EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL 

 FORCES. 



According to evolutional theories the first great act in the 

 formation of the world we live in, was the dividing off from the 

 central nebula of the quantity of matter that was to belong to 

 the terrestrial quota. This apportionment in the case of the 

 earth contained some sixty-five different elemental gases, of ex- 

 ceedingly varying weights and properties, and. in singularly un- 

 equal proportions. Some of these gases were more than two 

 hundred times heavier than the lightest one, measure for measure ; 

 while one of them was more abundant than all the rest put 

 together, and others were present only in mere traces. It was a 

 strange and anomalous mixture ; yet when in process of time 

 these gases came to cool down and to consolidate into their most 

 stable forms, it was found that this seemingly chaotic assemblage 

 of most diverse elements had really been apportioned out in ex- 

 actly the quantities, and the different gases had been endowed 

 with precisely such dispositions for uniting with each other, that 

 were necessary to make up a solid and habitable world. Any 

 material variation in those affinities or in the proportions of 

 supply would have entirely prevented the formation of an 

 encrusted, well watered, and air surrounded globe. 



For instance, if the element oxygen had not been both the 

 dominant and superabundant material, the world could never 

 have had a hard and permanent shell about it. Oxygen, so far 

 as we know, is the only substance in nature that could have 

 burned up the silicon, calcium, aluminum, magnesium, and other 

 minerals, and laid them away in the rocks that form the crust of 

 the earth. Silicon and carbon are two elements that are always 

 classed together as having quite similar properties, and according 

 to all analogy their compounds with oxygen ought to have been 



