122 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



word, "the firmament." It was the atmospheric 

 space between the two worlds of water. And 

 now took place what geologists describe as the 

 next development upon the earth crust: 



God also said: Let the waters that are under 

 the heavens, be gathered together into one -place: 

 and let dry land appear. 



Here, therefore, is in a few words the perfect 

 scientific account of the formation of the ocean 

 basins, which occurred in the most marked degree, 

 as we may believe, at this particular period. We 

 have already quoted at some length the geological 

 description of the universal ocean that had cov- 

 ered the earth at a previous period. The sinking 

 of broad areas of the earth-crust, which now took 

 place, caused the surface waters to pour in mighty 

 water-falls into these great hollows, allowing the 

 dry land to appear for the first time. Such sink- 

 ings of the earth's crust have of course taken place 

 also at later times, though never to such an ex- 

 tent as then. 



"This regional subsidence was especially char- 

 acteristic of primordial times," says the writer 

 just referred to, "but the process did not wholly 

 cease then ; since certain lines of evidence suggest 

 that some ocean basins have been extended in later 

 geological ages, breaking into once wider con- 

 tinental platforms." 2 Thus in every line and 

 letter do our most scientific conclusions conform 

 'Op. dt. p. 39 . 



