326 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
since during the continued cooling, the fiery fluid nucleus 
became more and more condensed and contracted, and 
consequently the diameter of the earth diminished, the 
thin cold crust, which could not closely follow the softer 
nuclear mass, must have fallen in, in many places. An 
empty space would have arisen between the two, had not 
the pressure of the outer atmosphere forced down. the 
fragile crust towards the interior, breaking it in so doing. 
Other unevennesses probably arose from the fact that, in 
different parts, the cooled crust during the process of 
refrigeration contracted also itself, and thus became fissured 
with cracks and rents. The fiery fluid nucleus flowed up 
to the external surface through these cracks, and again 
became cooled and stiff. Thus, even at an early period there 
arose many elevations and depressions, which were the first 
foundations of mountains and valleys. 
After the temperature of the cooled terrestrial ball had 
fallen to a certain degree, a very important new process was 
effected, namely, the first origin of water. . Water had until 
then existed only in the form of steam in the atmosphere 
surrounding the globe. The water could evidently not con- 
dense into a state of fluid drops until the temperature of the 
atmosphere had considerably decreased. Now, then, there 
began a further transformation of the earth’s crust by the force 
of water. It continually fell in the form of rain, and in that 
form washed down the elevations of the earth’s crust, 
filling the depressions with the mud carried along, and, by 
depositing it in layers, it caused the extremely important 
neptunic transformations of the earth’s crust, which have 
continued since then uninterruptedly, and which in our 
next chapter we shall examine a little more closely. 
