HOW THE EARTH WAS MADE 119 



while the balance swung, as one section or another of the crust 

 was broken through and lavas would pour out abundantly. 

 Rapidly, however, from the geological standpoint, as the surface 

 cooled, the atmosphere of water-vapor condensed in a never 

 ceasing deluge until an ocean, probably universal in its extent, 

 had gathered to a mean depth of several thousand feet. 1 



Now, and now only could there be question of 

 light on the face of the earth. The condensation 

 of the great zone of vapor that had encompassed 

 this watery world made possible at last the first 

 admission of light. At this same point the Scrip- 

 ture too makes its first mention of it: 



And God said: Be light made. And light was 

 made. 



Yet the Scripture account would seem even 

 more minutely to bear out the teaching of sci- 

 ence. Relative to the earth, this light could most 

 certainly not be spoken of as "the sun." When 

 light first appeared it was but the luminosity of 

 a nebular mass, a vapor, a gas, a cloud; but in 

 no sense a sun. Yet even when the sun had prob- 

 ably been formed, and its light was first intro- 

 duced through the blanket of mists that covered 

 the earth it could not have been described other 

 than as a diffusion of faint radiance. It was 

 "light," but not a sun that would have been visi- 

 ble here on the watery surface of the terrestrial 

 globe. It has even been held that the sun itself 

 was at this time still but a cloudy volume of 

 nebulous or gaseous matter, diffusing a compara- 



1 0/>. */., pp. 37. 38. 



