28 GEOLOGY. 



upon a subject so important as the creation and history 

 of a planet, and of that on which we ourselves are 

 placed, though but a speck in creation, can hardly fail 

 to light up the curiosity of any mind, which has a spark 

 remaining. To state these facts, as they are learned 

 from history and observation, is the principal object of 

 the present number. 



CHAOTIC OCEAN. 



The first well established fact worthy of notice re- 

 specting the history of our planet, is that there was a 

 time when it was one vast ocean; without a continent, 

 an island, a mountain, a rock, a metal, or a particle of 

 solid matter upon its surface. It contained, indeed, the 

 elements of all solid substances, which now appear so 

 beautiful, so rich, and so various upon its surface; but 

 they were in a liquid state they were dissolved by 

 heat or water, or more probably by both. 



Whatever might have been the agent or agents, which 

 dissolved and held in solution the rocks, islands, moun- 

 tains and continents, now so firm and so lofty upon our 

 globe, the fact is denied or doubted by no one, who has 

 resorted for information to either of the two great vol- 

 umes, the book of nature, or the book of revelation. 

 The sublime and interesting account found in the first 

 chapter of Genesis of the creation of our earth, is 

 grounded upon the fact, that it was once a vast and gen- 

 eral ocean. Such it must have been when it was without 

 form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the 

 deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the 

 waters, and commanded dry land to appear. These 

 statements imply, with a clearness little short of a direct 

 declaration, that there was a time, v/hen our earth was a 

 vast deep one great body of water when dryland 

 had not appeared. 



This interesting fact, so clearly implied in the book 

 of revelation, is fully corroborated in the older volume, 

 the book of nature. The ocean now holding in solution 

 many, perhaps most of the ingredients which constitute 

 the solid and rocky masses volcanoes which dissolve 

 the body of mountains and pour them from their 



