6 
THE BOOK OF THE GREAT SEA-DRAGONS. 
Light being well nigh proved to be soft undulations of 
ether, or at least a property which cannot possibly exist 
at rest; if not itself motion, witli motion co-relative : Light 
ordained to act upon Matter in vacuum, would neces¬ 
sarily affect, if not Matter, the Conditions previously be¬ 
longing thereto. The earliest probable effects of Light 
would be to penetrate, and finally dismember the pure 
substance exposed to it: that may have been Couchant 
Caloric, which, at the touch of light would explode in a 
million fiery gases, and flee nebulous through space : 
However, that our planet was once actually fused, the 
Primitive rocks, and the Caverns which riddle them, ir- 
refragably show. And the Laws of Refrigeration would 
gradually produce the transitionary detritus which 
composes the upper Crust of the World. Under circum¬ 
stances of an ardent Clime, and long continuous light, the 
most vascular Order of Plants would commence the 
Great Epocha of Life; and as the Ocean must neces¬ 
sarily retain a higher temperature than the land, which 
would soon follow heat and refrigeration, impatient 
Nature would seize upon that first, and cover it with a 
forest of vegetative Giants. The Geysers of Iceland 
maintain certain plants, in a temperature fatal to any 
animal whatever, and so credential the claim of the ter¬ 
restrial Vegetable World to the most ancient Pedigree 
known. And the enormous Equiseta, Lycopodiacese, 
and other Cryptogamia, and the equally luxuriant Mo¬ 
nocotyledons of the Coal Measures, bespeak exactly that 
System of things to which every fact and argument in 
Physics bear such happy witness. “ Dixit quoque Deus : 
Fiat firmamentum, in medio aquarum; et dividat aquas 
ab aquis,—et factum est Vespere et mane, dies secundus. 
—Dixit vero Deus, congregentur aquae, quae sub coelo 
sunt, in locum unum ; et appareat arida.—Et ait: ger- 
minet terra herbam virentem, et facientem semen, et lig¬ 
num pomiferum faciens fructum juxta genus suum, cujus 
semen in semitipso sit super terram.-—Et factum est vespere 
et mane, dies tertius.” 
Thus Religion and Philosophy her hand-maid evoking 
from the dark shadows of Time the Colors in which he 
first limned, present us with the Original Sketch of the 
Infant Earth. Here we behold a universal Law of Matter 
first, then Light, and lastly Life. The Primitive and 
Allied Rocks, which are the limbs of the great World, 
witness in either Hemisphere to this universality; And 
the Colossal Flora of the ensuing Land no less witness the 
intense Vitality of that Light and Life, in which it so long 
rejoiced. The progressive Cycles of Innumerable Times, 
Horology has nothing whatever to do with them : by that 
little Art we measure our own vain and fleeting moments, 
which obtain scarcely a notation upon the sun-dial of 
Jehovah. 
Sect. II. Pursuing with Science, Matter subjected to 
Supernal Light through its early mechanical and or¬ 
ganised Conditions, we arrive at precisely those results 
which the Hebrew Sage enunciated in the Palace of 
Pharaoh. In what manner that Cosmogony was obtained 
let Sceptics ask, enough for us that it Squares with the 
Annals of Time, in every page upon which Philosophy 
has been privileged to ponder. A molecule of mere 
earth, it were vain, perhaps, to search for amongst the 
endless species to which it has sported, but the effects of 
Light, and Motion are portrayed throughout all the globe 
in Characters which speak a Tongue of their own, and 
Chronicle a Regime far different from ours. It were but 
reasonable to assume, that, whereas things which now are, 
differ in their intensities from things that have been, 
a Revolution in Nature occurred by which that Change 
was brought about. To scan that Change but by the 
Analogies which everywhere present themselves to us, 
for whom it was actually accomplished, were to use fo¬ 
reign instruments and a sorry Logic indeed. For nature 
metamorphoses Effects into Causes from the very begin¬ 
ning to the End. All the threads are disposed in warp 
and in woof, crossed and knitted fast together by one and 
the same Contrivance, and the Laws first promulgated by 
Queenly Nature are active or passive as may be, but 
never changed. The Pandectse of Nature then which 
do and do not tolerate the doctrine of Modern Analogies, 
are not at variance; and with this fact we proceed to 
the first Capitulum to which those Analogies are our only 
key. 
The Normal Earth, palled in an Atmosphere surcharged 
with moisture to opacity, was specially adjusted to the 
Vegetative Kingdom, the vasty wrecks of which remain 
to us as Coal. It is also no less evident that the loss of 
heat by radiation, and the impassibility of precipitated 
solids would undermine a Population holding by a Tenure 
like this. The Strata therefore, which follow the Coal- 
Measures, demonstrate a re-action, slowly but surely ac¬ 
complishing the Eden in which our wondrous Fortunes 
were to begin. It is hardly to be expected that we shall 
ever discover the Primal Isle of Earth, and in the nascent 
state of Geognosy can hope only to generalize, but one 
terreous vegetative Remain resting upon an inorganic 
rock substantiates our Text, and the Coal Measures of 
Virginia, as heretofore stated, afford that important ex¬ 
ample. We need not observe that the Floral Races lost their 
torrid vigor consequent with that heat and humidity which 
especially signalized the advent of Time: The towering 
Palms and Cacti, which first lifted their glorious heads in 
a Land all their own, and the egregious Sigillaria, fring¬ 
ing the otherwise lifeless marshes which environed them, 
may and did survive through the Coming Ages of the 
populous Deep, and sustained the Fauna of a ripening 
World. We curiously explore the most ancient Golgotha 
of the Primitive Flora, and find there not one relic of the 
Animal Kingdom: but the ascending Archives declare 
myriads of Cephalopods, Crinites, Trilobites, and Conchi- 
fers, creatures with the least sensation, and which would 
be the very first to start into existence when the Oceanic 
temperament fell to their necessary point. And the pe¬ 
trified Eyes of Crustaceans remaining to this day in a 
perfect state, triumphantly show that the same structure 
and disposition were common to themselves and their re¬ 
motest descendant, satisfying us that the identical light 
of the Sun by which we have vision was also the medium 
of sight to them, and inscribing the moment in which that 
Sun was first manifest. Hence, coupling supernal Light, 
excessive heat, and the atmospherical Consequences of 
both together; it is not too much to say, nor for Philo¬ 
sophy to concede that the Light of the Sun (if it existed 
then at all, which is doubtful,) could not penetrate that 
atmosphere, nor subdue that other Light, and that it had 
no conceivable use upon our Planet before those Creatures 
were brought forth to whom alone it could be of any the 
least value, and without which indeed, they could not 
live. “ Dixit autem Deus; fiant luminaria in firmamento 
cceli. Et sint in signa et tempora, et dies, et annos.—Et 
factum est vespere et mane, dies quartus.” 
