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 Catalaunian plains, 

 waged at night, in rn id-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 



