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canoes. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions were very 

 much more violent in past ages than they are now. Take, 

 for instance, the Deccan trap formation, 200,000 square miles 

 in area and as much as 6oooft. deep in some places. The 

 volcanic outburst that resulted in this deposit must have 

 been most fearful. But all over the earth's crust we have evi- 

 dence of contortions and dislocations of the strata that form 

 the outer crust of the earth, which point to very great heat 

 acting from within the bowels of the earth. This heat gra- 

 dually becoming less, in other words, the earth getting 

 cooler and cooler, the disturbances on the earth's surface 

 have also'become less and less. At one time the heat and 

 the disturbances in the shape of earthquakes and dislocations 

 were so great that no plant or animal could have lived on 

 the surface of the earth. Gradually the surface getting cooler 

 and quieter, plant and animal lives made their appearance, 

 But thousands and perhaps millions of years elapsed before 

 the surface of the earth became fit for human habitation. It 

 is supposed that our planet was originally a portion of the 

 sun, and that it was spitted out by the sun by a violent cen- 

 trifugal action. This nebulous or fluid mass of burning and 

 revolving matter has been gradually getting cooler and cooler 

 and solidifying from the surface downwards. The composi- 

 tion of the whole of the solid crust of the earth can be studied 

 and even of a portion of the fluid ' magma/ as it is called, 

 lying underneath the crust, as volcanic action has exposed 

 to the surface not only the solid strata but also the liquid 

 magma below. 



19. Geologists have found out in the midst of all the con- 

 tortions and dislocations to which the outer crust of the earth 

 has been subjected for ages past, that the strata forming the 

 crust occur in a certain definite order all over the earth's 

 surface. In England these strata occur in beautiful regularity 

 from S. E. to N. W., the newer formations at the S. E. and 

 the older formations at the N. W. In other countries although 



