CHAOS 



291 



growing heap a heap, as we might now express it, 

 of fallen meteorites ; the lighter particles, which form 

 fluids, followed the heavier in their descent, and collected 

 around the solid kernel to form a deep ocean. This was 

 at first a kind of emulsion, like rnilk, formed of oily and 

 watery particles commingled, and just as in the case of 

 milk, there separated, on standing, a thick creamy upper 

 layer, which floated on the " skim-milk" below (Fig. 89). 



FIG. 88. Chaos, according to Thomas Burnett. 



That this really happened, the good Burnett bra.vely 

 remarks, "we cannot doubt." The finest dust of chaos 

 was the last to fall, and it did not descend till the cream 

 had risen ; with which it mingled to form, under the 

 heat of the sun, the earth's first crust, an excellent but 

 fragile pastry, consisting of fine earth mixed with a 

 benign juice, which formed a fertile nidus for the origin 

 of living things. Outside nothing now was left, but 



