Mower County transcript., 1890-05-07
HE VERY BEGINNING.
Once Our Earth Was Nothing More Than
Burning Mass.

TN he VERY BEGINNING. .
Once Our Earth Was Nothing More Than
@% '.E burning Mass.
An tne 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 IN gaseous state. The cold
had not yet hardened them into solids.
They tell US that this collection of
burning material belonged originally to
the sum- and was thrown of from it in
consequence OF a natural law, and sent
'''whlrllng In space" Do you under
stand what that word ''space" means?
This globe of ours is wrapped up in o
huge cloak, some forty miles thick,
called the atmosphere. Beyond this
thick envelope stretches far away that
unknown region called ''space." What
are It's boundaries no one can tell US.
whether 1T holds other worlds than ours
we can only guess. But one thing about t
1t Is known for certain, which is, that 1t
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 spin
ming out through its depths? just the
same effect that the cold mountain
peaks have upon the vapor of water.
1t cooled the gases upon the outside,
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--may be
millions-because this forming of the
crust must have been slow work. First,
little patches of gas became solid.
Then these floated together and per-
haps succeeded in making one crust
joined all overland hot, rumpled
crust 1t was! Then the boiling, seeth-
ing mass inside broke through, and the
work had to be done all over again.
When the vapor of water was con-
densed, 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 ter
rifle peals of thunder and flashes of
lightning. Whenever any liquid is
changing into vapor, electricity is pro.
duced; and when so vast quantity OF
water was changing into steam, the in
tensity and frequency of the lightning
must have been immeasurably beyond
any thing we can imagine. If only we
could have been at safe distance above
this steaming world and looked down
upon it, what sight we might have
seen, and what deafening peals OF
thunder we should have heard!
Even though the rain was almost i'm.
mediately changed into vapor, it must
have cooled the earth's crust a little,
coming directly from the icy realms OF
space. And at last came 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 ol
it that only little bit of the earth's
crustgcould peep above its surface. o.
our own continent, only a narrow strip
of land, extending from wha
Is now Nova Scotia to where
the Great Lakes were to be. and thence
westward to the region now called Alas.
ka, remained above the waters. In the
place now occupied by Europe, there
were many little patches, but no land sc
extensive as the strip in the Western
Hemisphere.
Thick, dark vapors brooded over the
earth and shut out the light of the sun.
And these gloomy vapors, the little
pieces of dry, hot crust, and the surg
ing, boiling water, were the beginning.
out of which God was to make our beau
tiful world, with its pure air, its blue
sky, and snowy clouds, its dense woods
and fertile fields, its hills and valleys,
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 car
not live without sunlight; and, no sun
light could pierce those masses of heavy
vapor.-Teresa c. Crofton, in st. Nicho-