the whole of our planet was once a fiery molten mass
gradually cooling and hardening itself into the globe we
know. On its surface moved and swayed a liquid sea glowing
with such a terrific heat that we can form no real idea
of its intensity. As the mass cooled, vast layers of
vapour, great beds of cloud, miles and miles in thickness,
were formed and hung over the face of the globe, obscuring
from its darkened surface the piercing beams of the sun.
Slowly the earth cooled, until great masses of solid
matter, rock as we call it, still penetrated with intense
heat, rose to the surface of the boiling sea. Forces of
inconceivable magnitude moved through the mass. The outer
surface of the globe as it cooled ripped and shrivelled
like a withering orange. Great ridges, the mountain
chains of to-day, were furrowed on its skin. Here in the
darkness of the prehistoric night there arose as the
oldest part of the surface of the earth the great rock
bed that lies in a huge crescent round the shores of
Hudson Bay, from Labrador to the unknown wilderness of
the barren lands of the Coppermine basin touching the
Arctic sea. The wanderer who stands to-day in the desolate
country of James Bay or Ungava is among the oldest
monuments of the world. The rugged rock which here and
there breaks through the thin soil of the infertile north
has lain on the spot from the very dawn of time. Millions
of years have probably elapsed since the cooling of the
outer crust of the globe produced the solid basis of our
continents.

The ancient formation which thus marks the beginnings of