THE SOLAR SYSTEM IN A BLAZE. 37 



Can we place ourselves in view of the scenes which then 

 existed? Creation is in its incipient stages. The long line 

 of events, which is to end in the installation of man in pos- 

 session of the earth, lies before us. Methods and plans are 

 now to be adopted whose carrying out is to be extended 

 into the distant future, and which shall comprehend and 

 provide for the endless variety of exigencies which are to 

 grow out of the gradual development of the destined order 

 of things. How inadequate would be a human intelligence 

 to an occasion like this ! But to the mind of the Infinite 

 Intelligence the whole creation already existed, and not a 

 feature of the original plan has been abandoned in the long 

 process of its actualization. 



But whence the state of things Avhich we are proposing 

 to picture ? Was this the " beginning ?" In truth, we are 

 forced to admit that science authorizes us to predicate a 

 molten condition of the globe as the consequent of a va- 

 porous one. What are the states of matter but the pro- 

 duct of temperature and pressure ? We style the liquid 

 the natural state of water, because that is its ordinary con- 

 dition under our own eyes. But where the mean temper- 

 ature is below the freezing-point, the solid is its ordinary 

 state ; and where the mean temperature rises above the 

 boiling-point, the gaseous is its ordinary state. To men 

 who exist (if such there are) where the climatic tempera- 

 ture never rises to the thawing-point, water is known only 

 as ice ; it is quarried as a rock ; it may be built into tem- 

 ples, or fortifications, or used for sidewalks. Could man 

 exist, on the contrary, where the climatic temperature 

 never falls below the boiling-point of water, this substance 

 would only be known as a gas, like hydrogen or carbonic 

 acid. There are regions where water, and even mercury, 

 maintain the permanent condition of solids. There are re- 

 gions where they can exist only as vapor. The pressure 



