320 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
a thin crust. That the temperature of the earth in remote 
times was much higher than it is now, is proved by 
many phenomena. Among other things, this is rendered 
probable by the equal distribution of organisms in remote 
times of the earth’s history. While at present, as is well 
known, the different populations of animals and plants 
correspond to the different zones of the earth and their 
appropriate temperature, in earlier times this was distinctly 
not the case. 
We see from the distribution of fossils in the remoter 
ages, that it was only at a very late date, in fact, at a com- 
paratively recent period of the organic history of the 
earth (at the beginning of the so-called czenolithic or tertiary 
period), that a separation of zones and of the corresponding 
organic populations occurred. During the immensely long 
primary and secondary periods, tropical plants, which 
require a very high degree of temperature, lived not only 
in the present torrid zone, under the equator, but also in 
the present temperate and frigid zones. Many other 
phenomena also demonstrate a gradual decrease of the tem- 
perature of the globe as a whole, and especially a late and 
gradual cooling of the earth’s crust about the poles. Bronn, 
in his excellent “ Investigations of the Laws of Development 
of the Organic World,” has collected numerous geological and 
paleontological proofs of this fact. 
These phenomena and the mathematico-astronomical know- 
ledge of the structure of the universe justify the theory that, 
inconceivable ages ago, long before the first existence of 
organisms, the whole earth was a fiery fluid globe. Now, this 
theory corresponds with the grand theory of the origin of 
the universe, and especially of our planetary system, which, 
