13 



And ruin forests beyond earths compare- 

 Creatures with ponderous wings mid air to soar, 

 Wings needful then, not now, nor ever more. 

 Does not each land declare " The Sea was here!^' 

 Where not, Oh ! Ocean ? Thou wast everywhere ! 

 But thou hast reared the earth, and never more 

 Can she with all her rivers, what thou gavest restore! 



II. 



Transformation of Terrestrial Matter. 



I 



The whole volume of matter which the attraction of 

 gravitation holds together in the earth and its satellite, is 

 the same in quantity as it was at the time of its separation 

 from the other masses of the solar system, excepting the 

 insignificant amount of meteoric matter which is added 

 from time to time to the earthly mass by coming within 

 range of its attraction. 



^ If matter be indestructible, this must be so, for those 

 forms, if such there be, that can escape beyond this uni- 

 versal law of gravitation are as yet beyond our investiga- 

 tions.^ We must, then, look for change of form only in an 

 invariable quantity of material elements. 



Upon this truth Pythagorus based his celebrated cos- 

 mogony more than 2,500 years ago. 



The laws ^vhich governed the earthly mass in its first 

 separation from the other masses of the solar system were 

 the same that govern it now, and it must have had, in 

 consequence of then existing temperature and other condi- 

 tions, a certain volume as it has now a certain volume re- 

 sulting from past and present conditions of temperature, etc. 

 ^ The first change that took place producing this separa- 

 tion, altered the previous internal relations of this matter, 

 and if the same laws continued to operate upon it, the 

 effect was to produce something different from that produced by 

 the first change. 



Thus t^ operation of uniform laws ivould i^roduce constant 

 diversity. In obedience to the same laws, changes have 



