340. A Cooling Earth.--The sun's temperature is variously estimated at many thousands, or even millions oŁ degrees. Many metals which exist on the earth as solids -e.g. iron- are gases in the dense atmosphere of the sun. Thus the earth, in its early existence, must have been composed of gases only, which in after ages condensed into liquids and solids. So intense was the heat at that time, that substances probably existed as elements instead of compounds, i.e. the temperature was above the point of dissociation. We have seen that Al2O3, CaO, SiO2, etc., are dissociated at the highest temperatures only. If the temperature were above that of combination, compounds could not exist as such, but matter would exist in its elemental state. On slowly cooling, these elements would combine. It is, then, a fair inference that such compounds as need the highest temperatures to separate them, as silica, silicates, and some oxides, were formed from their elements at a much earlier stage of the earth's history than were those compounds that are more easily separable, such as water, lead sulphide, etc., and that the most infusible substances were solidified first. 341. Evolution.--As the earth slowly cooled, elements united to form compounds, gases condensed to liquids, and these to solids. At one time the entire surface of our planet may have been liquid. When the cooling surface reached a point somewhat below that of boiling water, the lowest forms of life appeared in the ocean. This was many millions of years ago. Most scientists believe that all vegetable and animal life has developed from the lowest forms of life. There is also a theory that all chemical elements are derivatives of hydrogen, or of some other element, and that all the so-called elements are really compounds, which a sufficiently high temperature would dissociate. As evidence of this, it is said that less than half as many elements have been discovered in the sun as in the earth, and that comets and nebula, which are less developed forms of matter than the sun, have a few simple substances only. It is easy to fancy that all living bodies, both animal and vegetable, are only natural growths from the lowest forms of life; that these lowest forms are a development, with new manifestations of energy, from inorganic matter; that compounds are derived from elements; and that the last are derivatives of some one element; but it must be borne in mind that this is only a theory.