ABSTRACT
OUR studies began with an attempt to get back to the beginnings of worlds, and then we tried to take a bird’s-eye view of the universe! Next came a study of our sun, and of other greater suns which we call stars. Now, naturally enough, we settle down to think about the earth. It would be a great gain if we could close our eyes and see—even in a general way—the appearance of the earth’s surface age after age. This is one of the big views that we must try to get,—the changing stage on which the drama of life has been played during hundreds of millions of years. In a country like Britain we know that what we are familiar with to-day has not been for very long as it is now. Not very long ago there was no North Sea, and Great Britain was not an island. Not very long ago most of the country except the South of England was covered with thick glaciers, and this meant that all the larger animals were wiped out. There had to be a re-peopling from the Continent of Europe after the Ice Ages passed. It will take long study of Geology, one of the most fascinating of all kinds of study, before we are able to picture the appearance of the earth during the successive Geological Ages, which are represented by different kinds of rocks and fossils in the many-layered crust, but let us light the lamp of the imagination and see this big fact clearly : that the surface of the earth has been the scene of endless change.
