Marvels of the Universe 863 
be seen anywhere nowadays 
of this earliest-formed crust ? 
Probably not. The process we 
have described lasted for so 
long a time, and the earliest 
crust may have so frequently 
become involved repeatedly 
in the general melting-pot, 
that we cannot safely say 
of any definite rock that 
this is a part of the funda- 
mental crust. Most geologists 
say that the fundamental 
rock can nowhere be seen. 
Some American geologists 
point to a- great series of 
rocks, known as the Archean 
rocks, in America, and sug- 
gest that here we have what = Pio bu] LGestWatson: 
represent portions of the Crystalline vein filling up an ancient crack in igneous rock at Oidfjord Vaud. 
original crust. But only portions, for there can be no doubt that the original surface has long 
since been dismantled, only the lower portions appearing after being laid bare by erosion, whilst the 
eroded materials have gone to form the earliest sedimentary rocks (Keewatin) resting upon them. 
These Archzean rocks are, anyway, the most ancient that have anywhere been discovered. They are 
contorted, doubled up, and foliated into extraordinary shapes, and the material of which they were 
composed has been exposed to such intense heat that their structure has been changed, and their 
crystalline condition has obliterated all that might give us any clue as to whether life of any kind 
existed in these very early days of the earth’s history. Gneisses and schists of all kinds, which may 
have been sediments, have 
been cut into by other rocks 
of a volcanic nature, and 
the whole have been so 
crumpled and crushed that 
the interlocking masses are 
not separable from one 
another. There is a_ thick- 
ness of these unfossiliferous 
rocks in the Grand Canon 
of the Colorado of no _ less 
than a third of a mile, and 
this is probably a good deal 
less than there was origin- 
ally. This gives us a vivid 
idea of the length of time 
during which this formation 
was being laid down, and 
during this time, so far as proto vy) 1 cz mm nara 
we know, no life had appeared Great folds of crushed and contorted quartzite much penetrated by volcanic 
upon our earth. But in the dykes and diorite “‘sills.’’ 
