Chapter VI: Section 2

We will State the Neptunian Theory as a Hypothesis.

1. All matter was created at once, and is correlative.

2. In its primary condition it was in cold gas; diffused in equilibrium in that portion of space now occupied with systems: it follows that gravitation, heat, form, motion and power would in this state be wanting.

3. A power, outside of created matter, must transform this substance from the inertia of rest to that of motion. No sooner was a center of matter gathered, than gravitation acted upon all parts of the universe. The centers of all systems must commence at the same time, or one system would tend to blend with another, and nature would be thrown out of equilibrium. The entire period of gathering must have been with relative exactness. It follows that, at the beginning of motion, all matter must be put in motion. Such gases as were destined to constitute the sun would move directly for it; and such gases as were destined for globes would move in a circle around the center. Such order must have formed the poetic choir of suns, “When the morning stars sang together.”

4. The shaping of systems, sending forth light, heat, gravitation and power, may well be called the first cosmological division of matter. This included the heavens, and prospective planets, as yet without form, and floating in a ring of chaotic gases.

5. At the close of this division, our sun had been gathered out of a field of space, extending each way more than twenty trillion of miles. If these light gases had moved in a straight line at the rate of thirty miles per hour, it would take ninety million of our years to reach the center. Poetically speaking, there existed a condition of matter when force, light, gravitation, motion and form were sleeping in the inertia of rest. This was followed by a period of motion to and about a central sun. Geologically speaking, the earth, as yet, had no form. The matter that would form planets was all floating in a revolving ring about the sun.

The objective view of this ring, with reference to the gathered center, would be a solar firmament. The fluids above had not yet been separated from fluids below, hence the firmament was continuous. Earth, without form, was yet sleeping in chaos. It awoke in form when a second division of matter, with no measured duration as yet, had been accomplished.

6. A vast field of hydrogen united with its equivalent of oxygen; and, in super-heated steam, evolved out into space, and took shape as a globe. These divisions antedate geologic time. Geology must begin with sedimentary rock. The globe of steam must liquify and pass back to the ring, and through it toward the sun. In doing so, it took an atmosphere with it that shows the source of all our rock. When taking its true orbit about the sun, it was a vast globe of cold water, holding, by gravitation, a dense atmosphere in its embrace, rich in material for submarine rock. For a while the deposits were very rapid, and a great quantity of pulp of rock was formed, before any hardening took place. This accounts for the unstratified condition of granite. All the first rocks would be submarine, hidden deep in the sea. Nearly eighty miles depth of deposits took place before dry land could appear.

7. Contrasts marked the beginning and close of the first two divisions. If we follow this order in this third division, we must wait until the Devonian forests showed the renewed touch of the creative hand, giving life in contrast to inorganic matter, with which the globe started into form, and took its position as a planet of our system. Such is the Neptunian theory in part, touching first causes in cosmology.