A Short History of the World

even a summary of such speculations because they involve the most subtle mathematical and physical considerations. The truth is that the physical and astronomical sciences are sti

lying round and round the sun for a longer period than 2,000,000,000 years. It may have been

tation about a centre. It is supposed by many astronomers that the sun and its planets were once such a spiral, and that their matter has undergone concentration into its present form. Through majestic ?ons that concentration went on until in that vast remoteness of the past for which we have given figures, t

AT SPIR

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low before it cools and cakes over than any other contemporary scene. No water would be visible because all the water there was would still be superheated steam in a stormy atmosphere of sulphurous and

RK N

elescope in the world. One of the first pho

ry Norris Russell, against the British theory, hol

: Pro

ng rock would appear upon the surface of the molten sea, and sink under it, to be replaced by other floating masses. The sun and moon growing now each more distant and each smaller, would rush with diminishing swiftnes

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eam would begin to condense into clouds, and the first rain would fall hissing upon the first rocks below. For endless millenia the greater part of the earth's water would still be vaporized i

PE BEFO

asses of rock with

fiercest tornado that ever blows, and downpours of rain such as our milder, slower earth to-day knows nothing of, might have assailed us. The water of the downpour would have rushed by us, muddy with the spoils of the rocks, coming together into torrents, cutting deep gorges and canyons as they hurried past to deposit their sediment in the earli

and milder, the moon's pace in the sky slackened; the intensity of rain and storm diminished and the

on the earth; the seas were lif