its condensation
of producing the most intense chemical action--is a necessity of an
earth condensing from a vaporous and incandescent state. Thus, in so
far as scientific speculation ventures to penetrate into the genesis
of the earth, its conclusions are at one with the Mosaic cosmogony and
with the traditions of most ancient nations as to the primitive
existence of a chaos--formless and void, in which "nor aught nor
nought existed."

Some of the details of the Mosaic vision of the primeval chaos may be
supplied by the probabilities established by physics and chemistry.
Our first idea of the earth would be a vast vaporous ball, recently
spun out from the general mass of vapors forming the nebula which once
represented the solar system. This huge cloud, whirling its annual
round about the still vaporous centre of the system, would consist of
all the materials now constituting the solid rocks as well as those of
the seas and atmosphere, their atoms kept asunder by the force of
heat, preventing not only their mechanical union, but even their
chemical combination. But heat is being radiated on all sides into
space, and the opposing force of gravitation is little by little
gathering the particles toward the centre. At length a liquid nucleus
is formed, while upon this are being precipitated showers of
condensing matter from the still vast atmosphere to add to its volume.
As this process advances, a new brilliancy is given to the feebly
shining vapors by the incandescence of solid particles in the upper
layers of the atmosphere, and in this stage our earth would be a
little sun, a miniature of that which now forms the centre of our
system, and which still, by virtue of its greater mass, continues in
this state. But at length, by further cooling, this brilliancy is
lost, and the still fluid globe is surrounded by a vast cloudy pall,
in which condensing vapors gather in huge dark masses, and amid
terrible electrical explosions, pour, in constantly increasing, acid,
corrosive rains, upon the heated nucleus, combining with its
materials, or again flashing into vapors. Thus darkness dense and
gross would settle upon the vaporous deep, and would continue for long
ages, until the atmosphere could be finally cleared of its superfluous
vapors. In the mean time a crust of slag or cinder has been forming
upon the molten nucleus. Broken again and again by the heaving of the
seething mass, it at length sets permanently, and finally all