222 WALKS AND TALKS. 



temperature passing below 212, the invisible steam began to 

 become visible vapor. 



This was a grand juncture in the history of the world. I 

 have often pictured it. I have often wished I might have be- 

 held the scene. I think, could I have been present, I should 

 have witnessed something like this: The forming vapor in 

 the upper air reveals its presence in a thin and gauzy haze, 

 like that which overspread the sky when the ashes of Kra- 

 kat'-o-a were floated round the world. The veil grows thicker 

 from age to age. It is now a "cirrus" sheet of cloudy vapor 

 like that which the anti-trades drive up from our south- 

 western horizon. The contour of the round sun is blurred ; 

 the intensity of his ancient ray is softened. Indeed, his light 

 is dimmed; the haze is becoming a cloud. A twilight ap- 

 proaches; the shade deepens. The world is enveloped in a 

 cloudy pall ; the lurid light of the decaying fires of the crust 

 reddens the overarching canopy. The sun is quenched ; the 

 world hangs in shadow which forms the first night which 

 ever visited its surface. " In the beginning" there was " light ;" 

 now "darkness is upon the face of the deep," and a denser 

 darkness impends. 



The burdened clouds drop rain. The o'erburdened clouds 

 discharge a storm. of rain. The drops descend into the lower 

 and heated strata of the atmosphere, and are dissipated 

 into vapor which rises to the clouds to be again condensed. 

 Continual rains descend ; but the hot air dries them up and 

 sends them back to the bosom of the clouds. There is a bat- 

 tle in mid-air between the powers of water marshaled above, 

 and the powers of heat intrenched behind the rocky ramparts 

 below. I think of the battle over the Catalaunhin plains, 

 waged at night, in rni^-air between the spirits of the slain 

 Romans and those of the hordes of Attila. But the powers 

 of water are destined to prevail. The forces of fire are per- 

 petually carried captive with returning vapors, and retired be- 

 yond the ranks of the clouds. 



Meantime the equilibrium of the electricities is disturbed. 

 The friction of ascending vapors and descending rains develops 



