IV 



THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONTINENTS, AND 

 THEIR GENERAL TESTIMONY AS TO LIFE 



T^HAT the reader may be enabled better to 

 understand the relation of the old founda- 

 tions or pillars of the earth to the be^nnning of life, 

 and the preservation of the remains of the earliest 

 animals, it may be welK to reverse the method we 

 have hitherto followed, and to present a theoretical 

 or ideal historical sketch of the early history of the 

 ^arth, beginning with that stage in which it may be 

 supposed to have been a liquid mass, considerably 

 larger than it is at present, and intensely heated, and 

 surrounded by a vast vaporous envelope composed 

 of all the substances capable of being resolved by 

 its heat into a gaseous condition-a smooth and 

 shining spheroid, invested with an enormous atmo- 

 sphere. 



In such a condition its denser materials, such as 

 the heavier metals, would settle toward the centre 

 and the surface would consist of lighter material 



78 



