The Vedic fathers of geology

96 Tue Vepic Fararrs or Gronocy.

(4) The temperature of this boiling sea was, in the very nature of things, too high to be favourable to the aquatic beings inhabiting its waters. These, therefore, were devoid of fossils. Moreover, they were highly crystalline, and consequently produced gneiss, mica, schist, and the rest.

(5) The granite crust having been partially broken up, land and mountains began to rise above the waters ; while the rains and torrents that ground down rocks, caused the sediment to spread over the bottom of the sea.

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The boiling waters, and the burning land and mountains gradually eooled down to a degree, sufficient to sustain life, and then vital gradation and progress commenced from simpler conceptions to more highly organized orders. (Vide Statements No. ii, tii, iv, Chapter iv of this work ).

About the beginning of the 19th century, that is A. D. 1809, William Smith, the father of English Geology, proceeded more scientifically in