SECTION IV.

DEPOSITION OF THE STRATA DURING THE NON-ROTATORY PERIOD.

CHAPTER X.

Position assumed, that the primeval water was chemically saturated with the mineral elements of the strata; and could, therefore, according to the laws of affinity, arrive at a static condition of chemical equilibrium. To produce any change of this state there must have been the intervention of a power beyond materialism, and the employment of an agency exempted from the law of gravitation. Aqueous crystallization apparently the first means made use of to produce that change by the Creator: evidences of this discoverable in the earlier strata. Animal and vegetable vitality next introduced to continue the same effect. Wisdom shown by the sequence of these agencies, and their influence on the progressive work of the creation. The vast extent and depth of the calcareous formations. Beneficence in the design of the relative position which these hold in the order of superposition. The mineral elements-how dissolved and held in combination by the primitive menstruum and their affinities; how they operated in causing deposition when the general equilibrium was disturbed by aqueous crystallization, and by animal and vegetable life. The wise adaptation of these constraining agencies to overcome chemical affinities, and to form substances which otherwise would have been injurious to future life. In conclusion, animal death, and the effects produced by the gaseous exhalations arising from their decomposition.

BEFORE we prosecute our investigations more closely, by endeavouring to discover what was likely to follow from the conditions laid down in the preceding chapter, we would take leave to sum up the evidence, with the design of coming to a perfect understanding upon a point of such essential import. Having made good the position that the primeval water, which circumbounded the rocky nucleus of the earth, was, at one

time, charged with mineral material, which, by some means or other, became separated from its sustaining menstruum, and was slowly and tranquilly deposited at the bottom of the ocean, it follows as a corollary, that those mineral masses were associated with that vast, shoreless, and atmosphereless body of water, in part by chemical affinity, and thereby held, to a certain extent, in suspension by it.

This must be admitted, if it even should be alleged, that a much greater proportion of the stratified rocks is the product of mechanical deposition, than what even the most liberal construction of geological research will permit; because, while the rocky elements were percolating mechanically through the water, to assume that position at the bottom which their specific gravities occasioned them to do, the ocean, for the reasons which have been assigned, must have become chemically saturated with those very percolating ingredients, as they passed onwards and downwards. This brings us, at last, to the point we so long wished to reach, that the primitive oceanic water must have been, at one time, chemically charged with mineral elements.

Now, it is a fact well known and admitted, that waterespecially large masses of water-when chemically impregnated with such extraneous substances as it is capable of taking into combination in that state, continues to purge itself, as it were, of every superabundant particle of any one of these ingredients until a static condition of perfect equilibrium is assumed; after which, if in vacuo, and no new element be added or none of the original ones withdrawn, it will, for aught we know, continue to maintain the same state of chemical equlibrium ad infinitum.* This principle is so well known and admitted, that we need scarcely embarrass the general argument by bringing forward evidence to prove it; although it should be borne in mind that we are treating of a period when there were neither sun-light nor atmospheric air to operate in producing those slow but gradual changes which now, apparently almost without the interference of any

* See the 67th and 69th Theorems, and their evidences.

agency, are certain to be the consequences in any solution which is exposed to their influence. At the time to which we allude, neither the heating nor the chemical rays of the sun were shed upon the ocean, nor was it operated upon by the searching and all-pervading agency of the atmosphere.

Its causes of change, whatever they were, resided entirely within its dark and atmosphereless mass, and there, under the directive power of the Almighty, were made to produce those ends for which they were brought into being.

We shall, therefore, as the natural result of the law of equilibrium to which we have just referred, conclude, that water, chemically charged with extraneous ingredients, would, by parting with the surplus atoms of any one of them, assume that static condition by the mutual arrangement of the molecules inter se, according to their respective affinities; and that so long as none of these ingredients which remained were withdrawn, nor any other substance was added to them, the mass would continue in the condition of equilibrium which it had assumed.

It is stated, and with perfect truth, in the sixty-seventh Theorem: "That one of the most important qualities of matter in mechanical investigation is INERTIA, or that property which results from its inability to produce in itself spontaneous change or action, either from a state of rest to that of motion, or vice versa, to diminish any motion which it may have received from an external cause, or to change its direction.”

Now, when those two fundamental truths are brought into juxta-position in the mind, and we take into account the condition of our planet at that period, namely, "the Earth being without form and void, and darkness upon the face of the deep :" when we consider that we are treating of a non-rotating sphere enveloped in a dark, atmosphereless ocean of water, reduced, by the deposition of all superabundant earthy ingredients to a state of chemical equilibrium, and flowing-in obedience to the luni-solar attraction-in one unvarying current round the rocky crust which sustained it; but without this being able to produce the slightest change in its molecular composition-for every atom of water being equally brought to a state of chemical equilibrium, none could exercise

any influence over another-we must conclude, that the inertia of matter would be the governing principle of the whole. As long as there was no abstraction from the mass—and nothing could, under the circumstances described, be taken from it; or no new principle impressed upon it, or addition made to its constituent particles; or no external force brought to bear upon it-a change could not by possibility have taken place. The primeval water, once brought to a state of chemical equilibrium-and to that condition, as we have already shown, it must of necessity have come-no change could, or ever would, have taken place in the mass thereafter, unless by the interposition of something beyond and external to itself.

At this conclusion we have arrived by applying the announcements of science to the condition of the earth during the early age to which we allude; while it is worthy of being remarked, that in the Scriptures alone is any adequate account to be found of those conditions which the wonderful discoveries of after science-when carried back, as it were, and applied to the case in question-require, in order satisfactorily to solve the great and important problem of the geological phenomena. These discoveries demand, that there should have been a stage in the world's geological history, when its surface should have been devoid of form; when it should have been surrounded by water, and cloaked by universal darkness;and these are declared in the simple but emphatic and comprehensive language of Scripture, to have been the actual circumstances of the earth, on the very first mention which is made of it, when introduced to our notice as "without form and void; darkness upon the face of the deep." When we take a deliberate and comprehensive review of the position which we have now reached in our argument, we shall have little hesitation in admitting, that it would be one of insurmountable difficulty were we to attempt to walk by the light of Science alone. A world without rotation-enveloped in an atmosphereless ocean-reigned over by universal darkness, and whose circumfluent water had, by the laws which regulate molecular attraction of affinity, reached a state of equilibrium; and, consequently, without some influence beyond itself incapable of alteration, are conditions which, contemporane

ously operating, would, without the continuing influence of the Creator, have brought the work to a conclusion in that incipient and imperfect state. For, if we turn to the astronomer, he will, after consulting his well authenticated general laws, inform us, that consistently with those which govern the earth's orbital motion, there could have been no addition of ponderable matter made to it after it was translated in space; neither could any abstraction have taken place, without endangering the permanency of its periodical course. If, to the natural philosopher-rendered conversant, by deep and protracted study, with the laws of inertia-we next seek for aid, he will inform us, with that reliance which he has acquired by repeated experience, that "matter is incapable of producing in itself spontaneous change, either from a state of rest to that of motion; or of diminishing any motion which it may have acquired, or to change its direction:" that in fine, it is, as designated, wholly inert and entirely passive at the will of external causes. And, lastly, if we direct our enquiries to the chemist, in hopes that his minuter investigations, into the constituent elements of material substances and their affinities, may have furnished him with the knowledge necessary to relieve us from our embarrassments, we shall be met by still closer and more impassable barriers. We shall find that his laborious and intelligent investigations have clearly revealed to him, that the ultimate molecules of matter are governed by and obedient to the same law of inertia; their chemical affinities being once satisfied they never can, of themselves, thereafter change; they can neither increase, diminish, nor alter their own powers spontaneously.

Hopeless of success, the individual enquirer-who relies on nature alone being able to answer all the questions requisite to be put, in order to unravel the mystery-either turns aside from the arduous task, as one incapable of being satisfactorily accomplished, or rushes blindly into some wild and general speculations, wholly disregardful, not only of revelation, but of all well investigated laws of nature, revealed to us by modern science, in hopes that by some desperate effort he may be enabled to clear the dangerous gap which presents itself to impede his further progress. But those who are enabled to