rent predominates, and keeps the skies clear, and the moisture dissolved. Occasional and irregular occurrences disturb this predominance; the moisture is then precipitated, the skies are clouded, and the clouds may descend in copious rains.

"These alternations of fair weather and showers appear to be much more favourable to vegetable and animal life than any uniform course of weather could have been. To produce this variety, we have two antagonist forces, by the struggle of which such changes occur. Steam and air, two transparent and elastic fluids, expansible by heat, are in many respects and properties very like each other; yet, the same heat similarly applied to the globe, produces at the surface currents of these fluids tending in opposite directions. And these currents mix and balance, conspire and interfere, so that our trees and fields have alternately water and sunshine; our fruits and grain are successively developed and matured. Why should such laws of heat and elastic fluids so obtain, and be so combined? Is it not in order that they may be fit for such offices? There is here an arrangement which no chance could have produced. The details of this apparatus may be beyond our power of tracing; its springs may be out of our sight. Such circumstances do not make it the less a curious and bountiful contrivance; they need not prevent our recognising the skill and benevolence which we can discover."*

"Variations of temperature on different parts of the earth's surface," says Mr. Hutchinson, "disturb the atmospheric equilibrium, and give rise to aerial currents; while, on the other hand, aerial currents, according as their direction is from a cold or a warm climate, produce important alterations in the temperature of the incumbent atmosphere. Again, variations in the atmospheric temperature are principally instrumental in the formation and dissolution of clouds; while the existence of these reduces the temperature of the subjacent atmosphere during day and summer; and augments during night and winter, and unitedly produce the varied machinery of the weather. . .

"Winds, in every case, whether at the level of the sea, or at any elevation above it, originate in simultaneous inequalities of atmospheric density, or simultaneous inequalities of incumbent atmospheric pressure at corresponding levels, in different places. And, according to the principle of fluids in their motions, obeying the prepon

* Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 96-101.

derance of pressure, the direction of the wind must always be from where the incumbent pressure is greater, to where it is less . .

...

"Whatever, therefore, produces a simultaneous difference of temperature in different portions of the atmosphere, at equal altitudes above the level of the sea, necessarily give rise to qualities of barometrical pressure, and thus remotely become the cause of wind.

"Agreeably to the preceding observations, the most general cause of wind is the gradual diminution of the mean annual temperature from the equator towards the poles; and the prevailing direction in which the upper part of the atmosphere moves is from the warm towards the colder climates, viz., from the equatorial towards the polar regions. And, on the contrary, the prevailing direction in which the lower half of the atmosphere moves, is from the cold to the warmer climate; and accordingly from the polar towards the equatorial regions."

The recent work of Dr. Thomson affords us the following corroboration :

"When by any cause the atmospheric molecules are disturbed, the motion communicated to the air is denominated wind: it arises as a consequence of changes in the density of the atmosphere. Like water seeking its own level, the particles of air rush to supply the partial void, with a velocity and impetuosity proportioned to the existing cause; so in the higher regions, those particles which, expanded by heat, have ascended by reason of their diminished gravity, flow out according to a similar law, and thus two currents are established, one on the surface of the earth, and the other considerably above, moving in opposite directions."†

"It will be recollected," observes Mr. Reid," that there are two great powers acting upon every kind of matter, attraction and repulsion. This latter principle is generally believed to be the same as heat. If cohesion were the sole ruling power, the world would be a dull, inert, mass, for the tendency of cohesion is to draw the particles of bodies into close contact with each other, and to preserve them in that state. But the repulsive principle, by driving asunder the particles of bodies, infuses life and activity into inanimate objects.

* Hutchinson's Principles of Meteorology, Introduction, pp. 269, 131, 272. + Introduction to Meteorology, p. 377.

"To illustrate this, it will be sufficient to mention, that without the power of heat or repulsion, there could be no winds, rain, dew, rivers, streams, or springs."

With these expositions, on this abstruse subject, the complex and seemingly capricious machinery of the weather, we shall conclude this chapter, that we may enjoy a slight respite, and have time to meditate on what we have perused before proceeding to its application in conformation of the Dynamical Theory; and ere we attempt to show by what means these meteorological phenomena, and the formation of the atmosphere, or "firmament," at this juncture, can be made available, to convince our readers, that there was a long but indefinite period, during which the earth had no rotation around

its axis.

* Popular Treatise on Chemistry, p. 22.

SECTION VIII.

COMPLETION OF THE ATMOSPHERE; SEPARATION OF THE SEA FROM THE LAND; AND THEIR IMMEDIATE COMBINED RESULTS.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Preliminary observations.

Different consequences which result from the application of the Expansive principle to the Aerial and to the Aqueous bodies of the atmosphere exemplified by what took place at the epoch alluded to. Evidence that it was at this juncture the Atmosphere was completed, and the Sea and the Land were separated from each other. Concurring testimony that these events were effected by VAPORIZATION. Scientific evidences as to the action and reaction of these great natural bodies on each other, and their beneficent results. A corroborative line of proof adopted and made good by the character and capabilities of the Phanogamous division of plants; and the opportune period recorded in Scripture as that of their formation.

THE immediate results of the first rotation of the earth around its axis would be to elevate continental ridges, intensely heated; to depress oceanic hollows of corresponding magnitude; to carry upwards, by means of the former, immense longitudinal waves, the latter retreating and carrying down, to a certain extent, masses of water, corresponding to the spaces upon which they rested; while the upper strata of water would be dispersed in great tenuity, by the general rotatory impulse, augmented in the zones above the continents by the incandescent mountain chains thrust into their midst. Before this period, it must be reiterated, there existed no motion of matter, except in straight lines, either to or from the centre, or diagonal thereto as a compound of those primary directions, but none which could cause particles of inert matter to move out of parallelism; while there now exists, as we have seen by the theorem and evidences last appealed to

in the previous chapter, a law in nature, whereby the aerial portion of the atmosphere propends from the colder to the hotter regions; and the vaporous constituents from the hotter to the colder places, without reference to direction beyond what is impressed upon them by these irresistible impulses. And another constitutional law, by which its aqueous associate is induced to form itself into vaporous vesicles, of wonderful tenuity, possessing diffusive principles within and immediately around themselves, yet with general attractive affinities by which they congregate or gather together into those gorgeous but fantastic forms which visible vapour or clouds assume; and having been made aware of these several conditions, and of the existing phenomena connected with the comprehensive machinery of the weather, the mind may now be considered capable of making the requisite application of them to the subject more immediately under consideration.

Alluding again to that normal law of materialism, to which we have so frequently had occasion to refer-" that inert matter can neither generate, alter, nor overcome motion in itself”– and being without the knowledge of the existence, up to the period to which we allude, of any source of motion save in direct lines, while we are firmly persuaded of the insufficiency and inappropriateness of this description of motion, to effect the separation of the water from the earthy and the saline residium, which exists to this day as an incontestible proof of the separation which actually took place; we are reduced to one of those unavoidable dilemmas into which reliance alone on Motion, the laws of materialism would infallibly lead us. impelling matter in parallel lines could never have effected what we are constrained to admit has been done. And it is precisely when thus critically circumstanced, when we cannot take one step forward of ourselves, that the revelation of the interference of the Creator at this opportune juncture relieves us from the difficulty: "Let the waters under the heaven," (not under the firmament, be it observed), "be gathered together," (there could be no gathering together in parallel lines), "and let the dry land appear."

Now, from what has been said, it will not be difficult to imagine the land to have been entirely enveloped by watery