sulphides, and even the silicates of alumina and lime; all, at this temperature, would exist in a vaporous form in the atmosphere surrounding the primitive globe. It is to be inferred that, under these circumstances, the different substances composing this atmosphere would be ranged round the globe in the order of their respective densities; the first layer--that nearest to the surface of the globe--being formed of the heavier vapours, such as those of the metals, of iron, platinum, and copper, mixed doubtless with clouds of fine metallic dust produced by the partial condensation of their vapours. This first and heaviest zone, and the thickest also, would be quite opaque, although the surface of the earth was still at a red heat. Above it would come the more vaporisable substances, such as the metallic and alkaline chlorides, particularly the chloride of sodium or common salt, sulphur and phosphorus, with all the volatile combinations of these substances. The upper zone would contain matter still more easily converted into vapour, such as water (steam), together with others naturally gaseous, as oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid. This order of superposition, however, would not always be preserved. In spite of their differences of density, these three atmospheric layers would often become mixed, producing formidable storms and violent ebullitions; frequently throwing down, rending, upheaving, and confounding these incandescent zones. As to the globe itself, without being so much agitated as its hot and shifting atmosphere, it would be no less subject to perpetual tempests, occasioned by the thousand chemical actions which took place in its molten mass. On the other hand, the electricity resulting from these powerful chemical actions, operating on such a vast scale, would induce frightful electric detonations, thunder adding to the horror of this primitive scene, which no imagination, no human pencil could trace, and which constitutes that gloomy and disastrous chaos of which the legendary history of every ancient race has transmitted the tradition. In this manner would our globe circulate in space, carrying in its train the flaming streaks of its multiple atmosphere, unfitted, as yet, for living beings, and impenetrable to the rays of the sun, around which it described its vast orbit.