To read the story of this earth-building, it has been necessary for science to begin at the end; that is, at the present time, which is the last chapter of the story. With long and patient care wise men have read back, page by page, the earth-building story; we cannot say to its beginning, but as far back as science has yet been able to go. Now we are able to take up the narrative at such beginning as has thus far been found, and read it forward to our present day like a plain story. Will this be interesting? It seems to me that it is like some magnificent fairy tale, more marvellous than the story of Aladdin’s Lamp, or Sinbad the Sailor, or The Caliph of Bagdad. The nights of Arabian story were not half so full of wonders as the days and nights, the vast periods, of geologic story. Our earth is a globe in rapid motion. The motion is dual, i.e., double; it rolls over and over upon its axis as you might spin a ball round on a knitting-needle thrust through its centre; but the ball on the needle would stay in its place, no matter how many times it whirled over. The earth, as it whirls, rolls along a great path. Every time it turns over it measures off on this path a distance equal to its own circumference, but at the same time it sweeps on with the motion of the whole system, so that each day it travels over a million and a half of miles. The earth’s path is not in a straight line; it is nearly circular; it is what is called elliptical, or partly egg-shaped. As far back as we can trace earth-history, the twofold motion and the globe shape have belonged to our planet. In the earliest state of which we can speak, our earth was a globe of gas at least two thousand times as large as it now is. Science has made a guess that, before this, our earth was a ring or layer of vapor around the sun. This ring, being spun off into space by the rapid motion of the sun, took, after a time, the sphere shape, and being held by the attraction of the sun from wandering farther off into space, has ever since whirled around in a great path about its ancient source. If this theory be true, then all the other planets of our system were probably once cast off in their order by the sun, as vast fiery rings. That must have been an age of grand and splendid fireworks indeed! If only one had been there to see! Why cannot we imagine that we were there to see? Can we not fancy ourselves back, through all the wonderful ages, until we reach the beginning of all things? The Arabians have a kind of fanciful being, whom they call an Afrite, or Afreet. They say that this being is formed of pure heat, smokeless flame. Did any of you ever see, on a very scorching day, the air quivering above a dry, hot road? That quivering of hot air is often seen on the desert, and the Arabians say it is the waving of an Afrite’s robe. Let us fancy we were Afrites, gigantic flame-spirits, present when the earth, from a fiery ring, had just become a fiery ball.