224 WALKS AND TALKS. 



night. Do not say this is all a dramatic representation. How 

 else could the forces work? It is reasoning, not imagination 

 which has reproduced the incidents of the primeval storm. 

 That storm was a real chapter in the childhood history of the 

 planet which is our home. So we must remember it. But, 

 thanks to the constitution of nature, we live in the fortunate 

 period when, on another member of our planetary family, the 

 secular storm is raging. From our safe distance we hear none 

 of the turmoil which reigns on Jupiter ; but we can gaze on 

 the exterior of the cloudy envelope, and we can believe our- 

 selves, with Lockyer, catching glimpses, at times, of the light- 

 ning flashes which glare within, and seem to shoot their darts 

 quite through the blanket of vapors. A specimen world still 

 in its swaddling clothes held back in development, that our 

 human intelligence might find response to its earnest inquiries 

 about the past held back, like the living rings of Saturn, to 

 serve as samples of unformed worlds, hung up to illustrate the 

 divine process of world formation. 



XXXIX. THE \VAR IN THE OCEAN. 



THE EARLIEST STRATA. 



A SHORELESS ocean now enwrapped the world. It was not 

 a placid summer expanse overhung by bright skies and swarm- 

 ing with happy sentient creatures. The rains which supplied 

 the ocean had washed from the atmosphere certain acid gases- 

 especially sulphuric, chlorhydric, and carbonic and these 

 pervaded the water now resting over the earth. The fire- 

 formed crust, however, on which the ocean rested, was com- 

 posed chiefly of silicates of somewhat complex constitution, 

 but largely silicates of alumina, potash, soda, lime, and mag- 

 nesia. Now, when the hot acid waters came in contact with 

 these silicates, certain reactions immediately began. The 

 silicates were decomposed; the alkaline bases, potash, lime, 

 and so forth, were taken up by the free acids, forming chlo- 

 rides of potassium, calcium, sodium, magnesium; as also 

 sulphates and carbonates of potash, soda, magnesia, and lime. 



