MODERN GEOLOGY 



the globe. As this elastic fluid rose into outer space, 

 its continually increasing expansion must have propor- 

 tionately lowered its temperature ; and, in consequence, 

 a part was recondensed into water and sank back tow- 

 ards the more solid surface of the globe. 



"And in this manner, for a certain time, a violent 

 reciprocation of atmospheric phenomena must have 

 continued torrents of vapor rising outwardly, while 

 equally tremendous torrents of condensed vapor, or 

 rain, fell towards the earth. The accumulation of the 

 latter on the yet unstable and unconsolidated surface 

 of the globe constituted the primeval ocean. The 

 surface of this ocean was exposed to continued vapori- 

 zation owing to intense heat ; but this process, abstract- 

 ing caloric from the stratum of the water below, by 

 partially cooling it, tended to preserve the remainder 

 in a liquid form. The ocean will have contained, both 

 in solution and suspension, many of the matters car- 

 ried upward from the granitic bed in which the vapors 

 from whose condensation it proceeded were produced, 

 and which they had traversed in their rise. The dis- 

 solved matters will have been silex, carbonates, and 

 sulphates of lime, and those other mineral substances 

 which water at an intense temperature and under such 

 circumstances was enabled to hold in solution. The 

 suspended substances will have been all the lighter and 

 finer particles of the upper beds where the disintegra- 

 tion had been extreme; and particularly their mica, 

 which, owing to the tenuity of its plate-shaped crys- 

 tals, would be most readily carried up by the ascend- 

 ing fluid, and will have remained longest in suspen- 

 sion. 



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