FLORA, 201 
the mere act of condensation which has been referred to, 
might suffice to produce a. development of heat sufficient 
to have brought the whole mass into a state of fusion. 
If this did happen, a film of crust would be formed 
through the cooling of this mass; and as the process of 
cooling advanced this crust would become thicker and 
thicker. By the combination of oxygen with hydrogen, 
whencesoever these had come, and in what way scever 
the combination was brought about—most probably by 
fire—there came into existence an immense body of 
water, probably at first in a state of invisible vapour, but 
thereafter condensed into a state of mist or cloud, and 
subsequently into a liquid mass constituting the ocean 
now covering a great extent of the earth’s surface, and at 
places miles deep. By the movements of this, large por- 
tions of the remaining solid mass mechanically severed, 
or chemically decumposed, were carried about and ultima- 
tely deposited; but at first often to be again fused by 
the heat of the molten mass enclosed in the crust ; and thus 
were produced the so-called secondary or transitionary 
rocks, the gneiss and schist, and metamorphic rocks, the 
last named rocks to some extent crystallised or otherwise 
changed by the action of fire. 
The correctness of the opinion that the earth is at 
present a molten mass of matter enclosed in a solid crust 
has been called in question. But the granite or primitive 
rock defies all attempts to penetrate it to any thing like 
the depth which would enable us to determine the fact 
by observation and the thickness of this crust, if crust only 
it be; though the strata overlying this which have been 
deposited from water, and afterwards fused, have been so 
fractured and dislocated that the measurement of the 
thickness of some of these has been proximately determined, 
In these are no remains of organic structures of animal or 
of vegetable origin, nor could such have been expected to 
survive the fusing heat to which these strata have been 
subjected; and from the fact mentioned, however it has 
been brought about, they have been characterised as azoic, 
