MODERN GEOLOGY 



middle of the nineteenth century were due to the fail- 

 ure of both parties to realize that simple fact. 



And as of the past and present, so of the future. The 

 same forces will continue to operate; and under oper- 

 ation of these unchanging forces each day will differ 

 from every one that has preceded it. If it be true, as 

 every physicist believes, that the earth is a cooling 

 globe, then, whatever its present stage of refrigeration, 

 the time must come when its surface contour will as- 

 sume a rigidity of level not yet attained. Then, just 

 as surely, the slow action of the elements will continue 

 to wear away the land surfaces, particle by particle, 

 and transport them to the ocean, as it does to-day, 

 until, compensation no longer being afforded by the 

 upheaval of the continents, the last foot of dry land will 

 sink for the last time beneath the water, the last moun- 

 tain-peak melting away, and our globe, lapsing like 

 any other organism into its second childhood, will be 

 on the surface as presumably it was before the first 

 continent rose one vast " waste of waters." As puny 

 man conceives time and things, an awful cycle will 

 have lapsed ; in the sweep of the cosmic life, a pulse- 

 beat will have throbbed. 



VOL. in. 12 



