ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 21 
archaeology and the deductions from cosmical laws 
have met with some opposition, they have nevertheless 
gained a fuller recognition than could reasonably have 
been expected. 
That there was a time in the history of our planet 
when it received no radiated light, is probable. If this 
hypothesis be true, it follows that under such condi- 
tions it was impossible for either vegetable or animal 
life to exist upon it. But after eons of time had pre- 
pared at least portions of the earth for the reception of 
living things, there were localities, in the region of the 
poles, and even in the zones now called temperate, 
where no life existed, or could exist, on account of the 
intense cold. To the varying eccentricity of the earth's 
orbit were probably due the cycles of extreme heat 
and cold and those climatic conditions that prevailed 
at different periods of the past, and which made it pos- 
sible for animals and plants requiring a tropical tem- 
perature to exist in localities where now none but 
those of an arctic climate are to be found. The fact is 
patent, that all portions of the earth are not, and never 
universe and not be profoundly impelled to admire the plan of the 
Divine Architect. The vastness of ethereal space with its suns, planets, 
and myriads of stars all traversing their endless circuits in order and 
harmony, attest the power and wisdom of the Almighty. The uni- 
verse, how incomprehensible is the term ! It implies bounds without 
limits, and all the works of the infinite. No telescope can ever ex- 
plore the vastness of stellar space, or mind conceive of its wonders. 
Astronomers tell us that the stars comprising some of the nebulae are 
so distant that light traveling with the usual velocity requires 700,000 
years to reach the earth, and that the view we get is not their appear- 
ance at the present moment, but what they presented 700,000 years 
ago. Many other and perhaps more convincing evidences showing 
the formation and antiquity of the globe might be given. 
