66 IN THE BEGINNING 



the formation of plasm. The crust of the earth was very 

 thin, and its internal heat would affect the surface to some 

 unknown extent. Little land emerged from the vast ocean 

 that enfolded almost the entire globe. The water of the 

 ocean would be far hotter and denser than it is to-day. The 

 atmosphere also would be hotter, denser, far more charged 

 with carbonic acid, and infinitely more clouded than it is to- 

 day. The forests that covered the emerging continents at a 

 later date drew an immense amount of carbon from it. The 

 electrical condition of such a globe is beyond our power of 

 calculation. Further, we know to-day of the possibility of 

 an immense amount of radio-activity that we cannot determine 

 or reproduce. And it must be carefully borne in mind that 

 Mr. Burke's radiobes are claimed to be the outcome of 

 radio-action on a mixture of gelatine and beef-juice ; while 

 electricity has a mysterious but certainly important relation 

 to life. 



The candid student will realise that in this very different 

 state of the earth chemical effects might very well be pro- 

 duced that are produced no longer. In the shallows of the 

 primitive ocean, especially, there would be a vast quantity 

 of disintegrating matter, and, in fact, diffused through the 

 whole of the primitive ocean. It is by no means pure water 

 to-day, as everybody knows. Compounds of carbon and 

 water with nitrogen and other elements would not in the 

 least be improbable. Verworn points out that these elements 

 were probably among the first to be formed, on account 

 of their low atomic weights. These unstable and highly 

 absorptive compounds they are well known to have a high 



