CONTENTS. XI 



PAGE 



The solar heat may be concentrated at a focus in the interior, 

 and the focus may be the luminous nucleus . . . . 153 



This focus may undergo the changes which the nucleus is seen 

 to undergo .......... 155 



The effect of this focal action may be to expand the overlying 

 substance of the comet into the tail 155 



The remaining metamorphoses may be accounted for in the 

 same manner 156 



The past history of the earth furnishes other and very marked 

 illustrations of the idea that the solar heat may exert this 

 peculiar expansive action . . . . . . . 159 



The original condition of the earth, according to the Scrip- 

 tures, was that of a shoreless ocean ... . 160 



The land may have been raised out of the waters, and its 

 foundations fixed, by the expansive action of solar heat . 162 



By the same action the land may have been submerged and 

 again raised in another place, as occurred at the deluge, if 

 the position of the earth in relation to the sun had been 

 changed 163 



The details of the deluge support the idea that the land was 

 raised in this manner . 166 



The repeated revolutions of the preadamite world form an ob- 

 jection to this view, for, once raised, there could be no 

 change in the relative positions of land and sea without a 

 miraculous change in the relative positions of the sun and 

 earth . . 169 



