60 THE OCEAN — A LECTURE. 



According to this view, how, then, was the Ocean formed? 

 The elements of which water is composed, certainly must 

 have existed at this ej)och, either in their simplest forms, as 

 Hydrogen and Oxygen, or in the condition of steam or vapor 

 — which, in the latter case, would have surrounded the 

 earth with a dense cloud, excluding even the light of the 

 sun. 



This, he believed, was the true state of the case. The 

 continual condensation of this aqueous vapor, would cause 

 an incessant fall of rain upon the heated surface of the 

 granite rock. Decomposition would ensue, and the saline 

 properties of the rocks would be held in solution in the 

 accumulating waters. 



Pure water, that which is formed by the condensation of 

 vapor or steam, is eminently neutral in its qualities ; it is 

 neither saline, alkaline or acid — but is, nevertheless, the 

 most universal and powerful solvent known. 



Rain water, when unimpregnated with gases from the 

 atmosphere, is of the purest quality ; and, had it not been 

 for its solvent properties, the waters of the Primitive Ocean 

 would have been as pure as the purest spring that flows 

 from its ]3ebbly fountain. 



Mr. Brainerd here alluded to the quantity of water that 

 had accumulated upon the earth, covering, as it does, nearly 

 three-fourths of its surface — and, if spread equally over the 

 whole, would form a universal ocean not less than three 

 thousand feet in depth. 



In this connection, the inequalities of surface, both of the 

 continents and the bed of the Ocean, were noticed, and the 

 effect that evaporation has upon the saline properties of the 

 waters of several inland seas and lakes. 



It has been ascertained that the surface of the water in the 

 Dead Sea was more than on& thousand thr&e hundred feet 

 below the level of the Atlantic. Mr. B. stated that the 

 cause of this difference was due to an excess of evaporation, 



