THE OCEAN — A LECTURE. 59 



parts of the earth's crust, from the equator to the poles, 

 ranging in depth from sixty feet to one hundred feet below 

 the surface, which temperature remains constant, neither 

 increasing or diminishing, from which fact it is inferred 

 that there is no further decrease of temperature from radi- 

 ation — nor {7icrease from the influence or the solar rays. 



If we pass below this line of unvarying temperature, an 

 increase of heat is everywhere observed, amounting to 

 about one degree of Fahrenheit for every forty-five feet of 

 descent — and which, at this ratio, would reach the boiling 

 point of water at about fourteen thousand feet, and at a 

 depth of about thirty -four miles a degree of heat sufficient 

 to melt the most refractor}^ substances known upon the 

 surface of this planet. 



The conclusions naturally drawn from these facts, and 

 many others, of similar character, which might be cited, is, 

 that the earth, in cooling from a state of fusion, would pre- 

 sent a very rough and broken surface of granite, and which 

 would, for many thousand years, possess a temperature 

 above the boiling point of water; and, consequently there 

 would be no decomposing agencies, such as now exist, to 

 reduce the immense elevation of the primitive granite 

 mountains, or to fill up the vallies with the accumulating 

 detritus. 



The surface of the moon, at the f»resent time, presents an 

 appearance similar to what is supposed to have existed 

 upon the earth previous to the formation of the Ocean. 



These vast inequalities in the surface of the globe at first 

 contained no water. 



But how were they filled? How was the Ocean formed? 

 He did not agree with the published theories that the Ocean 

 was created a homogeneous mass of salt water. This view, 

 he considered, was not in accordance with the operations of 

 Nature, in other departments, where her creative energies 

 were called into action by the great architect of the 

 universe. 



