86 RELICS OF PRIMEVAL LIFE 



seas, forming the first aqueous deposits, while the 

 original land must have been correspondingly re- 

 duced. 



The sea might still be warm, and it held in solu- 

 tion or suspension somewhat different substances 

 from those now present in it, and the land was at 

 first a mere chaos of rocky crags and pinnacles. 

 But so soon as the temperature of the waters fell 

 somewhat below the boiling point, and as even a 

 little soil formed in the valleys and hollows of the 

 land, there was scope for life, provided that its 

 germs could be introduced. 



On a small scale there was something of this 

 same kind in the sea and land of Java, after the 

 great eruption of Krakatoa, in 1883. The bare 

 and arid mountain left after the eruption, began, 

 in the course of a year, to be occupied by low 

 forms of vegetable life, gradually followed by others, 

 and verdure was soon restored. The once thickly 

 peopled sea-bottom, so prolific of life in these warm 

 seas, but buried under many feet of volcanic ashes 

 and stones, soon began to be re-peopled, and is now 

 probably as populous as before. But in this case 

 there were plenty of spores of lichens, mosses, and 

 other humble plants to be wafted to the desolate 



