244 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
deductions arc of course based upon cliemical 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 wc 
may therefore accept them as data to proceed upon. 
Next, then, comes the question how the fii'st 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 first crust of the globe, we should natiirally 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 w^hat, then, would be the result ? 
Mr. SteiTy-Hunt will hel^D 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 npon 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 transfoi-m 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 gixe 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- 
