19 



oi a vast amount of gaseous to liquid, and liquid to solid 

 matter. The oxygen must have been ready for this union, 

 and there must have been an enormous supply of this ele- 

 ment, for every atom of the other elements have been 

 consumed while the surplus of oxygen forms now at least 

 half of the water, earth and air. 



The comparatively quiescent plane of the earth's cir- 

 cumference would have been favorable not only to the action 

 of chemical affinity, but to rapid crystalization and solidi- 

 fication. The whole mass of overlaying matter must have 

 been gaseous. The presence of red heat or of flame had 

 probably already efl:ected the union of oxygen and hydrogen, 

 the subsequent precipitation of particles of aqueous vapor 

 and their conversion instantly to steam would have tended 

 to a more rapid cooling of the overheated crust. The 

 blare and tumult of the elements during the interval is 

 inconceivable. Aqueous vapor condensing here and there, 

 the moment it reached a higher altitude, or a cooler 

 atmospheric current, produced the requisite reduction of 

 temperature, falling toward or upon the glowing crust to 

 be forced instantly upwards in vast gushing volumes of 

 steam, perhaps decomposed, and its two gases reuniting 

 with fearful explosions to reform aqueous vapor — external 

 as well as internal forces rending and contorting the 

 shrinking crust ! 



The disintegrating effects of steam are very powerful, 

 and must have begun the work of forming the gneiss be- 

 fore the water rested upon the granitic base in liquid 

 masses. This deposition would have occurred at the earliest 

 possible period of the requisite reduction of temperature. 

 Water is the most powerful of all 'solvents. "It absorbs 

 and is absorbed by everything." This power is greatly in- 

 creased by an increase of temperature, so that these pri- 

 meval waters resting upon the granite not only must have 

 had, but the deposit of the gneiss proves that they did have, 

 power to hold in solution, or in mechanical suspension, all 



