The profoundest facts in the earth's history prove that the oceans have always been oceans.

Some writers, rejecting the idea which science had reached, that reefs of rocks could be due in any way to "animalcules," have talked of electrical forces, the first and last appeal of ignorance.

Are coral reefs growing from the depths of the oceans? ... [The] reply is a simple negative; and a single fact establishes its truth. The reef-forming coral zoophytes, as has been shown, cannot grow at greater depths than 100 or 120 feet; and therefore in seas deeper than this, the formation or growth of reefs over the bottom is impossible.

The profoundest facts in the earth's history prove that the oceans have always been oceans.

Science, while it penetrates deeply the system of things about us, sees everywhere, in the dim limits of vision, the word mystery.

A map of the moon... should be in every geological lecture room; for no where can we have a more complete or more magnificent illustration of volcanic operations. Our sublimest volcanoes would rank among the smaller lunar eminences; and our Etnas are but spitting furnaces.

Mount Shasta - a vision of immensity such as pertains to the vast universe rather than to our own planet.