om the sun. When this state of equilibrium was finally
attained, all the great phenomena which a body thus heated could
exhibit, would cease, and the subsequent changes would become due only
to forces such as we now see acting upon the surface, or would be the
completion of actions commenced during the previous state.

We know, from astronomical investigations, that this state of
equilibrium has existed for upwards of twenty centuries, while analogy
would lead us to infer that it must have been attained at no long period
after the last great catastrophe to which our planet was subjected.

Let us now see whether the fact of the interior of the globe being more
intensely heated than its surface, can be inferred in any other manner
than from the course of reasoning whose principles are here cited. The
feeble power of man, feeble at least compared to the size of the globe
he inhabits, has been able to penetrate to but small depths in its outer
shell, but even at these small depths, an increase of temperature has
been remarked, and so frequently and carefully observed, as to leave no
doubt of its being a general law. This increase, too, appears exactly
consistent with that which it might be inferred ought to take place. But
we, even to the present day, occasionally see the igneous fluid from
beneath forced up to the surface, and spreading from volcanic craters
over great regions. Observation shows us that at remote epochs such
phenomena were much more frequent than at present. We want no more
positive proofs that the interior of the earth is still intensely
heated, and that the bed of the ocean and the solid land are mere crusts
formed upon the surface of a mass in a state analogous to that of
igneous fusion.

Were the surface, as we have inferred it must have been, ever itself
intensely heated, the volatile and gaseous matters which now constitute
our atmosphere and oceans, must have united to form an atmosphere of far
greater extent than it is at present. The aqueous matter rising into
regions where the rarity of the air would cause cold sufficient to
condense it, would have been in a state of constant motion, boiling in
the lower regions, being precipitated in the higher, and acting most
energetically to promote the general cooling. And so soon as the surface
became cooler than 212 deg., the water would begin to settle upon its
surface, forming at first lakes in its basins or cavities, and finally
extending itself into