The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1886-03-26
THE ORIGIN OF TIE EARTH.
WORK or THE FIRST DAY.

Away back, ages ago, there tioaied
in space great mass of matter in the
form of gas, famed into fantastical and
ever varying shapes by every breath
of wnd-in the language of Scripture,
'Without form or void ! and from
this immense cloud of gaseous sub
stance, was to be prepared, through the
operation of Gods own laws a house
for man. "In the beginning God ere.
ated no one can go back of that
Hebrew declaration or learn the meth
ods whereby that substance was Great
ed. or brought into existance but
from that time forward, geologists have
been able to trace the work of prepa-
ration pretty accurately, by means of
the rocks, clay, sapd, and gravel-the
Book of Nature-ot swhich the earth
is composed.
Surely nothing can be more interest
ing than to follow, in imagination,
through all the various charges that
this has undergone since that faraway
"beginning," before it became the beau
,iful, smiling, green landscape as We
see it,
As time rolled on, century after CEN
tury, this gradually cooled from a
gaseous to a liquid state, and in ohedi-
ence to the same law that to day rounds
the raiudrop as it falls from the clouds,
it assumed spherical form, and, as it
was whirled rapidly through space, it
became fattened at the poles from the
effect of the centrifugal force that it
attained.
The atmosphere contained all thr
oxygen and car bon now locked in the
coal masses of the earth, vast quanti-
ties of mineral matter vaporized by the
great heat, and all the water that now
fills the ocean in the form of superheat
ed steam. Ages pass, aud the earth,
cooling through the action Of the al
mosphere, begins to show on its sur
face floating patches of solid substance
like the films that first appear on the
surface Of water when it begins to
freeze. This finally covers the entire
exterior but is constantly rent asunder
by eruptions from within, opening huge
crevices from which poured forth tor
rents of molten lava upon the newly
formed crust, which now bristled with
ragged eminences.
As the globe cooled more and more,
the heat bee anne insufficient to support
the water in the form of vapor a. d it
was precipitated boiling hot upon the
fiery earth below. Revaporised, it as
cended only to be returned again as
lain this helped to cool the earth still
more rapidly The crust, shrinking
and cracking as it hardened, became
still more uneven with wrinkles and
folds, yawning CULTS and assures
Thus fierce conflict was raging be-
tween fire and water.
AT last the water lriumphed and be
came universal. A hot, muddy, shall
low sea surged round the earth from
pole to pole, and over all, an atmos
phere of vapor entirely impervions to
light.
Age follows age and the cooling
process goes steadily on
The vapor gradually clears away and
the light of the sun shines though,
dim at first, but brighter as the fog be.
comes less dense
In the language of Moses, "God
said let there be light
Thus ended the work of the first day,
which we have abundant reason to re-
gard not as literal day of twenty
four hours, but as symbolical of long
period of time-ages through which
fire, air, and water were working a.
the Instruments in Gods hands to pre-.
pare temporary home for mankind
The idea of exact days of tweuty-four
hours each is not required by the origi
nal narrative, because ST. Peter tell.
us "One day with the Lord is as q
thousand years and Thousand years
as one day." nor by the common ap
pllcaton of the word which is general
ly used to denote the time from ont
sun set to the next. This, rs ever,
school boy knows, varies, from twenty
four hours between the aItic and ant
arctic circles, to whole year at tn,
poles. AMrHYcTIoN