a 



Although shrinking in size, ifc is a vast massyefr, 

 aod takes 25 days to rotate on its axis, which the 

 earth does io 24 hours. Sir Robert Ball tells us 

 the sun shrinks every day about 20 inches ; this in 

 ten years would mean a mile. Let us look ahead 

 and see how soon our sun will become dark and nil. 

 In 10,000 years it will shrink 1.000 miles. How 

 large will the sua be then ? 



It is now about 860,000 miles diameter, 

 Deduct „ 4.CKX) miles shrinkage. 



856.000 miles remain ! ! 

 Oar own little earth is 8,000 miles diameter, po 

 that if the earth were placed in the centre of the 

 Bun, and the moon at its present distance from the 

 earth, inside the sun, there would be room for the 

 moon to revolre round the earth as usual. 



Earth. — When the earth was thrown off by the 

 sun, it would be a mass of gaseous matter as hot 

 as the sun. and with the same rotating motion; all 

 the planets rotate the same way. In course of time 

 a protuberance would form at the equator through 

 the swift motion, and when the set time came, the 

 moon was thrown off by the earth, and took the 

 same motion iTheearth[is still bulged at the pquator 

 and there is a difference of 26 (miles in the (diameter 

 at the poles and at the equator. The earth has been 

 cooling and flowly shrinking ever since it parted 

 company with the sun. In process of time a kind of 

 Ecum would float on the molten magma ; this would 

 break up and fall into the molten mass many times 

 until there was sufficient mass and aiea to float 

 without a serious collapse. These primitive rock 

 masses would be so intensely hot, that no water 

 could rest upon them. Everyone has seen what 

 happens when water is spilled on the hot plate of 

 a kitchener; it jumps and bubbles about and soon 

 disappears altogether in steam ; so the gases 

 and water must have enveloped the earth without 

 resting upon it, until it was cool enough to allow 

 the biasing, boiling floods to form the seas and 

 ocean depths. Not until these gases had been 

 located,couid the atmosphere take its present place. 

 During the millions of years which must have inter- 

 vened between that and the pre8ent,the crust of the 

 earth, as we call it, has been continually changed 

 by five modifying causes: Atmosphere — Kain, 

 frost, wind, and lightning; oqiieous — springs, 

 livers, waves, and current* ; organic — Infusoria 

 and foraminifora ; chemical— springs forming lime- 

 stone and sandstone ; iijneous or volcanic and 

 gradual crust motions. All rocks are either 

 stratified (water- formed) or un-stratified (fiie- 

 formed). It is to be hoped that none of our 

 younger members will be frightened away from 

 the study of this most interesting subject because 

 of long words ; every long word has a derivation 

 or a reason, and it is only due to my old and re- 

 spected schoolmaster (Alderman Cross) to say 

 how much I am indebted to him for putting before 

 me, when cwelve years old, a book of Greek and 

 Latin and Anglo-Saxon Boots, and, by learning 

 these, I have found that nearly all the long words 

 carry their meanings with them and give them- 

 eelvei away. Before calling attention to the 

 order in which the strata have been laid down, let 

 as look at some well-known specimens. 



Gold, — " When gold speakf, all other tongues 



are silent." What can it say for itself ? Although 

 scarce, it is found all over the world. Gold is 

 the most ductile of all materials. One ounce will 

 make a coat for 1,300 milps of silver wire; one 

 grain can be beaten out to 75 pquare incbep, mat- 

 ing it 1.200 times thinner than note paper. English 

 gold leaf —23 pure gold, I silvf-r, h copper ; 24carata 

 — I oz. English standard is 22 carats of pure gold 

 and 2 carats alloy ; 18 carat has 6 alloy. Poorest 

 gold is 9 carat with 15 carats of alloy. Gold leaf 

 is beaten between skins one-eight-bundredth of 

 an inch, 150 leaves lin. by lin. quartered and 

 hammeied again till 4in. sq. ; then quartered and 

 hammered again till 4in. pq , then quartered and 

 hammered again the third time ; this gold leaf is 

 the result, after trimming 100 square feet; lib. 

 worth ^50. There is an annual loss of ^3,000,000 

 through wear of coins. 



Flint is pure silex, secreted from ocean water, 

 often starting on a piece of sponge, always forming 

 round some organic matter. Flints are formed 

 under the sea in the chalk. Chalk cliffy, raised as 

 at Dover by volcanic action, portions washed out 

 toseaby the waves, the flints being ground, broken, 

 and rolled by billows for many ages, form the 

 beaches of to-day. Inland the elements have 

 washed the chalk away, the flints being washed 

 and smrled along for miles, dropping into ho lows 

 and pockets and forming our gravel pit>* for road 

 making. Flint implements are extremely remote, 

 and are found under the chalk of glacial origin, 

 pointing to man's presence before the great ice 

 age, say, 200,00(} years ago. The older, coarsely 

 chipped and roughly finished implements are 

 termed " Paleolithic " (Old Stone Age) and the 

 more artistically finished work in stone, bone, etc., 

 are termed " Neolithic " (or Newer Stone Age). 

 There is ail exceedingly small vegetable organism 

 known as a " diatom," so tiny, that they can only 

 be seen under a powerful microscope, but so 

 prolific, that one could in a month produce a bed 

 of silica 25 square miles and 20 inchps thick. 

 One cubic inch would equal forty-one millions of 

 organisms. Mixed with nitro-glycerine it forms 

 dynamite. As an illustration that the same 

 element may appear in differentforms, attention is 

 called to that well-known substance " graphite," 

 used for lead pencils ; charcoal, although produced 

 artificially, is exactly the same material, but when 

 we are t-old that a diamond, so pure and dazzling, 

 is again the same, we are surprised, and learn that 

 all are carbon under different garbs due to 

 molecular arrangement. 



Igneous. — All land has repeatedly been under the 

 ocean. All now covered by sea has repeatedly 

 been dry. Suppose we now try to show in 

 what order the rocks have been laid down. We 

 must begin with the plutonic or igneous, or fire- 

 formed rocks, the nearest to the great internal 

 heat, rocks that unmistakably show they have been 

 molten. Of the original crust, it is hardly likely 

 that a trace remains. All rocks have been made 

 up from the destruction of the older rocks. Igneous 

 rocks have no determinate position ; they break 

 through, derange, and flow over the stratified for- 

 mations, are of every age, and of extremely 

 complex composition. Granite appears to be 

 the general foundation of the crust of this earth. 



