Modern cosmogonies

Many difficulties and perplexities are encountered in the attempt to get back towards the beginning of things. Some of the old tracks, too, have been torn up by the pioneers of twentieth century science, and the process of constructing new ones, which shall lead further into the unknown fore-time, is slow and laborious. But the rail-head in the desert is a peculiarly suggestive place of pilgrimage, and several such outlying posts and temporary halting-places are more or less vaguely localized in the following pages.