Proceedings of the Folytechnw Association. 823 



Tlie vast area of country in the moon, which has been overspread 

 and submerged hy the matter evolved from those basins, shows that 

 the more external coatings of that body during that epoch, were of a 

 sedimentary nature ; perhaps not unlike the lighter alluvial soils of 

 our own earth ; and the process of creation, like all things else, being 

 progressive, it must have been matter changing from one form into 

 another ; and as all celestial globes are but the mechanical results of 

 chemical causes, it follows, that before they were globes they must 

 have existed in a form of matter which admitted of mechanical 

 manifestation ; therefore the particles must have been free to move 

 amongst each other, and the process must have been one of progres- 

 sive consolidation from a lesser to a greater degree of compactness ; 

 consequently the whole mass must have been lessening in bulk, and, 

 as a natural condition of such a process of construction, the various 

 elements and compounds would take their place from the center out- 

 ward, in the order of specitic gravity. Water, then, both from this 

 cause and from its power of sinking through earthy matter by fil- 

 tration, as it does upon the earth, would take its place below the 

 surface envelope ; but as the process of contraction proceeded, a time 

 would necessarily come when the crust would begin to exercise such 

 a mechanical pressure as would gradually force the water back to the 

 surface, similar to the manner in which it may be forced fi'om a 

 sponge. 



The five conditions of the particles which would form the surface 

 envelope of such a mass, would warrant the assumption that when 

 they were brought in contact with water thej^ would become plastic, 

 and in that condition would the more effectually resist the escape of 

 the water from within ; the action of the sun upon the upper surface 

 would have a tendency to harden it; its resistive energy would 

 therefore be reinforced, and as the operation of compacting slowly 

 proceeded the reaction of the enveloped water would as slowly 

 upheave the plastic crust which imprisoned it at the points at which 

 that crust presented the least resistance by its weight oi- local struc- 

 ture. The surface thus elevated would naturally take the form of a 

 very flat bubble or dome, tlie lateral dimensions of which would 

 depend upon local conditions ; and the amount of force developed 

 would be in proportion to the degree of tenacity with which the seg- 

 ment of surface upheaved had resisted the escape of the water. As 

 the power of resistance of the crust is necessarily limited, and the 

 force developed constantly accumulating, a time will come when the 



