308 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



cumulations still forming and hardening. We look back, 

 and ascertain that the same processes, continued through 

 ages of the past, have piled up thousands of feet of rocky- 

 beds, in which still slumber the mummied forms of the pri- 

 meval world. We see that certain rocks bear the marks 

 of fire. We plunge our hands into a thermal spring, and 

 gather intimations of internal heat. The molten eructa- 

 tions of a volcano demonstrate the continued existence of 

 melted rocks. If masses of igneous origin have cooled 

 from a state of fusion, who can say that they have not 

 cooled from that higher temperature at which we know 

 that rocks and all other things can subsist only as vapor ? 

 Do we find rocks existing in that condition? Yes; worlds 

 still exist as igneous vapors. Here, then, we may assume 

 our starting-point. A world of airy flame, after ages of 

 cooling, gathered a liquid nucleus at its core — a globe of 

 molten rock, wrapped in a glowing atmosphere of all that 

 remained as vapor. Next, a fiery floor congeals over the 

 surface of the burning tide ; the burning tide, as if in rage, 

 lashes it to fragments, and the abated heat allows them to 

 be recemented. When the hotter fires had been quite im- 

 prisoned in the strengthening crust, dews began to gather 

 in the upper air, and streaks of haze barred out the burn- 

 ing beams of the lurid sun. Rains fell upon the fervid 

 crust, to waste themselves in sudden vapor, and return to 

 the attack upon the crust. Gleams of electricity lighted 

 the misty drapery of this geologic night, while the thun- 

 ders of Nature's ordnance echoed through the caverns of 

 the clouds. 



A rain of acid waters at length got the mastery of the 

 wrinkled surface, and every ravine and valley witnessed 

 the race of the rivers for the lowest levels. Every water- 

 course bore onward its freight of sediment, the materials 

 of the masonry of continents. The filmy ocean swallowed 



