15 



That there had been a gradual cc^oling of the whole 

 body up to this time can not be positively asserted, although 

 it is probably true; the evidences of igneous action are 

 undoubted, and still existing central heat undisputed — but 

 the plane of the earth's granitic crust must have cooled in 

 solidifying, and must have been still further greatly re- 

 duced in temperature before there could have been any de- 

 posit of water upon it, even if the elements had already 

 combined to form aqueous vapor. 



Of the action of water upon this earliest known forma- 

 tion of solid matter there is at length indubitable evidence, 

 as there is at a still later period, of the existence of an at- 

 mosphere. 



Thus we arrive at a point of time when the elements 

 had combined here into the diversified forms of solid, 

 liquid, and gaseous matter. Although this presumptive 

 reasoning proves gaseous matter to have existed first, the 

 actual evidence of its forming the earth's atmosphere does 

 not appear until after the creation of organic life upon the 

 land. 



So constant and permanent these forms of matter seem- 

 ed to the ancients, that they considered them the elements 

 of nature; hereafter, the elements into which they have 

 now been analysed may also be found to be compound. 

 The results, however, thus far arrived at enable us to un- 

 derstand many of the processes of nature now transpiring; 

 to assert that there is nothing unreasonable in the extreme 

 diffusion of the known elements of matter to a volume of 

 even more than 482,000 miles, nor of its having had, at a 

 certain period, as its condensation progressed, an incon- 

 ceivably high temperature, and that there will be continu- 

 ous transformation and solidification until the liquid and 

 gaseous forms of matter are entirely solidified, and the 

 earth brought to the present condition of the moon. 



The conclusion has long since been reached by astronom- 

 ical observation that there is no water and no atmosphere 



