UC-NRLF

B E flME b3E

DIMINUTION

OF

WATER ON THE EARTH,

ANn ITS

PERMANENT CONVERSION

INTO

SOLID FORMS

DAI: TON. OHIO;

PRINTED AT THE DAILY JOURNAL ESTAHLISHMENT

1873.

A PAPER

PRESENTING FACTS AND. SUGGESTIONS IN PROOF OF THE

THEORY OF THE GKADUAl^ A^D CONTmUOUS

DIMINUTION OF THE QUANTITY OF

WATER UPON THE EARTH,

AND ITS

PERMANENT CONVERSION INTO

Solid Forms of Matter.

PREPARED, TO BE PRESENTED BEFORE THE

"American Association for the Advancement of Science,"

AT ITS MEETING IN

PORTLAND, MAINE, IN AUGUST, 1873,

By MRS. GEO. W. HOUK,

OF DAYTON, OHIO.

/I

DAYTON, OHIO:

PRINTED AT THE DAILY JOURNAL ESTABLISHMENT.

1873.

LOAM <JTA'-r

GIFT

yK^/y

The Decrease of Water Surface.

The evidences of the apparent snbsidence of the water
level upon the earth's surface, have been familiar to scien-
tific observers for many centuries ; and various theories
have been advanced, from time to time, to account for it.
Aristotle, Zanthus, Omar in the 10th Century, Leibnitz,
Calcius, Vallisneri, Linn^us, Buitbn and Gessner are
among those who have noted the diminished extent of
water surface upon the earth. Linuieus and some others
accepted the theory of Leibnitz, that the Universal Ocean
was received into cavern's which opened in the earth's crust.

There seems to have been no expression of similar views
durin tr the past century. * Humboldt says : •' We must not
overlook the possibility of a diminution of the quantity of
water, and a constant depression of the level of the
seas, * -'^ but in the actual condition of our planet there
is no direct evidence of a real continuous increase or de-
crease of the sea, and we have no proof of any gradual
change of its level." (Cosmos 11. p .)

As far back as 1692, Ray wondered, on the other hand,
why the earth did not proceed more rapidly toward a
general submersion when so nmch matter was carried into
it by rivers and undermined in sea cliffs, which tended con-
stantly to raise the surface of the waters. Lyell adds:
"Certainly no deposition of sedinfent can occur without
the displacement of a quantity of water equal in volume,
which will raise the sea even to the antipodes."

179

From a knowledge of the incessant and immense deposits
beneath the surface of the waters, there shoukl be, if the
quantity of 7vater remained constant^ a general elevation
of water surface, and slow but certain advance of water
upon land.

The great preponderance of facts, however, goes to prove
that the land surfaces have actually gained upon the waters,
although there are limited areas where the sea is said to be
encroaching, as upon the coasts of Greenland and ^orwaj^
and the wash of cliffs upon some exposed ocean shores.

The broad truth that every part of the earth's surface
has at some time been under water is very pertinent. There
is evidence of the action of water not only at heights far
above the sea level and upon the interior of continents, but
the horizontal formations, as those of the Pyrenees and
the Cape of Grood Hope prove the undisturbed condition
of the strata.

The earlier deposits were more general in character and
of greater extent, gradually diminishing as they advance
in time and change in the structure of their organic re-
mains. Since the beginning of the tertiary period the dry
land in the Northern Hemisphere has been constantly on the
increase. The immensely powerful erosive forces in the
British Islands, where tens of thousands of feet of the solid
rock formations have been washed out, leaving terraces and
water marks hundreds of feet above the present ocean
level — the raised beaches sCnd water lines of Norway,
Sweden, France, Italy, Greece — the advance of land around
the entire borders of the Mediterranean Sea — land beyond
Antwerp left dry within the historic period — and the well
known great advances of all the deltas of the large rivers
of the world — the glacial deposits, proving the ^N^orthern
Oceans to have receded to their present levels from the
lower latitudes of the temperate zones — the grand pages of
the great Stone Book, spread out upon every continent, bear
witness in unmistakable characters to the increase of land
surface.

I

Altliough Sir Charles Lyell says It is impossible to invent
any theory to account for the disappearance of so large a
body of water as must have diappeared to explain geo-
logical facts, he adopts that of Mr. Darwin, of the sinking
down of the ocean bed; commenting upon Ray's geological
views he says "the preservation of the dry land may some-
times be effected by the subsidence of that part of the
earth's crust covered by the ocean" — and again, "The
sinking down of the bed of the sea is one of the means by
which the submersion of land is prevented" — and he adds,
"if we then inquire in what manner the force of earth-
quakes must he regulated in order to restore perpetually
the inequalities of surface which the levelling power of
water is constantly tending to efface, it will be found that
the amount of depression must exceed that of elevation. If a
counterpoise be derived from this source, the quantity and
elevation of land may forever remain the same, and on the
other hand the force of the aqueous agents themselves might
thus continue forever unimpaired.^^

This is a persistent and systematic cause of usefulness
that is scarcely to be expected from earthquakes ! and is
really a revival of the earlier cavern theory of Liebnitz, for
if the ocean's bed is depressed, it really forms an abyss for
the superfluous waters to settle down in.

This means of escape from a serious dilemma will not
bear the test of close examination. In thus relieving the
surface of the earth of the volume of water, that must be
displaced by the solid matter that is carried into every
body of water existing upon it, by the subsidence of the
bed of the Pacific Ocean, the evaporating surface is con-
stantly diminished ; not a de]»ta can form — or the sands of
the sea, or the land any where encroach upon the water
without a decrease of evaporating surface, unless a corre-
sponding water area is somewhere else exposed.

Evaporation is a very powerful physical agency. Prof.
Maury, in "The Physical Geography of the Sea," gave to

6

the world, some 3'ears ago, a clear idea of its wonderful
power and exquisite operations.

Although the torrid zone is the principal evaporating
area of onr globe, evaporation takes place from every water
surface npon it — varying in quantity according to tempera-
ture, winds, &c., hut transpiring even below zero, for in
liquid matter, as in gaseous, there is at all times a constant
action of repulsive force, or energy, tending to drive the
particles asunder. This is entirely a surface work; as water
acts only upon the solid surfaces, so the aerial forces act
only upon the liquid surfa-ces, all the liquid matter beneath,
being as removed from the atmospheric operations of
nature, as the buried strata of the earth are from aqueous
and atmospheric agencies.

Therefore, if it is indeed true that the land surfaces have
encroached upon those of the water anywhere, this change
in the relative quantities of land and water areas, must
produce eflects of such a marked and unmistakable charac-
ter as to be discovered upon the continents, which receive
the aqueous vapor evaporated from the water surfaces of
the seas which supply their precipitation.

If there is less water surface, there will be less evapora-
tion, less moisture in the atmosphere, less precipitation, a
gradual lowering of all inland seas and lakes — and con-
stantly lessening drainage, or smaller rivers returning to
the oceans.

Such a slow but certain change in physical conditions
would produce corresponding changes in organic life, uni-
form change instead of " uniformity without change," and
"aqueous forces that would" not "remain forever unim-
paired."

In studying the inland waters and drainage of the con-
tinents to determine whether there are any proofs of a de-
crease of precipitation, the salt lake regions afford the most
striking evidences of a decrease of evaporating surfaces —
and it is a significant fact that upon each of the great con-
tinents, and upon many iplands, there are immense saline

deposits, which are indirect proofs of a decrease of evapo-
rating surface. But there are in Asia, Africa, North and
South America, still existing hodies of salt water that hear
the most unmistakahle witness to a constant decrease of
precipitation in their gradually lowering levels.

It is deemed unnecessary in this paper to refer especially
to these remarkable localities, as their peculiar character-
istics are too interesting not to he familiar to all physicists.

The Dead Sea, the most remarkable of these grand
evaporation gauges, is about 1,300 feet below the level ot
the Mediterranean Sea. The whole Aralo-Caspian, and
lied Sea formations bear the most undoubted evidence of
u decrease of precipitation and constant lowering of water
level upon the continent of Asia.

Lieut. Maury has demonstrated such to be the fact.

Lake Tadjara, the great salt lake of Central Africa, is
500 feet below the ocean level, and is salting up. The
Bahr Assal, which once formed its continuation, has shrunk
to an elliptical basin, is half filled with water of the deepest
cerulean blue, and half with a glittering sheet of sand
white salt. Southern Africa is also said to have similar
formations.

The lake of Utah is the basin which receives the drain-
age of this inland North American water shed. Its surface
is lowering, its waters salting up, and the channel which
once received the excess of drainage and returned it to the
ocean is distinctly traceable, as are channels from most of
the other salt lakes.

Lake Titicaca is but slightly brackish, and is supposed
not to have been standing long enough to show any re-
markable decrease of level, existing as it does upon the
last emerged continent of South America.

If Maury has proved that the water surfaces that supply
the precipitation of Western Asia have dimkiished in ex-
tent, these salt lakes and saline deposits upon every continent
and many islands, bear witness to the general truth that the ,
evaporating surfaces have evergwliere deceased.

s

8

The value of these bodies of inland salt water, as geological
loitnesses of change, results from their very nature. Saline
waters hold a large amount of solid matter in solution and
mechanical suspension. Their deposits are large, well
defined and unmistakable in character. There is in the
neighborhood of the Dead Sea a range of hills 7 miles long
and 300 feet high, said to be formed entirely of rock salt.
Similar formations of chloride of sodium are to be met
with in all the salt lake regions, and not only there, but
in many places now far removed from present salt water
areas. These deposits generally occur with marls, sand-
stone, gypsum, etc., and in some cases, infusoria, bromides,
iodides, iron, etc. ai^e to be met with.

These saline deposits are to be found throughout the
crust of the earth — " In the British Islands in trias or new
red sandstone — in the oolitic strata in the Salzburg Alps —
with cretaceous green sands in Spain — with chalk and
tertiary rocks in the district of the Pyrenees — and in the
carboniferous and older strata." " It is thus the product of
all ages."

The assertion that the present waters of the earth may
have held all this now solid salt in solution, at different
times, cannot stand before the accumulating proofs that
there is actually less water upon the earth's surface than
formerly. It becomes indeed a proof that there is less
liquid — or water surface — for if this now solid salt were
once again dissolved, or in liquid form, its increased surface
area would afford increased evaporating surface. Only
pi\re water is evaporated, all solid particles are left behind,
so that if it shall be proved that the elements of pure water
have been used in the opey^ttions of nature, either from the
evaporated or precipitated waters, there must have been
always upon every part of the earth's surface, at every
period of the* formation of the solid crust, an excess of
evaporation over preciptation, gradual supersaturation of
inland bodies of salt waters and their final entire dessication.

9

The existence of some of the lower forms of life through-
out almost the entire growth of the solid crust, since the
formation of the lowest fosiliferous strata, proves that the
general condition of the ocean waters have not materially
or radically changed. The temperature of water has very
little effect upon its power of dissolving chloride of sodium,
hoiling water taking up very little more than cold — pure
water or oxygen and hydrogen only being used in large
quantities in the vital processes — the solid saline matter in
the earth's crust becomes a sort of measure of the amount
of pure water that has been used up, or such an amount as
would be necessary to restore these saline and accompanying
deposits to the general condition of the present ocean waters.

The analysis of the Dead Sea water has rather led to
the conclusion that there is little probability that this sea
once formed part of the general oceanic surface, and at
the time of its separation was of the same general consti-
tution— or that the other saline continental* regions origi-
nated in a general extension, and subsequent contraction
of oceanic waters. A careful comparison, however, of
Dead Sea water — which may be considered a representative
of this class of formations, although apparently very dif-^
ferent — including the contiguous Dead Sea solid formations —
and ocean water — will prove that this sea probably once
formed part oi;* the ocean, or at a later period, of the
Mediterranean Sea.

The specific gravity of Dead Sea water is 1227. In 100
parts of Dead Sea water there are 26.416, of solid matter —
while in ocean water, 3.505. Its solid ingredients, com-
pared with those of ocean water, are thus given by careful
analysis :

DEAD SEA. OCEAN WATER.

Chloride of Magnesium 14.589 360

" Sodium 7.855 2.700

'' Calcium 3,107

" Potassium 658 070

Bromide " 137 235

{Sulphate Lime 070 , 140

2

10

Although the proportion of these various solids might
be thought to vary beyond all hope of satisfactory com-
parison, upon studying the solid formations of the Dead
Sea coast, the differences are greatly lessened.

The extraordinarily large proportion of chloride of mag-
nesium in the Dead Sea may be owing to the indefinite
quantity that these very dense salt waters are capable of
holding in a state of mechanic^ suspension, and to the
absence of organic life, which in the ocean is constantly
secreting this solid matter into solid masses. It is certainly
true, that magnesian limestone and gypsum are found as-
sociated with rock salt here, as they are all over the world,
and that the position of the limestone formations of the
Dead Sea indicate their deposit when its waters stood at
a much higher level than they do now, or that they took
place when they were nearly if not exactly upon a level
with ocean waters, and were similar if not identical in
(Composition, and the existence of marine polyps to create
such matter was undoubted; and such deposits continued
as long as other conditions permitted the continuation of
the existence of this organic life, ceasing only with its ex-
tinction.

The excess of chloride of calcium, as well as the small
proportion of sulphate of lime, may be accounted for by
the same absence of organic life from the period of the
supersaturation of the Dead Sea with chloride of Sodium.
This supersaturation being relieved by solid deposits when-
ever it became excessive — the enormous deposits upon the
Dead Sea shores show why the proportion actually exist-
ing in the water is so much less than that of the mag-
nesium.

If the saline deposits of the continents bear such un-
equivocal testimony to the decrease of general evaporating
surface, the fresh water lakes should add their more meao-re
evidences in proof of the same fact.

The North American and other lakes do show higher
water lines than those forming at present, and lacustrine or

11

fresh water silts occur upon every continent, and are well
defined; but the very purity of these fresh waters forbids
large deposits, and they are generally determined by the
peculiar 23lacidity of their formations and the presence of
fresh water shells.

Europe, which is the only continent that has no inland
salt sea cut off from oceanic circulation, has, however, a
wonderful witness to decreasing precipitation hi the glaciers
of the Alps, which are said to be of less extent than for-
merly; the ancient glaciers' lines of erosion and deposit
can be distinctly traced, notwithstanding the obliterating
eiiects of atmospheric agencies.

So remarkable are the evidences of glacial action in the
North temperate zone, l)oth in Europe and America, at a
period succeeding that of tropical warmth in the same
latitudes, that the glacial epoch is recognized as a distinct
geological era, and the causes which produced this sudden
change of temperature and other physical conditions have
never been satisfactorily explained.

, It is probable that evaporation may account for it. If
there were barriers of land or of ice that cut off the
Arctic waters from free circulation with those of the tem-
perate zone — and the geological formations of the British
Islands indicate the removal of a large body of land there —
the tropical region being one of excessive' evaporation
and the North temperate and Arctic that of precipitation
and congelation, there woukl have been a rising of the
level of Arctic ices and waters and a lowering of level of
the waters of the South temperate and torrid zones, and
perhaps the emergence of land there. The removal of
such barriers either by igneous or aqueous forces, or by
the decrease of precipitation and congelation lowering ice
barriers, and the irruption of Northern waters, icebergs
and ice floes to re-establish the^ lost level of the waters
would account for the glacial deposits. The land re-emerg-
ing when evaporation once again had given the waters to
the advancing organic creation.

12

" It has long been a matter of common observation that
the rivers are cutting their channels through alluvial de-
posits of greater depth and extent than could have been
formed by the present streams." Every individual whose
attention has been at all directed to the subject, has ob-
' served small streams where apparently larger ones must
have flowed at some former period ; from the great rivers
that drain whole continents, to the little streams that re-
ceive the drainage from the rains that fall upon the hills
and lowlands everywhere, proving that some gradual de-
crease in the amount of drainage has taken place without
any general disturbing physical causes, which would have
deranged and changed the ancient channels.

The excess of evaporation over precipitation, of precipi-
tation over drainage, at all times since the earliest
emergence of land upon the globe, results from the fact
that part of the aqueous vapor develops vegetable and
animal organisms, being incorporated with the vital tissues
and so cannot all be precipitated again, and part of the
precipitation is also used in the same way, and thus the
drainage cannot get all the precipitation. Thus the
evaporating areas always receive less than they give, and
must constantly decrease.

For ambient air is matter, and the seas

Less dense than earth, yet surely matter too,

Ever as land doth grow, so these decrease,

Each type of life the earth doth hide from view — *

Throughout the solid crust where delvers shew —

Once in the waters or on land it grew.

Fed by the liquid and the foodful air

Ever in death earth's solid parts accrue

The fauna growing purer and more fair

Where richer floral growth the ancient rocks declare.

And surely does not many a type below
Prove vaster, warmer waters, richer air ?
Beneath where now small forms tho' beautious grow,
Man finds the tropic monster in his lair;

13

And ruin forests beyond earths compare-
Creatures with ponderous wings mid air to soar,
Wings needful then, not now, nor ever more.
Does not each land declare " The Sea was here!^'
Where not, Oh ! Ocean ? Thou wast everywhere !
But thou hast reared the earth, and never more
Can she with all her rivers, what thou gavest restore!

II.

Transformation of Terrestrial Matter.

I

The whole volume of matter which the attraction of
gravitation holds together in the earth and its satellite, is
the same in quantity as it was at the time of its separation
from the other masses of the solar system, excepting the
insignificant amount of meteoric matter which is added
from time to time to the earthly mass by coming within
range of its attraction.

^ If matter be indestructible, this must be so, for those
forms, if such there be, that can escape beyond this uni-
versal law of gravitation are as yet beyond our investiga-
tions.^ We must, then, look for change of form only in an
invariable quantity of material elements.

Upon this truth Pythagorus based his celebrated cos-
mogony more than 2,500 years ago.

The laws ^vhich governed the earthly mass in its first
separation from the other masses of the solar system were
the same that govern it now, and it must have had, in
consequence of then existing temperature and other condi-
tions, a certain volume as it has now a certain volume re-
sulting from past and present conditions of temperature, etc.
^ The first change that took place producing this separa-
tion, altered the previous internal relations of this matter,
and if the same laws continued to operate upon it, the
effect was to produce something different from that produced by
the first change.

Thus t^ operation of uniform laws ivould i^roduce constant
diversity. In obedience to the same laws, changes have

14

transpired in the forms of matter, through all past time,
are still progressing and will continue, while the present
laws and elements of matter exist, and from a human
point of view, these changes, have heen, are, and will he
permanent.

It is said that the earth at a certain point of time after
its separation from the sun "was no less than 482,000 miles
in diameter, heing 60 times what it has shrunk to." *

If this volume of matter was indeed so diffuse, the ele-
ments must have existed in very different forms from those
in which thej now exist. As a first attempt at forming
an estimate from scientific theories of the volume and con-
dition of the telluric mass at an inconceivahly remote
period, it is exceedingly important and interesting. It ad-
mits and confirms the great theory of Laplace, for from
our present knowledge of the elements of matter, had the
volume of the earth been so extended, the largest portion
of it must have heen in a gaseous state.

" The geometrical form of the earth itself, which indi-
cates the mode of its origin is in fact its history. An
elliptical spheroid of revolution gives evidence of having
once heen a soft or fluid mass." f

Whether this fluid body was the result of chemical com-
bination and condensation of previously gaseous matter or
not, it is another great fact in the meagre positive knowl-
edge man has been able to acquire of the past condition
of this sphere ; if the predominance of gaseous matter was
implied by the assertion of a diameter of the telluric
mass, of 482,000 miles at an earlier period of time, tlie
predominance of liquid matter seems to be proved by the
present form of the now partially solidified oblate spheroid.

No conception can be formed of the intervals of time ;
but at the period of the first formation of solid matter
evident in the earth's crust, the conditions of temperature,
&c., must have been such as to permit solidification from a
former liquid state.

■*Vestiges.

tCosmos, Vol. 1.-163.

15

That there had been a gradual cc^oling of the whole
body up to this time can not be positively asserted, although
it is probably true; the evidences of igneous action are
undoubted, and still existing central heat undisputed — but
the plane of the earth's granitic crust must have cooled in
solidifying, and must have been still further greatly re-
duced in temperature before there could have been any de-
posit of water upon it, even if the elements had already
combined to form aqueous vapor.

Of the action of water upon this earliest known forma-
tion of solid matter there is at length indubitable evidence,
as there is at a still later period, of the existence of an at-
mosphere.

Thus we arrive at a point of time when the elements
had combined here into the diversified forms of solid,
liquid, and gaseous matter. Although this presumptive
reasoning proves gaseous matter to have existed first, the
actual evidence of its forming the earth's atmosphere does
not appear until after the creation of organic life upon the
land.

So constant and permanent these forms of matter seem-
ed to the ancients, that they considered them the elements
of nature; hereafter, the elements into which they have
now been analysed may also be found to be compound.
The results, however, thus far arrived at enable us to un-
derstand many of the processes of nature now transpiring;
to assert that there is nothing unreasonable in the extreme
diffusion of the known elements of matter to a volume of
even more than 482,000 miles, nor of its having had, at a
certain period, as its condensation progressed, an incon-
ceivably high temperature, and that there will be continu-
ous transformation and solidification until the liquid and
gaseous forms of matter are entirely solidified, and the
earth brought to the present condition of the moon.

The conclusion has long since been reached by astronom-
ical observation that there is no water and no atmosphere

16

upon the moon's surface; nor can liquid matter exist in
the fissures of its solid body, for the tendency of water to
evaporation — all liquid matter acting in obedience to the
law of repulsive force, especially when relieved from atmos-
pheric pressure — would at once cause it to take a gaseous
form. There is, however, as little evidence of this form
of matter as of the liquid itself.

The diameter of the telluric mass, at the time of its
greatest extension, is supposed to have included the matter
of the moon. The whole mass having the rotation that it
had acquired as the circumference of the sun, as well as
the individual motion that had resulted in its separation.

There was in the establishment of the earth's rotation
no alteration whatever in its relation to the sun. All tlie
matter that followed its attraction of gravitation, still oc-
cupied and moved in its appointed place in obedience to
solar gravitation. There was not then, nor ever has been,
nor ever will be as long as it moves in its orbit, any change
in its external relations, or in the quantity of matter, which
only changes its form.

When the matter of the moon moved in the circum-
ference of the earthly mass, it was composed of most of the
elements of the central body thrown promiscuously toward
the circumference by centrifugal force, there being no
cohesion in a gaseous body, and where this w^as counter
balanced by the centripetal force, forming a comparatively
quiescent plane favorable to the action of chemical affinity.

When this action began to produce internal or indi-
vidual motion, there existed the same conditions through-
out the entire body, as well as the same elements , under
the control of the sanie Imvs. Must not then the moon
have undergone similar changes to those which have trans-
pired upon the earth ? Of the same matter originally in the
same condition and under the oioerations of the same laws,
solidification, through the action of chemical and vital agencies,
must have progressed and, being so much smaller in

17

volume, have produced its ultimate entire solidification, at
a much earlier period — and the probable acceleration of its
mean motion within the period of human observation.

Whether the giving off of heat and the consequent re-
duction of temperature and volume produces condensation,
or whether the slower succeeding combinations of chemical
affinity and finally of organic life tending to solidification,
results in a reduction of temperature is a complex and diffi-
cult question beyond the range of the present subject — the
existing temperature and conditions are matters of fact.

The atmosphere, the waters, organic life, the solidifying
and solid crust of the earth are for the most part composed
of the same elements of matter. To acquire any definite
idea of the transformations of terrestrial matter that have
resulted in the solidification of a vast amount of native
gaseous elements, through their chemical liquefaction and
subsequent consolidation, since the creation of living or-
ganisms upon this sphere — the results of research in several
branches of science must be briefly collated, for these lose
their distinctiveness, and seem to converge as we draw
nearer and nearer the truth in investigating nature.

III.

Chemical and Geological Changes.

There are only thirteen (13) of the sixty-five (65) ele-
ments, still supposed to be simple, that make up the great
bulk of terrestrial matter. Of these, only four (4) that are
really important in this connection. These are the organic
elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and the non-metallic
solid, carbon.

Oxygen and nitrogen form the earth's atmosphere.

Oxygen and carbon^ the carbonic acid gas mingled with it.

Oxygen and hydrogen^ the invisible moisture, aqueous
vapor, and all the water in and upon the crust of the
earth. 8

18

Oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen form the whole
mass of the organic creation, living and dead, except the
small amount which would remain as ash, were such mat-
ter consumed at a red heat.

Silicon, alumnium, magnesium, calcium, potassium,
sodium, sulphur, chlorine, and iron are the nine (9) princi-
pal inorganic elements, and with the two organic elements,
oxygen and carbon — hydrogen and nitrogen being found in
small quantities in mineral masses — make up more than
1000 <^f ^^^ solid crust of the earth.

Mr. Dana happily calls these rock constituents "burnt
compounds" — as they are put into stable conditions by
uniting with a saturating quantity of oxygen — and ordi-
nary combustion consists in union with oxygen and the
formation of stable oxyds.

The metals sodium and potassium burn if put in contact
with water and become oxyds. Calcium, by uniting with
oxygen, becomes lime; magnesium, magnesia; silicon,
silica; and aluminum, alumina. Thus saturated, or united
with all the oxygen they are capable of taking up, they
become inert matter, entering as ingredients into rocks,
and fit for dead nature, they are the most refractory sub-
stances in the earth's crust — and excepting pure crystalline
carbon, the least liable to change.

The primary or granite rocks of the earth's crust are
aluminous silicates, being double compounds of oxygen
and silicon; and oxygen and aluminum; these chemical
compounds must have been formed from a fused state.
There are no means of knowing in what condition the
silicon, alumnium, magnesium, &c., of the now refractory
burnt compounds, existed before their combination; it
may reasonably be doubted w^hether they are not reall}^
compound substances formed during the earlier condensa-
tion of matter, at all events they or their elements must at
some time have existed in a gaseous state, and as these
changes progressed there was a wonderful transformation

19

oi a vast amount of gaseous to liquid, and liquid to solid
matter. The oxygen must have been ready for this union,
and there must have been an enormous supply of this ele-
ment, for every atom of the other elements have been
consumed while the surplus of oxygen forms now at least
half of the water, earth and air.

The comparatively quiescent plane of the earth's cir-
cumference would have been favorable not only to the action
of chemical affinity, but to rapid crystalization and solidi-
fication. The whole mass of overlaying matter must have
been gaseous. The presence of red heat or of flame had
probably already efl:ected the union of oxygen and hydrogen,
the subsequent precipitation of particles of aqueous vapor
and their conversion instantly to steam would have tended
to a more rapid cooling of the overheated crust. The
blare and tumult of the elements during the interval is
inconceivable. Aqueous vapor condensing here and there,
the moment it reached a higher altitude, or a cooler
atmospheric current, produced the requisite reduction of
temperature, falling toward or upon the glowing crust to
be forced instantly upwards in vast gushing volumes of
steam, perhaps decomposed, and its two gases reuniting
with fearful explosions to reform aqueous vapor — external
as well as internal forces rending and contorting the
shrinking crust !

The disintegrating effects of steam are very powerful,
and must have begun the work of forming the gneiss be-
fore the water rested upon the granitic base in liquid
masses. This deposition would have occurred at the earliest
possible period of the requisite reduction of temperature.
Water is the most powerful of all 'solvents. "It absorbs
and is absorbed by everything." This power is greatly in-
creased by an increase of temperature, so that these pri-
meval waters resting upon the granite not only must have
had, but the deposit of the gneiss proves that they did have,
power to hold in solution, or in mechanical suspension, all

20

substances whether simple or compound that existed upon
the surface of the granite.

The first permanent deposit of liquid matter of the
primeval ocean was filled with the various elements and
compounds that w^ere to build up and develop in new forms
the succeeding solid matter of the earth's crust. The very
material of the gneiss swelled the bulk of liquid matter.
The gradual cooling of the waters would of itself decrease
its capacity and produce precipitation; thus this first
merely mechanical deposit altered both the quantity and
the quality of the water.

The gneiss was a surface deposit — all the matter above it
was liquid and gaseous. The waters had free motion
everywhere to work upon and over the granite in forming
it — must not then the whole fifteen or sixteen miles of
superincumbent solid matter have come from that ele-
ment? Wherever the granitic formation was covered by
the gneiss, it was at once hid away to be used no more in
the operations of nature, unless by its elevation and subse-
quent exposure upon the surface of the earth it should
again become subject to the action of atmospheric forces.
Eut even when now thus exposed, atmospheric and aque-
ous agencies are almost powerless in its disintegration in
comparison with the hot and saline waters and aqueous
vapors of the earlier ages of the world. To be of any
use in the operations of nature, in the transformation and
development of terrestrial matter, it must be reconverted
into mobile forms, and all the solid crystalline granite now
in the earth's crust is the exact amount that has never
been made use of in any further natural processes.

The same is true of the gneiss, only its surface was ex-
posed to the action of the water after its first deposition.
What remains is the "measure and monument" of that
part of this deposit that has been entirely withdrawn from
the activities of nature.

"Assuming that the granite rocks constitute the true

21

liypogean group, tliat tlicy immediately underlie and are
intimately associated with tlie lowest stratified schists, we
obtain a starting point in the crust of the earth from which
to obtain an intelligible description of the systems which
follow."

The fact of the strictly suiface growth of every deijosit can
not be too strongly pressed ; every atom at the time of its
deposition was free to move in obedience to the waters
• and was left where they carried it, upon the surface,
until they covered it up with succeeding atoms. The geo-
logical strata of the earth are monuments of those parts
of every deposit that were thus covered away and have
never been used again in the formation of subsequent de-
posits.

The Laurentiaii and Cambrian Systems, bearing evidences
of preceding and continuous heat with traces of the earliest
forms of vegetable and animal life — the Silurian, Devo-
nian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Oolitic, Cretaceous
and Tertiary Systems, are the remains of each deposit
whose surface was used by and incorporated with the
waters until the succeeding formation gradually covered
it, and saved it from further disintegration. Reaching the
present surface of the earth, in the post tertiary and super-
ficial formations, it will be necessary to learn the exact
relation which gaseous and liquid forms of matter bear
not only to the oxydation of metals and the formation of
hydrates, but to the development of organized bodies.

These deposits did not, of course, all occur at regular in-
tervals, in regular gradation, one above the other, making
everything plain and easy to be understood. If it had
been so, the rocks and waters would have disclosed the
truth long since. All the complex obliterating and inter-
mingling forces have been at work from the first. Every
cause must be allowed full weight, every efiect must be
^ duly considered. Nor is the action of igneous forces
ignored wherever its effects are evident.

m

The earlier or lower strata appear to be moi*e general
and extensive — the fossils of the lowest and simplest
forms — those least affected by changing conditions to ex-
tend through the longest eras of time. The later strata,
as well as the later forms of life, are more local and limited
in area and in time, and more complex in character.

Everything seems to tell ns, now that w^e press the truth
so closely to nature, that the rocks have been constantly
increasing, as the mobile forms of matter have been de-
creasing in volume — the change transpiring under mani-
fold conditions, and over shifting and changing areas of
the earth's surface, and brought about by the operation of
complex natural agencies. Thus uniform laws have neces-
sarily produced constant diversity of results, and to human
observation, permanent change.

/m^Mi^ Chanf/ed into Solid Form by Acidification, Alimenta-

tion and Hespiratioyi.

In 1774, Lavoisier showed that in the calcination of
metals in the air, they acquired as much weight as the air
lost. He also found oxygen to be the great agent in com-
bustion, acidification, calcination, and respiration. All
these processes were analogous, and consisted in the de-
composition of atmospheric air, and the fixation of the pure
or vital portion of it. The action of dilute acids on metals
was also explained by the decomposition of water.

Notwithstanding an hundred years have passed since
this discovery, its real bearing upon the physical history of
the earth has never been recognized. . Aerial or liquid
oxygen changes its form by acidification as well ^s by cal-

23

cimation, and when thus used the mobile forms of ^natter lose
exactly the amount that the solid or solidifying matter gains.

Thus the using up of the aeriform or liquid oxygen must
have begun in the formation of the ahiminous silicates of
the granitic formations, and must have continued through
all the past building up of the earth's crust, through the
agency of the water and atmosphere, the succeeding media
of the supply of oxygen, wherever oxydation or acidifica-
tion have occurred to form chemical compounds, and where
these compounds have remained undecomposed, they con-
stitute part of the matter once belonging to the air or
oceans, but now forming part of the solid crust.

The part that water performs in these changes is won-
derful. Anstead says: "Water enters not only into the
composition of every solid and of every liquid of which
every living thing is composed, but is present in all mineral
matter; even the most solid and compact marble contains
a small percentage of water." "Wherever change has
taken place at great depths, there water has acted as the
chief agent." "Heat and chemical action could do little —
they act by and with water, and thus produce their results."

" Tens of thousands of feet in the earth a slow but inces-
sant crystalization goes on, in which water is entangled,
and with minerals helps to form a part of the substance of
each crystal." "Itself a liquid, it enters into all solids,
almost as essential to solidity."

The large class of minerals known as hydrates, belong-
ing to past as well as present formations, contain a certain
proportion of "waters of crystallization" as essential to
their, formation.

What they thus gain, the liquid mass of matter must
have lost. In alum, 46 parts in 100 are water — in epsom
salts, 51 — in gypsum, 21. The opal in its pure state is a
hydrate of silica, consisting of from 90 to 95 per cent,
silica, and from 5 to 10 water. All crystallization is indeed
well known to be defined " as the process, natural or artifi-

cial, by which the particles of liquid or gaseous bodies are
converted into crystal or solid bodies of regularly limited
form."

Matter can not exist in solids, and at the same time in
liquid or gaseous forms — so that the quantity of mobile
matter must have decreased by the amount thus used.

The same truth applies yet more strikingly in the pro-
cess of respiration, and not only of respiration but of ali-
mentation.

All organic life is entirely dependent upon the mobile
elements of matter. The atmosphere and waters have
hitherto been considered rather as the media of life than
as the very material from lohich all organic life has been and
is made up. So absolutely necessary is water to all organic
development, that it is supplied in many different ways,
and in apparently inexhaustible quantities. It is the very
food of animals as well as vegetables — nor is this any the
less true because small portions of other elements are
used with it, and absolutely necessary to its being able
properly to develop organized bodies.

The mobile elements of matter have been consumed by
every organism, from the foraminifera that fed upon the
warm waters of the primeval ocean to the air-breathing
and aquatic creatures that swarm the air, the earth and
waters to-day.

The whole living creation holds such matter in solid forms
now — ^having lost none of the organic elements of which
it is composed. Of the quantity of this matter no idea can
be formed, except by reflecting upon the universality of
life. The earth, the water, and the air teem with living
germs and organisms. The larger forms of the animal
creation, and the great masses of vegetation, especially in
the tropics, strike the eye by their immensity and extent.
But as throughout all nature the ideas of comparison be-
tween great and small are continually confounded, so when
we contemplate the immense extent and quantity of micro-

25

scopic life, developed by the researches of Ehrenberg, — in
the deep seas, in the earth itself, and in the atmosphere —
covering and coloring even the Polar snows, and existing
in the refined tissues and fluids of living creatures, the
mind becomes bewildered at the infinity it encounters upon
either hand, and is profoundly impressed witli this won-
derful and universal presence of vitality.

Omitting the great mass of evidence as to the way in
which the elements of water and air are used in the devleop-
ment of both vegetable and animal organisms, the mere
statement of their constituent elements will be suflicient.

Witli scarcely an exception, vegetable bodies consist en-
tire! v of carbon and water, or of the elements of water
united with carbon in various proportions. AV^oody fibre
or lignin is nearly identical in all trees and in the fibres of
linen and cotton. It forms the trunks and branches of trees,
and all the fibrous or woody parts of vegetable bodies —
making up a large proportion of the bulk of vegetable mat-
ter, it consists of 50 parts of water and 50 of carbon.

The other principal compounds that are developed in
the process of vegetable growth, are cellular fibre, gum,
starch, cane and grape sugar, these, with the exception ot
the latter and lignin, consist of the same elements in exactly
the same lyopoiilon !

Some of the principal vegetable acids and compound are
tljus represented by chemical symbols:

Water H' O

Carbonic acid O'C

Alcohol H« O^C*

Ether H^ O C*

Acetic acid H' O^ C*

Tartaric acid H" 0^° C*

Sugar H"0" C"

Starch H^» O^" C^'

Oxalic acid 0^ C'^.

Circle of sciences, 408
4

26

"lu crops as they are reaped and even as they are given
for food, much water is present; when artificially dried ^
carbon forms i their weight, oxygen more than J, hydrogen
a little more than 5 per cent., and nitrogen rarely to more
than 2 J per cent."

When starch or gum becomes sugar, as in the germina-
tion of seeds and other vegetable processes, the transmuta-
tion is effected by the absorption of water; for with regard
to their composition, a greater proportion of water only
distinguishes sugar from starch, and the separation of
oxveren from su2:ar causes it to be converted into fat I

In the ripening of fruit, the cane, is converted into grape
sugar, by the absorption of additional oxygen. There
seems to be some deficiency in this supply, or difficulty in
some seasons in the vine getting the proper quantity at the
proper time, which causes grapes to rot upon the vines
about the time that their growth is attained, and they
should begin to fill out, acquire some sweetness and ulti-
mately ripen.

Animal food consists mainly of vegetable products, these
assimilate the organic elements directly from their great
liquid and gaseous reservoirs, and prepare them for the
consumption of the animal creation.

The model man of Professor Quetelet, weighs 154 lbs.,
and consists of

116 lbs. of water,
38 " drv matter.

154

Of the dry matter, 24 lbs. are fiesh and fat,

14 *< bone,

38

27

v

Tlie dry matter consisted of 28 lbs. of organic elements,

10 " inorganic "

So that there were altogether 144 lbs. of oxygen, carbon,
hydrogen, and nitrogen, to 10 of all others.

If 100 lbs. of human blood be rendered perfectly dry, it
will be reduced in weight to something less than 22 lbs. ;
and this dry matter consists of essentially the same siil)-
stances as the several varieties of animal and vegetable
food.

100 parts of blood contain

93 per cent, of fibrine, albumen, etc.,
2 " " fat, sugar, and starch,

5 " " saline or mineral matter.

100 parts of /?6n7ig contain
54.454 of carbon,

7.069 '^ hydrogen,
15.762 " nitrogen,
22.715 " oxygen, sulplinr, phospliorus.

100.000

100 parts of albumen contain
55 of carbon,

7 " h^^drogen,
15 " nitrogen,
23 " oxygen.

100.000

Sugar W O'' C*

Starch R'' 0'« C'-'

Fat H^^O^ C^"'

It seems very singular that the solid matter of animals
should contain nearly the same quantity of water as the
liquid blood; but it is a still more striking fact, that the
dry animal matter that remains, when lean muscular fibre
and blood are fully dried, has the same composition :

28

DRY BEEF.

DRY BLOOD.

51.83

of

carbon,

51.96

7.57

u

hydrogen,

7.25

15.00

ii

nitrogen,

15.07

21.37

ii

oxygen,

21.30

4.23

ii

ashes.

4.41

100.00 100.00

Other parts of animals, wood, hair, skin, &c., are com-
posed of the same elements, with less inorganic matter;
horn containing only .07 per cent, of ash.

It will doubtless be admitted without the presentation
of any further argument, that the whole body of mobile
matter, as existing in the atmosphere and waters of the
earth, has been diminished by the whole amount yielded
to the existing living creation. There is less water and
less atmosphere since these living organisms grew. If the
sum of the whole be greater than any of its parts, or a part
can not equal tlie whole, this must be true.

But it may be said these bodies will decay, and their
elements will then be restored to their original mobile
forms. The processes which renovate the earth are by no
means so simple ; " thousands of carcasses and whole forests
of drift timber are buried every year, and perhaps so
buried as to be imprisoned for whole geological epochs."

Bodies in water change slowly, and in the earth still
more so. Professor Winchell, one of the most advanced
geologists of the age, "doubts whether the requisite con-
ditions of oxydation exists at great depths in the soil."
"It needs only a tine covering of such deposits as are con-
stantly taking place in the oceans and at the mouths of
rivers to bury them away and prevent further decay."
Upon the Siberian plains, and in the ices of the !N"orth,
dead bodies have been discovered so entirely unchanged as
to be greedil}' devoured by dogs. ^N^ative timber, with
seeds, and even leaves and fruits, is found a very remark-

29

able state of preservation, after huudreds of years of
burial or submersion in lakes and swamps or marshes.
The more closely these deposits are studied, the more
enormous they are found to be. In the tropical regions
organized bodies decay rapidly, but above 45 degrees of
of latitude, vegetable matter begins to accumulate in vast
quantities, and animal bodies to be more frequently pre-
served.

''The quantity of timber which is conveyed from the land
to the sea, by the sinking of ships of a large size, is enor-
mous, for it is computed that 2,000 tons of wood are re-
quired for the building of one 74 gun ship ; and reckoning
50 oaks, of 100 years growth, to the acre, it would require
40 acres of oak forest to build one of these vessels." The
amount of organized matter thus preserved can only be
conceived by a knowledge of naval statistics.

Even where an organized body seems to be entirely de-
composed— part of it returning to gaseous and part to
liquid form — solid parts of it may be washed away and
buried so as to remain undecomposed for ages, for if they
do change thus buried away, it will be but a molecular
change that can not restore to their original forms their
liquid or gaseous elements of matter.

The processes of petrefaction are as yet but very imper-
fectly understood. It is more than probable some subtle
chemical or atomic change takes place in the internal
structure of fossil remains. The formation of flints, ap-
parently upon the nucleus of an organic body upon the
floor of the seas, at various epochs during the chalk de-
posits, is remarkable and suggestive. It is said b}' Mr.
Johnston that stale bread contains exactlv the same amount
of water as fresh bread — about one half — but that its liard-
ening is caused by molecular change, and not by evapora-
tion or the removal of any of its elements. This may be
considered an inapt and homely illustration, but if such a
change transpires in the open air where the elements would

30

be perfectly free to escape, is it likely that buried organized
bodies could easily release their elements? More probably
they undergo some similar, internal change, varying ac-
cording to the adjacent elements or compounds, amount of
pressure, &c.

Thus every passing generation of organic life has proba-
bly left traces of the matter that once formed it, incorpo-
rated with the solid strata of the earth's crust. Of the
relative amount of such matter, no idea can be formed.
All the dead organisms as yet undecomposed — all organic
fragments, and all coral and indusial formations hold mo-
bile elements in solid form ; if this were not true, we should
have no organically enriched soils, no deposits of guano,
no peat or coal formations, no shell or bone beds, no or-
ganic remains in the crust of the earth.

Bat these we have. The rocky tablets of the crust disclose
these organic remains throughout their entire depth.
Aqueous and fossiliferous have become synonymous as ap-
plied to the earth's strata.

The question as to how much matter has thus changed
form will depend upon future investigation, a better un-
derstanding of mineralization, a more careful analj^sis of
fossil organic remains, and accurate comparisons of the
relative areas of land and water at different geological
areas,— a work happily begun.

Whenever organic remains, either those of recent date
or of the most ancient strata, are exposed to disintegration
and decomposition, they are in a condition to be returned
to their original elements. When coal is burned, the mat-
ter the atmosphere and water lost thousands and thousands
of years ago, they thus once again receive ; so with the
washing of salt beds and other solid deposits, the mobile
elements of matter only recover this small fraction of the
entire amount thev previouslv lost.

31

V.

Change in Specks and in Hunian Hisfonj and Development.

Mr. Darwin's tlieory of evolution, or "the origin of
species by natural selection," as an independent scientific
theory, has seemed from the first inadequate to explain the
(jrand ayid systematic series of changes that have brouglit tlu5
countless varieties of species that now exist upon the earth,
to tlieir present condition.

The gradual revolution produced by the continual tranrs-
mutation of matter, is the great corresponding cosmical cause
of change that has gicen direction to the operation of natural
selection^ unfitting the earth at every period of past time,
for the continuation of the propagation of identical organ-
isms— save such as are of the simplest possible structure.

The strongest individuals of existing species adapt them-
selves to changing conditions, not only slowly varying witli
them, hut improving and attaining a higher state of develop-
ment. Other grades of physical powers, adapting them-
selves more or less perfectly to altering external circum-
stances, the weaker dying off as fast as it becomes impossible
for them to adapt themselves to any further change. Past con-
ditions never returning, there can never ])e a return to past
types ; and the various peculiarities long observed in the
nature of succeeding organic remains in the earth's crust,
will be explained by this theory — while other branches of
science will be found to be involved in such a general
cause of change, and it is hoped will be advanced by its
promulgation.

It is the ''kyioivn cause'' by which "stations" must un-
questionably be modified, pfroducing changes every where over
the whole earth, at every period of time. These transmuta-
tions are gradual, the cause that produces them must act

32

gradually ; tliey have been permanent, the cause must have
been constantly modified by them, operating gently and
gradually, from moment to mement, year to year, age to
to age, imperceptible always at every inesent period of time.
Imperceptible to-day, such change must nevertheless be
transpiring; and there are few, when the idea is once pre-
sented and reflected upon, who will not perhaps recall
some corroborating evidences of its truth, even within the
range of their own experience or observation.

This wonderful svstem of chano^e extends not onlv
through the inferior organic creation, but includes man,
his histor}', his intellectual and spiritual development.
These higher faculties, however superior to his merely
physical powers, are certainly dependent upon them, and
upon external conditions, during the life of this physical
organization.

Whatever may be thought now of the connection be-
tween vital, electric, and nervous or brain phenomena, and
the subtle gases, hydrogen and nitrogen, the usual if not
constant presence of one of these at least, when electrical
phenomena occurs, artificially or naturally, and the myste-
rious but constant presence of the other in vital germs and
organisms, together with their frequent interdependence, is
certainly worthy of consideration.

" The electricity of the atmosphere, whether considered
in the upper or the lower strata of clouds, in its silent,
problematical, diurnal course, or in the explosion of the
lightning and thunder of the tempest, appears to stand in a
manifold relation to all j)henomena, of the distribution of heat,
of the pressure of the atmosphere, and its disturbances of
hydrometric exhibitions, and, probably, also of the magnetism
of the external crust of the earth. It exercises]a powerful in-
fMcnce on the ivhole animal and vegetable world, not merely by
meteorological processes, as precipitation of aqueous vapors,
and of acids and ammonical compounds, to which it gives
rise, but also as an electric force acting directly on the nerves,
and promoting the circulation of the organic juices.

33

" This is not a place in wliieli to renew the discussion that
has been started, regarding the actual source of atmospheric
electricity when the sky is clear, a phenomenon which has
been alternately ascribed to the evaporation of impure
liquids impregnated with earths and salts, to the growth oj
plants, or to some other chemical decomposition on the surface
of the earth, to the unequal distribution of heat in the strata
of the air, and finally, according to Peltier's intelligent re-
searches, to the agency of a constant charge of negative elec-
tricity in the terrestrial globe. Limiting itself, to the results
• yielded by the electrometric observations, such, for instance,
as are furnished by the ingenious electro-magnetic aparatus
first proposed by Colladon, the physical description of the
universe should merely notice the incontestable increase oj
the intensity of the general positive electricity of the atmosphere,
accompanied by an increase of altitude, and the absence of
trees, its daily variations, at its variations at different seasons
of the year, at different distances from the equator, and in the
(lifterent relations of continental and oceanic surface. The
electric equilibrium is less frequently disturbed where the
aerial ocean rests upon a liquid base, than ichere it impends
over land, and it is very striking to observe how in exten-
sive seas, small insular groups, efl:ect the condition of the
atmosphere and occasion the formations of storms, &c."

" The term climate, in its most general sense, indicates
all the changes in the atmosphere, which sensibly effect
our organs, as temperature, humidity, variations of the baro-
metrical pressure, the calm state of the air, the action of
opposite winds, thQ amount of electric tension, the purity of
the atmosphere, or its admixture with more or less gaseous ex-
halations, and, finally, the degree of ordinary transparency
and clearness of the sky, which is not only important with
respect to the increased radiation from the eartli, the organic
development of plants, and the ripening of fruits, but also
in reference to the feelings and mental condition of man,'"
<* The processes of the absorption of light, liberation of

5

34

heat, and the variations in the elastic and electric tension, and
in the hygrometric condition of the vast aerial ocean, are all so
intimately connected together, that each individual meteoro-
logical process is modified hy all the others, and these mete-
orological processes of the atmosphere are the controlling causes
on w^hich depends the agricultural and pastoral pursuits of
the inhabitants of extensive tracts of continents."

It can but be concluded, from these ideas so forcibly and
fully expressed by the profound and acute author of Cosmos,
that electricity is in some way, not yet understood, not
only intimately connected with, but dependent upon the*
operations of nature as explained by the gradual diminu-
tion of the mobile forms of matter, and that some of the
organic chemical elements must be concerned in electric
phenomena.

According to Whewell, 'Hhe identity of electric and chem-
ical forces is a ivell proved truth, from which future specu-
lations must advance as a starting point." The identity of
organic aud chemical elements being also an admitted
truth — the identity of chemical, vital, electric and nervous
forces can not be denied.

Terrestrial physical conditions must have been so far
modified, and the formation of solid matter upon this
sphere must have proceeded to a certain extent when or-
ganic life began to exist upon it. This organic life must
have advanced with physical conditions through age upon
age of change, during the wdiole formation of the rocky
strata of the earth's crust, before the period arrived for the
present highest type of physical organization, combined
with the highest development of nervous or brain power
as existing in man, to take its appointed place in the crea-^
tion of God. There must have been the same fitness and
adaptation in and between organic and inorganic, animate
and inanimate nature, always. If these gradual changes
in the forms of the matter of this globe have taken place,
the perfect adaptation of all things at all times can not be too

35

strongly realized. At a certain period of time, in tlie be-
ginning of this development, the snbtler known elements,
of matter — hydrogen and nitrogen — eUiding in part the
great law of gravitation, or solidification, began to gain in
quantity on the other grosser elements of gaseous and
liquid matter — the carbon and oxygen that were helping
so ceaselessly to build up the adamantine crust; these
mysterious, chemical, vital, and nervous forces, performing
the more exquisite work of operating with ever increasing-
vigor or intensity upon the nervous centres of the advanc-
ing animal creation, culminating in intellectual powei*.
Xervous, and ultimately mental, development must have
progressed under changed physical conditions, just as
physical development had gone on — the various elements
doing their appointed work in one case as in. the other.

If the now arid wilds of Aral)ia.or Ethiopia, was the
seat of the earliest civilization of the earth, the apparently
rapid change in phj^sical conditions there, must liave^ tended
to its speedy culmination and subsequent untitness for
further development, and the same stimulus of change,
may have produced the development of civilization of the
neighboring, and ultimately of the Western nations.

Whatever the descent of man has been, every change
has transpired — through all the past — in perfect accordance
with the laws of God, as revealed to man. The liabita-
tions and races of man changed perhaps in the earliest
human epoch, somewhat as the habitations and species ol
other genera of organic beings changed. His increased
knowledge gives more and more power to overcome the
diversities of changing climates, and all other external dis-
advantages of place and surroundings.

Races and nations that do not develop and improve, and
thus adapt themselves to changing physical, political and
social conditions, doubtless becoming weaker, and perhaps
extinct; while those that are brought to a more perfect
state, their mental and spiritual faculties being constantly

developed — for the age of the strongest physical develop-
inent is doubtless passed — will hooome the progenitors ot
i nobler descendants.

The rapid brain or nervous development of the American
[people is not alone the result of antecedent, hereditary,
(historical, or political causes. Physical, external, condi-
tions are operating with and upon these with immeasure-
able, irresistable power; hygrometrical, electrical, and other
conditions are producing results than can only be surmised
as yet; we can not grasp or understand them. For this
sequence of thought carries us beyond the seen and tangi-
ble, but not beyond that lohich really, actually exists. The
subtle, invisible, intangible gases are as truly matter as
iron is matter. Oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen we can
neither see, touch, taste, or smell in their native state. To
our physical senses, though they had always existed right
around us, yet unconlined, they had been to us as though
they ivere not. In their chemical combinations, by experi-
ments and observation of their effects, man has been able
to learn not only of their existence, but something of their
properties. He finds oxygen existing everywhere, in every-
thing; in vast quantities in solid forms, as well as well as
liquid and gaseous ; hydrogen united w^ith oxygen in liquid
torm; nitrogen mingled with gaseous oxygen. Hydrogen
and nitrogen are, however, most abundant in their native
mobile forms; they are i/iore ahundant in living organisms
than in dead; ytiore in dead bodies than in fossil remains;
they are found in very small quantities in the geological
strata of the earth, in proportion to the solid oxygen and
carbon, although in sufficient quantity to effect its electrical
condition.

If gaseous and liquid matter has solidified in that trans-
formation, certain ^9ar^5 of the subtle gases, nitrogen and
hydrogen, that existed with the oxygen before its solidifi-
cation, have disappeared. Where are they? Do they not
probably exist in proportionally increased quantities in a

37

free or gaseous state, possibly in combination with yet
more subtle, unknown elements ? If they existed in forms
that man could take cognizance of, if he could follow them
further, he could analyse, study them, and perhaps under-
stand their nature and operations; as it is, he has been
able to follow them beyond the range of his pliysical senses,
and probably to their gradually increased, and increasing,
proportional quantities in the earth's atmosphere, througlv
the action of organic agencies, is to be ascribed, together
with other causes, the increase of electrical intensity in
the atmosphere, and other electrical phenomena, mental
activity, and spiritual susceptibility.

These subtle, gaseous elements are, as it were, the con-
necting links between the seen and the unseen, the tangi-
ble and intangible, material and immaterial, temporal and
eternal things, and they can but be involved in the pro-
cession of physical changes proceeding to their legitimate
results, in the actual sequence of nature, with the more
ponderable elements of matter, putting mankind, it may
be, into communion with "those things which are above*'
titting him more and more to receive the inspiration of
His Spirit, and to learn of, and adore, the Great Creator ot
the Universe, who has made all things by the word of His
Power.

The thought of the gradual diminution of water, the
most wonderful, glorious, beautifying and gladdening ot
all 'terrestrial substances, can but be painful to us, consti-
tuted as we are.

But the same Almighty and Omniscient Power that has
continuously controlled and moulded the adaptations of
the pliysical universe to the perceptions and welfare of
sentient beings, opening to us even in our own short lives
new and unconceived sources of pleasure, with the develop-
ment of our physical, intellectual and spiritual faculties,
will doubtless still continue to preserve, between the living
races of His creatures and external physical conditions,

that perfect adaptation that has always existed, and that
seems to be an endless and progressive amelioration.

That matter has thus developed under His own immuta-
ble laws for countless ages, with faultless precision, in the
vastest operations of the stupendous universe, and unerring
perfection in the minutest details of everything, is one ot
the most glorious of His revealed attributes. And we can
not doubt that this revelation will become more and more
irlorious, even to the far distant future, foretol^lSOO vears
ago by the Beloved Disciple, who " saw a new heaven and

A NEW EARTH, AND THERE WAS NO MORE SEA."

39

Note. — The matter of this paper, as originally prepared, was made up in great
part of extracts and illustrations from standard authorities, exhibiting physical
facts so collated as to demonstrate the theory of the gradual diminution of
water.

This abstract, having been made to present to "The American Association
for the Advancement of' Science," the most general and important ideas upon
the subject, with the necessary and required brevity, may be found deficient in
clearness, or proper arrangement, or in the illustrations necessary to a complete
demonstration.

It has been difficult for an unpractised author, in so condensed a summary of
a very extensive range of facts, to prepare a paper that will be suitable to the
occasion.

A large number of valuable authorities have been freely used in the course
of these investigations — and are gratefully acknowledged. The most important
of them will be found in the following list:

Cosmos, Vestiges of Creation, Plurality of Worlds, Origin of the Stars
(Ennis), Planetary and Stella Worlds, Astronomy of the Bible (Mitchell),
Elements of Astronomy (Davis), Ecce Coelum, Kitto's Encyclopedia, American
do., Malte Brun, Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, Lyell's Principles
of Geology, Manual do., Antiquity of Man (Lyell), Descent of Man (Darwin),
Origin of Species, do., Great Stone Book (Anstead), Advanced Text Book,
Physical Geography and Hand Book (Page), Earth and Man (Guyot), Physical
Geography (Somerville), Manual of Geology (Dana), Sketches of Nature
(Winchell), Geology of the Stars, do.. Physical Geography of the Sea (Maury),
Roget's Animal and Vegetable Physiology (Bridgewater Treatise), Vegetable
World (Figuer), Structure of Animal Life (Agassiz), Chemistry of Common
Life and Agricultural Chemistry (Johnson), Johnson's Turner's Chemistry,
Natural Laws of Husbandry (Liebig), Aspects of Nature (Humboldt), Ana-
lytical Class Book of Botany, Wonders of Heat (Cozin), Prehistoric Nations
(Baldwin), Carthage and her Remains (Davis), Civil Policy in America
(Draper), Chips from a German Workshop (Max Muller)-.

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