SECOND REPLY. 175 



If we transport ourselves, in imagination, into a time 

 which the grand poetic tradition of the Hebrews describes : 

 " And the earth was without form and void : and darkness 

 was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God 

 moved upon the face of the waters," we behold the earth 

 enveloped in dense cloud, in great part covered with water, 

 from which, forced up by volcanic power, the mountains 

 arose, coming to light as molten fluids, or in a still 

 gelatinous condition, and cooling into solid, more or less 

 crystalline masses the primeval rocks. Simultaneously, 

 through the same forces, the bottoms of the neighbouring 

 seas became upheaved above their glassy surfaces, and the 

 stratified precipitates of which they consisted, displayed 

 themselves as the transition rocks. Then came the decom- 

 posing influence of the atmosphere into action. Into the 

 flaws and cracks which the cooling process had caused 

 in the hard rocks, the water of the atmosphere penetrated. 

 Expanded by frost, it split oif the superficial layers, and 

 the detached blocks rolled down the mountain-sides. This 

 process was repeated upon these blocks until they and 

 their successors at last crumbled into dust, which was in 

 part washed over the level land by torrents of rain, in part 

 carried by the mighty rivers to the sea, where it was 

 again precipitated in layers, which, thrust up as before in 

 subsequent periods by the ever actively ascending molten 

 masses, now presents itself to us as the secondary and 

 tertiary strata and diluvium. The larger masses scattered 

 over the solid land were washed into heaps by the fearful 

 torrents of rain, and all the naked rocks underwent, 

 besides the mere mechanical destruction by which they 

 were reduced into small fragments and dust, unceasing 

 corrosion by chemical decomposition, whereby wholly new 

 compounds were formed, which were washed together by 



