IV 



THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONTINENTS, AND 

 THEIR GENERAL TESTIMONY AS TO LIFE 



' I ^HAT the reader may be enabled better to 

 '*- understand the relation of the old founda- 

 tions or pillars of the earth to the beginning of life, 

 and the preservation of the remains of the earliest 

 animals, it may be well to reverse the method we 

 have hitherto followed, and to present a theoretical 

 or ideal historical sketch of the early history of the 

 earth, beginning with that stage in which it may be 

 supposed to have been a liquid mass, considerably 

 larger than it is at present, and intensely heated, and 

 surrounded by a vast vaporous envelope composed 

 of all the substances capable of being resolved by 

 its heat into a gaseous condition — a smooth and 

 shining spheroid, invested with an enormous atmo- 

 sphere. 



In such a condition its denser materials, such as 

 the heavier metals, would settle toward the centre, 

 and the surface would consist of lighter material 



79 



