THE PRIMITIVE OCEAN. 43ft 



higher elevations above the general surface : all is flat and even, 

 and land nowhere rises above the mirror of a boundless 

 ocean. 



This new state of things still affords the same spectacle oi 

 dreary uniformity and solitude in all its horrors. The tempera- 

 ture of the waters is yet too high, and they contain too many 

 extraneous substances, too many noxious vapours arise from the 

 clefts of the earth-rind, the dense atmosphere is still too much 

 impregnated with poisons, to allow the hidden germs of life any- 

 where to awaken. A strange and awful primitive ocean rises and 

 falls, rolls and rages, but nowhere does it beat against a coast ; 

 no animal, no plant, grows and thrives in its bosom ; no bird 

 flies over its expanse. 



But meanwhile the hidden agency of Providence is unre- 

 mittingly active in preparing a new order of things. The earth- 

 rind increases in thickness, the crevices become narrower, and 

 the fluid or semi-fluid masses escaping through the clefts ascend 

 to a more considerable height. 



Thus the first islands are formed, and the first separation be- 

 tween the dry land and the waters takes place. At the same 

 time no less remarkable changes occur, as well in the constitution 

 of the waters as in that of the atmosphere. The farther the 

 glowing internal heat of the planet retires from the surface, the 

 greater is the quantity of water which precipitates itself upon it. 

 The ocean, obliged to relinquish part of its surface to the dry 

 land, makes up for the loss of extent by an increase of depth, 

 and the clearer atmosphere allows the enlivening sunbeam to 

 gild here the crest of a wave, there a naked rock. 



And now also life awakens in the seas, but how often has it 

 changed its forms, aDd how often has Neptune displaced his 

 boundaries since that primordial dawn. Alternately rising or 

 subsiding, what was once the bottom of the ocean now forms 

 the mountain crest, and whole islands and continents have been 

 gradually worn away and whelmed beneath the waves of the sea, 

 to arise and to be whelmed again. In every part of the world 

 we are able to trace these repeated changes in the fossil remains 

 embedded in the strata that have successively been deposited in 

 the sea, and then again raised above its level by volcanic agencies, 

 and thus, by a wonderful transposition, the history of the primi- 

 tive ocean is revealed to us by the tablets of the dry land. The 



G G 



