EARTH’S FUTURE 
269 
portion to its mass it may have had. Having grown and agglom¬ 
erated as the Earth in sweeping through space and also being a 
near neighbour to the Earth, it very probably consists of the same 
materials; though being of smaller mass, it is less dense and may 
never have attained to that temperature known to be necessary 
in the formation of the heavier materials in the body of the Earth. 
Seas, at present, it has none; though we have evidence of areas 
which denote sea-bottoms. If we were to reverse the proportion 
of seas to land on Earth we would come near to the proportions 
that once held sway on Mars. Its vast ochre areas which are 
seemingly now deserts once might have been called continents — 
as a matter of fact it is the term used in speaking of them now. 
The large dark areas, of far less extent, are considered to have 
once been oceans, but on account of their periodic (seasonal) 
changes, with all the characteristics of such changes on Earth, 
they are now considered areas of vegetation. Their changes in 
extent and colouring with all the tones seen on Earth as the seasons 
follow each other plainly tell us that this is so. 
As one wanders over the Earth one is struck by the large 
deserts belting the globe above and below the equator; and by 
studying them one is lead to believe that the Earth was not always 
so, nor will be. That the deserts are gradually encroaching on the 
cultivated areas is patent. During historic times ports that were 
once flourishing are now ruins far inland; showing that the seas 
themselves are gradually drying up. Aqueducts in various por¬ 
tions of the world now betoken a civilization long dead. Where 
once these same aqueducts watered a fertile land the desert has 
intervened and of water there is no sign. 
It is of interest that these desert regions, where water has once 
held sway, are comparatively flat. Water has done its work. 
Erosion, except for that of the winds, is complete. Where there 
now is water there is still erosion; it seems to be a gradual and 
timed proceeding, or as one might put it, there seems to be just 
enough water on the Earth to denude and flatten it. 
The Earth as it is said, found its level as a spheroid of rotation; 
the unevennesses of its surface still remaining will be gradually 
smoothed off by wind, river and ocean. A fine example of this 
is seen in the San Francisco peaks of Arizona. The contour of 
the vast crater now remaining shows by its shape that it was once, 
