244 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



deductions are of course based upon clieniical data ; and whether we 

 accept them literally or not, it is probable that something very like 

 this state of things did exist at the remote period referred to, and we 

 may therefore accept them as data to proceed upon. 



Next, then, comes the question how the first sea was formed ? 

 Naturally, we should think, in the sequence of events incident on the 

 natural refrigeration or cooling of our planet. After the consolida- 

 tion of the fii'st crust of the globe, we should naturally expect that 

 the condensation of the atmospheric vapours should succeed. Hence, 

 the first rain-fall should have produced the first ocean. Was the first 

 ocean, then, of fresh water? Wait a while. Let us look at both sides 

 of the case ; for this rain-fall, perhaps long continued, must have 

 fallen, if our assumption be right, on what would be practically a 

 globe of dolerite. And what, then, would be the result ? 



Mr. Sterry-Hunt will help us again. He will speak, perhaps, in 

 the concise language of science — a language unintelligible often to 

 the mass, because it is a " short-hand," so to express it, which pre- 

 sumes and requires a considerable amount of knowledge on the part 

 of the reader, but which, in the sentence we shall quote, is, we think, 

 sufficiently intelligible to all. 



" The first action," says the investigator referred to, " of a hot acid 

 rain falling upon the yet uncooled crust, would give rise to chlorides 

 and sulphates with the separation of silica ; and the accumulation of 

 the atmospheric waters would form a sea charged with salts of soda, 

 lime, and magnesia." 



Chemical deductions carried still further bring us to another stage. 

 " The subsequent decomposition of the exposed portions of the 

 crust" — those not covered by the primeval ocean — " under the influ- 

 ence of water and carbonic acid, would transform the felspathic por- 

 tions into a silicate of alumina (clay) on the one hand, and alkaline 

 bi-carbonates on the other ; these decomposing the lime-salts of the 

 sea, would give rise to alkaline chlorides and bi-carbonate of lime, 

 the latter to be separated by precipitation, or by organic agency, as 

 limestone." 



In this way, then, we arrive at the continued formation of chloride 

 of sodium, or common salt, in the sea, as also of the manner in which 

 the siliceous (flinty-sandstones, quartz-rock, &c.), calcareous (lime- 



