 would be in some measure according 

 to their weight and the temperature 

 at which dissociction of their elements 

 would take place. As to weight, the 

 lighter elements, the gases above to 

 form the atmosphere, next gases com- 

 bined in liquid and heavier form as 

 water, and beneath, the still heavier 

 earths and metals to form the solid 

 crust of earth. As to temperature — 

 those compounds most infusible, and 

 so capable of existing at a higher tem- 

 perature first and lowest, then the 

 more fusible and varied compounds 

 later on. An increasing reduction in 

 the temperature of the primeval ocean 

 would lessen its power of solution and 

 aid in chemical precipitation and crys- 

 tallization in any part of its waters 

 shut off (but not'in the ocean deep it- 

 self) as a natural result. 



These are some of the consequences 

 that must as surely flow from such 

 causes, in the earliest geological ages, 

 as they do in our own time. When- 

 ever dry land began to appear on our 

 globe a new factor entered the scene, 

 with a controlling and modifying 

 power, which we experience every day 

 of our lives. An almost universal 

 ocean supposes an almost uniform 

 heat. The appearance of land, owing 

 to the different absorbing and radiat - 



