ype The Sea 
had to be an earth before an ocean could form upon it. It will 
be prudent to remark at the very beginning that very little 
is known about the age of the earth or its origin. What we 
have to say in the following paragraphs, therefore, must be 
regarded as hypothetical, possible, but certainly not positive. 
THE EARTH IS BORN 
Once upon a time there were no planets revolving about 
the sun. The sun was a little brighter than it is now, but it — 
had no Earth, no Mercury, no Venus, or any other planets to 
shine upon. It remained in this lonesome state for periods of 
time which are unmeasurable by human standards. 
Finally one day (this was at a time before there were such 
things as days and nights) another star approached our sun, 
closely grazed it and then flew off again into the oblivion of 
outer space. In the encounter a filament of the sun's surface 
was torn off by virtue of the other star's gravitational jaf 
ence and given a higher angular velocity so that it could not — 
fall back into the sun. 
This filament was exceedingly hot, bright, vaporous, and : 
. flaming like the sun itself. But in time it condensed into 
droplets of vapor and liquid, each drop forming one of the- 
planets as we know them today. Our earth was one of these 
drops. 
(At present this theory of the birth of the earth is in dis- 
repute. Professor Lyman Spitzer, Jr., a well. known astro-_ 
physicist, has shown that a filament so formed would prob 
ably dissipate into space rather than condense into drops. 
But, since no better explanation of the earth’s formation ha 
been proposed, we can tentatively hold to this theory rathe 
than do with no explanation at all. ) 
