Crystals were the most advanced Eternon structures. Their geometric nuggets, mazes, splinters, and sheets comprised a multitude of atoms. They would also grow, as we can easily verify today by hanging a thread over an evaporating solution of salt.

It was the Golden Age for silicon. Its crystalline molecules were building a landscape of feldspars, micas, and quartz. Some silicates, although unattractive, were exceptionally gifted at fragmenting and growing. They were the clays. Their metabolism was based on solar and geothermal energy, alluvial food, capillary circulation, and powerful electromagnetism. Their spatial lattices would store information efficiently. Clays made it easier for Eternons to test different chemical associations. Eventually, appeared complex molecules that could pack enough data to ensure survival and replication.

Some will be surprised to hear that minerals, the epitome of lifelessness, fathered our world of lively plants and animals. They should consider the minerals present in the human body. Without these indispensable vestiges of early times, one promptly dies. Then, these skeptics should pay a visit to a collection of minerals. Few productions of nature display the astounding beauty of gems. Their colors rivals those of tropical fish and birds. Their chemical compounds flourish into the most extravagant forms. Observing closely, one senses a deep and mysterious energy. No wonder why certain minerals are credited with magical and healing powers.

Genesis and several traditions proclaim that humans were made from clay. As in many other instances, Eternism supplies the rationale behind the religious or mythical account. Indeed, we are rooted in the sediments of the primal Earth.