Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1890-06-14
The Very beginning.

In the burning mass that composed
our earth at first, there existed copper,
sulphur, and all the other substances
that are on and in our earth now, only
all were i'll a gaseous state. The cold
had not vet hardened them into solids.
They tell us that this collection of burn
ing material belonged originally to the
sun. and was thrown off from it in con-
sequence of a natural law, and sent
"whirIing in space" Doyou understand
what the word space" means? This
globe of ours is wrapped up in a huge
cloak, some forty miles thick, called the
atmosphere. Beyond this thick envelope
stretches far away that unknown region
called space. What are its boundaries,
no one can tell us. Whether it holds
other worlds than ours we can only
guess. But one thing about it is known
for certain, which is, that it is very cold.
Its temperature is two hundred degrees
below zero; so we have need of our thick,
warm atmosphere.
What effect did this intense cold have
upon the mass of fiery gas, sent spinning
out through its depths? just the same
effect that the cold mountain peaks have
upon the vapor of water. 1t cooled tho
gases upon the out side, hardened them,
and in the course of time formed thin
crust. This was Gods first day of
creation, and some men think it was
equal to thousands and thousands of
our years--mayb be milIions--because this
forming of the crust must have been slow
work. First, little patches of gas became
solid. Then these hoated together and
perhaps succeeded in making one crust
joined all Overland hot, rumpled crust
it was! Then the boiling, seething mass
inside broke through, and the work had
70 be done all over again.
When the vapor of water was con-
1enscd, rain began to fall.
Then came another struggle. As
quickly as the rain fell on the hot crust,
it was changed into vapor again, and
sent up into the air to repeat its work.
What boiling, steaming, hot ball this
world must have been
During all this time there were terrific
peals of thunder and flashes of lightning.
Whenever any liquid is changed into
vapor, electricity is produced and when
so vast a quantity of water was chang
ing into steam, the intensity and fire.
quency of the lightning must have been
UNNECESSARILY beyond anything we can
imagine. If only we could have been at
q safe distance above this steaming world
and looked down upon it, what a sight
we should have seen, and what deafen-
Of oh H.,
heard
Even though the rain was almost i'm
mediately changed into vapor, it must
have cooled the earth's surface a little,
coming directly from the icy realms of
space. And at last came the day when
the cold conquered the heat, and the
crust became cool enough for the water
to stay down. 1t filled up all the cracks
and crannies, and there was so much
of it that only little bit of the earth's
crust could peep above its surface. OF
our own continent, only narrow strip
of lanl, eXten ling from what is now
Nova Scotia to where the great lakes
were to be, and thence westward to the
region now called Alaska, remained
above the waters. In the place now
occupied 10y Europe, there were many
little patches, but no Hand so extensive
as the strip in the Western hemisphere.
Thick, dark vapors brooled over the
earth and shut out the light of the sun.
And these gloomy vapors, the little
pieces of dry, hot crust, We're the begin
nings out of which God was to mako
our beautiful world with its pure air,
its blue sky, and snowy clouds, its dense
woods and fertile fields its hills and
valleys its lakes and rivers.
There could have been no life in those
days-neither plant life nor animal life.
In the first place, the crust was too hot
neither animal nor plant could live on it,
nor in the waters that touched it. In
the second place, animals and plants
cannot live without sunlight; and no
sunlight could pierce those masses of
heavy vapor. Theresa G. Crofton, in st.
Nicholas.