THE AN<^KT APPEAKAlfCE OF OtTK EAKm 365 



Geologists suppose that our eartli was once a 

 molten^ liquid mass, which cooled by degrees until a 

 crust was fomed, that slowly thickened untQ con- 

 densation began in the suiTounding atmosphere, and 

 thus the water of the primeval ocean was formed. 

 At first this water must have been just below the 

 boiling point, and the query has arisen, How cool did 

 the sea become before vegetation began to appear in 

 it, and on the land then above the sea ? The partial 

 answer indicated by the few observations above is, 

 that the presence of vegetable life depended more on 

 the chemical composition of the water than on its 

 temperature. If it was as pure then as the larger 

 pool described above, the whole ocean was yet one 

 gi'eat steaming caldron when these very simple 

 aquatic plants, each apparently consisting of only 

 a single branching cell, l>egan to gi'ow in the shallow 

 places along its shores. Before this time, however, 

 other algJB, lite those which now grow in moist ter- 

 restrial places, may have been thriving on the land 

 in the steamy atmosphere. 



Sunday^ December ZUt—M 8 a. m. attended the 

 native church, where the missionary preaches* It 

 was well filled, and the attention manifested by all 

 was highly commendable. At the close of the ser- 

 vice four or five couples were mai-ried j the pastor, 

 after performing the ceremony, exi)laining to the 

 husbands that they must support their wives, and 

 not, like the Alfura, who are heathens, live in idle- 

 ness, and erpect their ^vives to support them. A 

 cmiroleur, who had been stationed in the interior, 

 back of Gorontalo, now amved at Langowan^ on his 



