| Show THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF THE EARTH OM the evening of friday the of january a lecture on the above named subject was delivered at the social hall under the auspices of the students society of the the latter day saints college by dr J E talmage the principal of that worthy institution the lecture had been delivered several times before in different parts of the territory and has long been famous among the people it is therefore with sincere pleasure and full confidence of appreciation on the part of our readers that we present herewith a report repart of the discourse the speakers remarks were illustrated by the aid of a pair of won darful oxy calcium stereopticons producing magnificent dissolving effects of the views which were mostly hand paintings by eminent specialists there were thirty seven views in all each about eight feet in diameter this limit being determined by the size of the room though the apparatus was capable of producing as fine a picture of three times the size the sketches given below are no attempt to reproduce beautiful views exhibited during the lecture the scenic effects of which could not be represented in anything less than paintings or steel engravings the hall on the occasion was completely filled and it was found necessary to crowd nearly one hundred and fifty spectators behind the scenery and then great numbers were unable to gain admittance the lecture occupied an hour and a quarter in delivery and was listened to throughout with spellbound attention as befitted so masterly an effort the subject was handled in such a way as to convince the audience that truth is truth in science as in religion ed dr talmage said ladies and gentlemen we have assembled to glance at the headings of a chapter or two in the greatest of all works of history a history which deals with every condition of the times upon which it treats and speaks not simply of monarchies and wars we are to spend a brief hour in perus ing though perhaps in a very imperfect manner a small part of the great book of nature to scan the volume of creation to hear the outlines of the story of the earth there are but few recent human records beating bearing upon our subject the science dealing with the earth is among the youngest of the great divisions of natural history about two centuries agoa ago a work was published in england entitled the I 1 theory of the earth and the author speaks of it in his preface as the account of a world that had been completely lost from the memory of man and the records of time strange though it may seem to us man learned to lift his eyes toward the sky and to wonder and marvel and perhaps to worship because of the miracle which there he witnessed long before he thought to gaze upon the earth and to learn the lessons that lay recorded beneath his feet Is this perhaps a manifestation of the human tendency to yearn yeam after the distant and the unattainable to the neglect of the present and the possible this earth history is recorded upon material far more enduring than fibrous paper or sheepskin sheep skin parchment those books are the rocks and stones of the earth and humble objects though they be they have a strange story to tell ruskin has beautifully said that there are few objects out of which more can be learned than out of stones they seem to have been created especially to reward a patient ver nearly all other objects in nature can be seen to some extent without patience and are pleasant even in being half seen trees clouds and rivers are enjoyable even eved by the careless but the stone under foot has nothing for carelessness but stumbling no pleasure is to be had out of it nor food not nor good of any kind nothing but symbolism of the hard heart and the gift yet do but give it some reverence and watchfulness and there is bread of thought in it more than in any other lowly feature of all the landscape but we are told that the teachings of the rocks implant within the students mind a disregard for the words of his creator and make of him an infidel we hear solemn declarations that there is danger lest the contemplation of beauty in the design should argue the non exist lebit ence of a designer some havi have taught that the light of modern discovery and research has thrown deep shadows of inaccuracy and doubt upon the records of scripture cowper has ironically informed us that some dig and bore the solid earth and from the strata there extract a register by which we learn that he who made it and revealed its date to moses was mistaken in its age the chief item of discrepancy is in regard to time the skeptic says it is impossible that the events recorded in the opening chapter of genesis could have been brought about in the space of six days and others believing this though disliking to openly avow their doubts as to the accuracy of holy writ claim that the term day as used in genesis prefers refers to vast and indefinite periods of time it is true that this word is used by the sacred historian in more than one sense yet he who denies the power of a creator to accomplish the formation of a world in any specified time talks as the foolish man who presumes to judge a matter while in ignorance of its bearings what can man know of creation what does the babe who lies gazing upon the fixtures of the room in which it first opens its eyes to the scenes of earth know of the rules of architecture and the processes of masonry by which that house was built most perhaps all of our conclusions are founded upon compari in the days of our grandparents grand parents every household was dependent upon the industry of its members for the clothing of the family the sheep were reared and fleeced the wool was corded and spun the cloth woven and the garments made all by the family themselves the fabrics necessary for a single suit often required weeks in the making contrast this with the recent achievements of a large english factory the test having been purposely arranged to show what could be done in sach an undertaking A number of sheep were shorn on the morning of a certain day thi the wool was taken to the factory and in the evening the proprietor appeared in a suit of clothes made from those same fleeces if an industrious dame of bygone by gone days could rise from her grave and examine such cloth she would doubtlessly say if questioned on the subject that to make it needed months and if she was told that it took but as many hours she would be righteously shocked at the untruthfulness of her descendants and if the bible declared the fact her confidence in that sacred volume would be greatly shaken man is unwise in his thought that he knows all of the forces at his great parents command let us be willing to ascribe any discrepancies between inspired or revealed history and the results of our own researches as probably due to the imperfections of our reasoning and the weakness of our powers we are not all masters in the science of creation and he alone will make sure progress in his studies who submits himself to the direction of the supreme teacher with this care and caution let us proceed to examine some of the stony pages of our globe eat at this point the lights were extinguished and the remarks which followed were illustrated by stereopticon pictures as before described ed it is an almost universal belief founded upon observation and analogy that the matter now composing this earth once existed in a finely divided condition as nebulous dust in fact in this state of chaos the material probably occupied a vastly larger space than that now filled by the earth and its enveloping atmosphere with telescopic aid we are able to look now far out in space and there to see just such cloudy nebulae perhaps other systems of worlds passing through their preparatory systems of growth the picture upon the canvas figure i is a fig i photograph of such a mass now existing in the constellation of canes ici believers in the nebular hypothesis for the modern form of which we are mostly indebted to la place suppose that by the action of gravitation these cosmic particles attracted one another and thus motion was established and light and heat beat resulted wherever such attraction was strongest condensation would be most marked and a denser nealus would be formed all perhaps moving about the established centre giving in many cases the whirlpool or spiral form here depicted the processes of condensation would continue till from a gaseous condition the nuclei would assume a liquid state and from that the transition would be gradual but sure to a solid condition in obedience to that law by which a drop of dew pendant on a grass blade assumes a spherical form by which in fact all liquid bodies tend to become spheres these condensing masses would take on each a globular shape and every one would tend to move about its centre in an orbit determined ter mined by the position of the mass at the time of the primary condensation during such stage it must have been that in his hand god took the golden compasses prepared in his almighty store to circumscribe the world one foot he plante dand the other turned round through the vast profundity obscure and said aid thus far extend these are thy bounds this is thy just circumference oh I 1 world when this was if ever with regard to the earth we have no means of knowing we are only told in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth nothing can write its own beginning in the process of time this cooling globe would become surrounded with a solid crust at first very thin like the earliest ice of winter upon the breasts of lakes and gradually thickening by additions of solid matter below until recent times it has been taught that at present this crust is but an egg shell covering the interior mass being still molten throughout and that the earth is practically a liquid body covered with an extremely fragile shell the view upon the screen illustrates this idea A dark rim shows the supposed crust while the colored disc indicates the molten interior in all probability this is an error the formation upon which the supposition is based is the fact that the temperature rises as we descend below the surface of the earth the rate of increase is variable but the average is about i F for every fifty three feet or say for every mile of depth at this rate a temperature of would be reached at a depth of thirty miles and this heat is sufficient to fuse nearly all rocks with which we are acquainted therefore it has been thought that below this depth of thirty miles the entire earth must of necessity be fluid it should be remembered however that the melting point of any substance is variable depending upon certain external conditions but mainly that of pressure now at a depth of thirty miles below the earths surface rocks would be under an immensely greater pressure than at the surface where they would be rested upon only by the atmosphere and though at that place a heat of might exist yet vet that would be insufficient to melt the rock there because of the additional pressure As the temperature and the pressure increase with the depth we have no means of ascertaining at what point complete fusion would occur the earth however acts as a substantially solid body there are doubtlessly reservoirs reservoirs of molten mater within it but the crust is most probably thick in comparison by the weathering action of air and water the hard rock would be worn wom away as we may see the process now going on the debris of this action would be carried by the streams downward into lakes and seas and there it would be deposited as a sediment in strata or layers upon the bottom such strata are represented diagrammatically diagrammatic alry in the view fig 2 fig a 2 they would probably be uniform and regular when first formed each deposit by its structure and composition telling much of the conditions under which it was formed in the minds of many these sets of strata present them themselves pelves as separate volumes in the grand history of the globe the lowest layer has been named the Archa ean or earliest formation and the time which it represents is known as the Archa ean era the rocks comprised herein are divisible into two classes the laurentian so called from their abundance along the river st lawrence and the huronian system named so on account of their occurrence about lake huron the next great division represents the paleozoic fal era and comprises the silurian the devonian and the carboniferous boni ferous ages then fol follows lovs the mesozoic era and the cenozoic or recent era but these water formed strata were not allowed to rest undisturbed nature appears to have purposely bound these volumes in a more enduring material consisting of volcanic products such as lava volcanoes exist today these seem to be vents to the otherwise pent up forces of the earths interior the picture shows a section of an active volcano As examples of volcanic activity let us consider some cases of modem occurrence that is to say such as have happened within the period covered by human records one of the best known is the eruption of vesuvius in 79 A D by which the three cities herculaneum Hercula pompeii and stabile were buried from human gaze and preserved as fossil cities this eruption was of the explosive type instead of lava vast quantities of ashes were emitted together with immense volumes of steam and this latter condensing as rain formed with the ashes streams of mud which flowed into the streets invaded the houses and covered all as with material for a cast these cities are now being unearthed and many startling discoveries are made in pompeii painted signs are found still above the doors medicines stand on the counter bread has been taken from the bakers oven in in which it was probably placed on the day of the disaster in one house whitewashing was in progress the utensils are found and even the spots of lime can be recognized on the floors A young pig trussed up for the fire was found upon a dish where it has lain for more than eighteen centuries awaiting the roasting the painting and frescoing on the walls are in many cases as fresh as if applied but a few weeks ago surely all such would have been destroyed if molten lava had flowed through the town in 1815 a remarkable eruption occurred on the island of Sum bawa one of the group it lasted between four and five months sounds of the explosions were heard in sumatra miles distant and at cemate miles in the opposite direction a fall of ashes so heavy that houses were destroyed thereby occurred at a distance of forty miles and at a distance of miles in one direction and miles in another ashes fell so abundantly as to cause a darkness during the day equal to that of night during the eruption of Cos iguina in guatemala during 1835 ashes fell miles eastward and 1200 miles to the west the force requisite for such volcanic manifestations is almost beyond comprehension vesuvius stands feet high yet eruptive material has been thrown feet above its summit top is nearly feet above sea level and matter has been projected feet higher and once a stone rog cubic yards iff by volume was hurled from its crater to a distance of nine miles the amount of matter ejected from vesuvius during an eruption in 1737 was cubic yards and in 1794 cubic yards were disgorge ed in 1660 etna erupted a quantity of lava equal to twenty times the volume of the mountain itself and the lava thrown from the crater in 1669 covered 84 square miles according to dana cubic feet of molten matter flowed from kilauea in 1840 this mass would equal a triangular ridge feet high two miles long and a mile wide at its base beside actual eruptions of heated matter volcanic forces often cause elevations or depressions of extensive regions of country such changes of level have occurred in chili and patagonia raised beaches can be traced feet above the present sea level such disturbances have been noted also |
