stand how the material would be carried out aad 

 deposited on the bottom of the sea. We can 

 realise how the rain which falls upon the land 

 carries matter, both in solution and suspension, 

 into our valleys, and awaj by our river into the 

 sea. We can imply that the whole of the stratified 

 rocks have been deposited by water, for there is no 

 other agency by which materials can be sorted out 

 and thrown down in horizontal layers, but one will 

 at once think, under these conditions, the world 

 would in time become levelled off; so it would, 

 were it not for another power, that of earthquakes 

 and volcanoes and various fractures and pressures 

 due to subterranean heat and secular contraction 

 and cooling. These are the powers which have 

 given man the opportunity of examining this 

 twenty-five miles in thickness of strata. Again, 

 we m^y think of our neighbourhood and consider 

 our chiilk down:', which show a change of relative 

 level of sea and land of about two miles of vertical 

 height. As we explore the crystaline and igneous 

 rjcks, the lowest rocks man has bad the oppor- 

 tunity of studjiog, and when we tbink of the in- 

 crease in tdmpeta!;ure, one degree in every sixty 

 feet, into the interior of the earth, one feels 

 inclined to turn the eyes and mind towards the 

 orbs of heaven and seek further knowledge of our 

 wonderful planet of the astronomer and mathe- 

 matician, almost bewildered is one's feeble mind, 

 carried from the estimated 200,000,000 of years 

 taken to deposit these strata studied by man, to 

 infioite space, only to see the wonderful laws of 

 Nature working as accurately amon j the heavenly 

 bodies as they work in the little things of our 

 daily lives. Geology only begins when the earth 

 has cooled down into a state resembling the pre- 

 sent time, when winds blew, rain fell, rivers and 

 sea eroied rocks and formed deposits, and when 

 the conditions were such that life became possible. 

 The apparently iofioite time which geology covers 

 is, after all, only something of a middle age of this 

 world, or perhaps only a chapter. Astronomers, 

 with their mirvellous instruments, particularly 

 the spectroscope, are now able to tell us the exact 

 composition of most of the important stars, just 

 as easy as we can analyse the meteors which fall 

 to the earth. With the naked eye we can see 

 about 2.000 to 4.000 stars, with a good telescope 

 ■ti,00'3,000, but the exposure of photographic 

 pldtes brings to our dazzled contemplation the 

 image of 400,000,000. These facts, with many others 

 just as marvellous, are indeed a mind broadener. 

 We are forced to look upon the sun as but one 

 (and a small oae at that) of the unnumbered 

 perishable bodies, and our earth one of the count- 

 less transitory planets which encircle them. 

 There is good reason to believe that our planet, 

 in its infancy, went through a long process of 

 cooling. Probably, in the first place, it was shaken 

 forth, as fiery vapour, into space from the sun, of 

 course, occupying a vast space, gradually cooling, 

 shrinking with cracking noises, with none t) hear, 

 hissing, shaking, (juaking, until less and lees 

 vapoumus, it reached a liquid pasty stige from 

 the chill of eternal etheric influences. After ages 

 upon ages, the solid surface stage was reached, 

 the heaving forces inside the crust manifested 

 their giant powers by forming mountain 



ranges, volcanoes bellowed forth their wealth of 

 blazing material and have continued to this day, 

 telling their story of the past by the folds and 

 breaks in the strata, and reminding us occasion- 

 ally of the great internal forces by some upheaval, 

 earthquake, or eruption. So far I have spoken of 

 the inorganic. In stepping from the inorganic to 

 the organic or from the non-living to the living, 

 we are forced to leave a gap. Until this planet 

 cooled down, life, as we consider it to-day, was 

 impossible, but how life originated has puzzled 

 scientists for years. The physical basis of life, 

 named protoplasm, is a substance which is receiving 

 much attention just now, but one cannot help 

 wondering, when watching the growing of crystals 

 into their plant-like structure, whether scientists 

 will one day discover that it is the same force as 

 work shaping the salt, sugar and the ice, as is at 

 work shaping the leaf and the human body ; should 

 this come to pass, we shall have to take a much 

 broader view of life. 



Individual life, from the most elementary proto- 

 plasm up to the highest organism, man, originates 

 in a minute or embryo cell, just as the simple 

 form of protoplasm, with its nucleus, appears to 

 us under the microscope, so the primitive egg, the 

 first germ of existence of all individuals, appear 

 to those anatomists and physiologists who have 

 revealed such wonders to us. So alike are the 

 embryos of livin^g creatures, that Agassiz, having 

 forgotten to ticket the embryo of some v^ertebrate 

 animal, could not tell whether it was that of a 

 mammal, bird, or reptile. These embryo cells, 

 alike as they are in appearince, contain within, 

 them the germs of an almost infinite diversity of 

 evolution, each running its separate course distinct 

 from the others. 



The world of life is not one and uniform, but 

 consists of a vast variety of different species, from 

 the speck of protoplasm up tw the forest tree, from 

 the humble ama?ba up to man, each one breeding 

 true and keeping to its own separate and peculiar 

 path along the line of evolution. 



The development of the embryo cell from its 

 origin to the perfect animal, is one of the most 

 striking proofs of the law of evolution of life, and 

 since this doctrine of evolution has been before 

 man, it seems to have given him an ideal to work 

 upon, and almost every day brings some new dis- 

 covery linking forms of life nearer together and 

 bridging over intervals thought to be impassable. 

 Darwin point>ed out the result of man's interven- 

 tion by long continued selection in breeding 

 among our domestic animals, such as the varieties 

 of dogs, each fitted for a special purpose, such as 

 the greyhound and Skye terrier, and among the 

 horses as the race horse and the dray horse. It is 

 evident in these and in dozens of other cases, that 

 the final result was not obtained at once, but by 

 taking advantage of small variations and accumu- 

 lating them from one generation to another by 

 the principles of heredity. He suggests the ques- 

 tion : Is there anything like this going on in 

 nature r" Yes, says Darwin, there is a tendency in 

 all life, and especially in the lower forms, to re- 

 produce itself vastly quicker than the supply of 

 food and the existence of other life can allow, aad 

 the balance of existence is only preserved by the 



