at all angles, up to a perpendicular.
Viewed from this standpoint, the solid portion of the old world has gone all to pieces. Wherever there is a chain of mountains it marks a breakage in the earth's crust, and these mountains are not all on the land, but extend under the seas so deeply that they are unable to lift their heads above the surface of the water. The earth is no longer round, except in general outline, but broken up into all sorts of shapes that give the varied conditions of landscape that we find whichever way we turn.
There are but few volcanoes that are active in this age, while in former times they extended for thousands of miles. We still have occasional earthquakes, but undoubtedly they are very slight as compared with those that shook the earth millions of years ago.
If, now, we study the constitution of the earth's crust so far as it has yet been penetrated, we find it divided up into periods called Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary. The primary period reaches down to the line where the lowest forms of animal fossils begin to be found. This is called the "Paleozoic" period, which means the period of "ancient life." From here let us first go downward. Immediately under this lies a stratum of "Metamorphic" rocks. To metamorphose is to change; and metamorphic rocks are those which have been changed by heat or pressure from their original formation. This class of rocks lie on top of what are called "Igneous" rocks, which means that they have been formed by or subjected to heat. All lava-formed rocks are igneous. They are unstratified—not in layers or strata, but in a formless mass—and in this they differ from water-formed rocks.
If there is a molten center to the earth these igneous rocks are undoubtedly the offspring of this great internal furnace. The metamorphic rocks were primarily igneous and are changed somewhat in their structure by the lapse of time. For instance, marble is a metamorphic limestone. The difference between common limestone and marble is in its molecular structure—the way in which its smallest particles are put together. They are both carbonates of lime. But the marble is made up of little crystals and will take a polish, while ordinary uncrystallized limestone will not. The igneous rocks are chiefly granite; and granite is formed of orthoclase-feldspar, mica, and quartz. (The word "orthoclase" means straight fracture, and the orthoclase-feldspar has two lines of cleavage at right angles to each other.) This is the ordinary composition of granite, but there are a great many variations, chiefly as to color and proportions of the ingredients named.
The igneous rocks, then, are the lowest of all; then come the metamorphic rocks; and as before stated, on top of metamorphic rock begins the first evidence of life in its lowest form. The Paleozoic (ancient life) or Primary period is made up of a number of subdivisions. The first and oldest division is called the "Silurian" age, which is underlaid by the metamorphic rocks and overlaid by the rocks of the Devonian period. It is called Silurian, from the name of a kind of fish, fossils of which are found in the rocks of this age, which are distinguished for the absence of land-plant fossils and vertebrate animals.
In the Silurian strata are found limestones, slate, flagstones, shales, etc. On top of the Silurian begins the "Devonian" age, in which is found the old red sandstone, as well as limestone and slate; and here begin to be found the fossils of land-plants. On top of the Devonian lies the "Carboniferous" series, which complete the series of the primary period. In the lower part of this stratum is found carboniferous limestone, which is overlaid by a kind of stone called millstone grit, and on top of this lie the true carboniferous strata or coal-bearing measures. In the coal strata are found the first reptile fossils.
On top of the coal measures begins the Secondary period, or "Mesozoic" (middle life). This period is distinguished for the great development of reptiles, and is called the "age of reptiles." In this age occur the first traces of mammals, and birds, and fishes with bony skeletons. Among plants we find here the first evidence of palms. The formation is chiefly chalk, sandstones, clays, limestone, etc. We now come to the last or "Tertiary" period, which brings us to the top earth. This is chiefly formed of sedimentary rocks—those which have been formed by the settling of sediment, in water.
While we are forced to these general conclusions in regard to the building of the world, and to its subsequent distortion by the series of upheavals that have occurred from time to time, and to the successive "ages" of the layers of rock foundation of its crust, there are many mysteries that remain unsolved and many questions will present themselves to the mind of the reader. One of these questions is, Where was the water and where was the earthy matter before its precipitation? Matter, including water, can exist in the gaseous form, and we only need to assume that there was a core of intense heat, to understand how all the material that we find on the earth and in the earth could have been held in suspension in the gaseous state until the cooling process had reached a stage where the various combinations and recombinations could take place in the great laboratory of nature. If we study the constitution of the sun (and with the modern appliances we are able to do so), we find that it is made up of some and perhaps all of the same materials that are found here on earth. If there is no water existing, in the sun, as water, there are the gases present which would produce it if the conditions were right. And, for all we know, that flaming mass of burning gases may some time go through the same kind of cooling and building up in solids that our earth has experienced.
We thus have what may be called an outline sketch of the process of World-building.
CHAPTER II.
LIMESTONE.
A large part of the structure of the earth's crust is formed of a substance called limestone. Ordinary limestone is a compound of common lime and carbon dioxide, a gas that is found mixed with the air to a very small degree. Carbon dioxide will be better known by the older people as carbonic acid. It is a gas that is given off whenever wood and coal are burned, or any substance containing carbon. It is composed of one atom of carbon to two of oxygen. Every ton of coal that is burned sends off three and two-thirds tons of this gas. The increase in weight comes from the fact that every atom of carbon unites with two of oxygen, which it takes from the air, and the oxygen is heavier than the carbon.
In comparing the relative weights of atoms (the smallest combinable particle of a solid, liquid, or gas) we use the hydrogen atom as the unit of comparison and call it "one," because it is the lightest of all atoms. The carbon atom is twelve times heavier than the hydrogen atom, and the oxygen atom is sixteen times heavier. Hence it will be seen readily how a ton of coal will form two and two-thirds times its weight of carbonic dioxide. Lime, having a strong affinity or attraction for this gas, has absorbed it from the air and water, forming what is known as carbonate of lime—which is the ordinary limestone. Chalk and the various marbles are also carbonates of lime. Limestone strata in the crust of the earth are found in all the periods of the earth's formation. All forms of sea shells that were once the homes of animal life are constructed of this compound; and in the later formations of limestone, in the Secondary and Tertiary periods, we find this rock to be made up almost entirely of marine shells, some of them microscopic in size. The earlier or older formations of limestone that are found deeper down in the earth's crust are less mingled with these marine shells. This comes from the fact that the first deposition of limestone strata occurred before the later forms of sea life had developed. Whatever signs of life are found in these lower stratifications are of the very lowest order. It is not to be understood that animal life is a necessary factor in the formation of limestone, but it has been an incidental feature which no doubt has been the chief means of gathering up from the water this compound and precipitating it into the great limestone strata that are everywhere found.
Carbonate of lime is found in solution in nearly, if not quite, all of the mineral waters,
