Exchange of matter upon Earth. 

 Terrestrial caloric. 



Rain, thunder and lightning, barometrical maximums 

 and minimums. 



Of all the planets of our Solar System the Earth 

 which we inhabit is naturally the one most open to 

 research. As we have already seen geologists assert 

 that this earth was at one time a molten mass which 

 only after a lengthy cooling process, which must have 

 occupied millions of years, assumed its present appearance 

 through the formation of its crust. 



That the earth in its origin was a molten mass is my 

 own opinion, since I reckon our globe the product of a 

 burning sun, but that this mass was amorphous as 

 scientists suppose I am quite unable to agree, for reasons 

 which I shall now explain. One of these reasons is the 

 vitality of the earth as an entire indivisible organism. 



Were the substance of the earth amorphous it would 

 have been unable to withstand the destructive action 

 of oxo-hydrogen gas and, like the cosmic clouds, it 

 would have broken into fragments and dissipated itself 

 through space as comets do, without a special orbit of 

 its own. 



Think of a new-born infant; what does it present but 

 a mere mass of warm red flesh? Yet this flesh is alive. 

 It will presently swallow and assimilate the milky sub- 

 stance which it needs to live on. It will grow and strengthen 

 and become fair to look upon; it will develop organs ot 

 movement, of hearing, of thought But cut off a part of 



