This phenomenon extending itself by degrees to the whole mass of watery vapour existing in the atmosphere, the waters covered the earth in increasing quantities; and as the conversion of all liquids into vapour is provocative of a notable disengagement of electricity, a vast quantity of electric fluid necessarily resulted from the conversion of such large masses of water into vapour. Bursts of thunder, and bright flashes of lightning were the necessary accompaniments of this extraordinary struggle of the elements--a state of things which M. Maurando has attempted to represent on the opposite page (PLATE VII.). How long did this struggle for supremacy between fire and water, with the incessant noise of thunder, continue? All that can be said in reply is, that a time came when water was triumphant. After having covered vast areas on the surface of the earth, it finally occupied and entirely covered the whole surface; for there is good reason to believe that at a certain epoch, at the commencement, so to speak, of its evolution; the earth was covered by water over its whole extent. The ocean was universal. From this moment our globe entered on a regular series of revolutions, interrupted only by the outbreaks of the internal fires which were concealed beneath its still imperfectly consolidated crust. “At the early periods in which the materials of the ancient crystalline schists were accumulated, it cannot be doubted that the chemical processes which generated silicates were much more active than in more recent times. The heat of the earth’s crust was probably then far greater than at present, while a high temperature prevailed at comparatively small depths, and thermal waters abounded. A denser atmosphere, charged with carbonic acid gas, must also have contributed to maintain, at the earth’s surface, a greater degree of heat, though one not incompatible with the existence of organic life. “These conditions must have favoured many chemical processes, which in later times have nearly ceased to operate. Hence we find that subsequently to the eozoic times, silicated rocks of clearly marked chemical origin are comparatively rare.”[32] [32] “Address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science,” by Thomas Sterry Hunt, LL.D., p. 56. 1871. In order to comprehend the complex action, now mechanical, now chemical, which the waters, still in a heated state, exercised on the solid crust, let us consider what were the components of this crust. The rocks which formed its first _stratum_--the framework of the earth, the foundation upon which all others repose--may be presumed to have been a compound which, in varying proportions, forms granite and gneiss, and has latterly been designated by geologists Laurentian.