The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1873-05-03


: tegration, DEATH We wander along on
river banks and gaze upon the water-worl
: shores and almost unconsciously we arr
computing the ages that must have passed
since the wearing process began. Who
for instance, can travel along the Susque
stream began to pillow its path way from
the mountains to the sea, and the cycles
that must have since passed; still this car
ries us but slight way back through the
ages that must have passed since "God
created the heavens and earth" Upon oul
hills we see how the rocks have been riven
and torn, and note the masses of shells
entombed ages ago. In our vallies we look
back to the time when the waves careered
where harvest now wave, and try to count
the years that have rolled away since. We
pick up a fragment of coal and what his
tory that embodes; of immense forests
overthrown and burisd during successive
ages, until now these forest growths are
almost stone.
Was Shakespeare prophet, as well as
poet, when he wrote that there are sermons
in stoneso 1t is hardly possible that he
was dreaming then of the sermons that the
rocky caves of our earth have since been
made to preach. That these mute memoir
ials would yet give up their secrets, and
prove the tablets from which history. the
strangest imagination can conceive. is being
written.
''ln the beginning God created the
heavens and earth, and the earth was with
out form and void aud darkness meyed
upon the face of the waters" Such is the
short, simple record of revelation, yet how
much does it embrace. When was this
omnific going forth Of the fiat of Deity
accomplished? What millions of ages
elapsed during the time when the organic
ing process was going on we get no hint.
All the book of revelation gives us, is the
fact of the creation; matter is not eternal.
there must have been time when it begun
to be; this science admits as freely as
theology claims.
What was that beginning? We gaze on
iating its heat in all directions. We read
the conditions of some of the sister plan
cts OF our own system. Jupiter for exam
pie, still glowing hot, shining with his own
light, and the moon suspended before our
very eyes as an evidence of frozen world,
from which the last particle of warmth
has fled. We note the fact that the smaller
body is the frozen one. We read the evil
dence that earthquake throbs and volcano
throes are giving that internal heat which is
still at work on our planet. We examine
the craters now extinct, and almost unwill-
lngly admit that our planet is still cooling
down. We note the fact that tropic loving
animals once lived almost at the poles. All
evidence goes to prove that our earth once
possessed much greater degree of warmth
than it now does. This leads us back to
| the time when so great was the heat that
no organic existences could live upon the
globe; when all was treeless lifeless abyss
of molten minerals. Again this molten
condition enables, almost compels, us
to assume gaseous condition as preceding
even molten one. We can even now see
in some sections of the sky those filmy
masses Of nebulae that indicate what our
system was in its earliest period. Here
then is that beginning when not alone our
earth, but our system, was without form
| and void; an immensely of luminous parti-
cles, wrought up to an intensity of heat of
which modern forces know nothing. At
traction existed then as now, and soon a
rotation of the mass was generated; then
began the evolution of world. The shrink
ing mass threw of some of it's bulk, and
still cooling and shrinking, left the DEF ach-
ed mass to consolidate into planet. Here
we have the Genesis of our earth, the still /
shrinking central sun threw it off and at
once it set up for ITSELF the same forces |
that set the central mass into rotation
doing the same for the minor bodies of |
system.
1t is, perhaps, too early to write the ne
bular hypothesis down as an established
scientific fact, but all differences point in
that direction and it answers theological
questions as no other hyposhesis can do. |
Whatever may be thought of this idea, few
now doubt that our earth was at one time a
ball of molten minerals. Here is a frag-
ment Of granite, its particles are so SYM
metrically arranged that it cannot be the /
product of water, but rather of fire. Com
pare it with that particle of sandstone; note |
what evidence the latter shows that it was
worn from existing rocks and laid down in
beds without any defiite order of arrange
ments among its particles.
Twice a day the wave of fire rolled
around burning world, obedent to the
tidal impulse. Water then could not exist
upon its surface, but spread through the |
atmosphere in immense masses of steam;
something like those that the telescope
shows us as existing on the surface of Jup.
tier. At last the amount of heat became
small enough to allow some particles to
solidify, but still the tidal impulse kept the |
| fragments from uniting. Milleniums roll
away and at last these floating fragments
unite into a bridge of sturdy strength,
while the process of refrigeration still goes
on. Could an intelligence have been placed |
on earth at that time, very different sight |
would have met has eye, than that to which |
we are accustomed, but all those stages |
must be before man appeared upon the |
planet. The crust still thickens and heat |
decreases, until at last it is possible for
water to exist in some other form than that |
of steam. Slowly the clouds gather above
and prepare to pour the ocean upon the |
earth. Centuries still roll on, unmatched, |
except by that omnific God, who first |
evolved matter from nonentity. Nearer
the mass of vapor reaches the burning
crust, but ever only to be again exploded |
into steam and driven back to the clouds |
A constant warfare of elements goes on
through geologic age, but water at last
/ proves itself conquerer and rests at peace |
on the surface. 1t must be borne in mind |
that we deal here not with years or centur-