206 Bibliographical Notice. 



conceive it possible that statements are not necessarily untrue simply 

 because they themselves do not at once intuitively understand them, 

 will find a fund of valuable information and suggestions scattered 

 throughout this pleasantly written volume. 



To enter into the general plan of the • Archaia' would require far 

 greater space than that which is here afforded ; but we cannot better 

 describe it than as a "running commentary" on the early announce- 

 ments of Genesis, in which a close collation is made of the Hebrew 

 original with the modern discoveries of science. Separate chapters 

 are devoted to the " days," or aeons, of creation, and to an inquiry 

 into the nature of the actual facts to which allusion is made in the 

 Mosaic history of the Cosmos. In his sixth chapter Dr. Dawson 

 inclines strongly towards La Place's theory, commonly known as the 

 Nebular Hypothesis, as most in accordance with the scriptural ac- 

 count of the existence of light before any mention is made of the 

 luminous centre of our system : " What, then, was the nature of the 

 light which on the first day shone without the presence of any local 

 luminary ? It must have proceeded from luminous matter diffused 

 through the whole space of the solar system, or surrounding our 

 globe as with a mantle. It was ' clothed with light as with a gar- 

 ment,' — 



' Sphered in a radiant cloud ; for yet the sun was not.' 



We have already rejected the hypothesis that the primeval night 

 proceeded from a temporary obscuration of the atmosphere ; and the 

 expression ' God said, Let light be,' affords an additional reason, since, 

 in accordance with the strict precision of language which everywhere 

 prevails in this ancient document, a mere restoration of light would 

 not be stated in such terms. If we wish to find a natural explana- 

 tion of the mode of illumination referred to, we must recur to one 

 or other of the suppositions mentioned above, that the luminous 

 matter formed a nebulous atmosphere slowly concentrating itself 

 towards the centre of the solar system, or that it formed a special 

 envelope of our earth, which subsequently disappeared" (p. 88). 



The various points which are usually supposed to be antagonistic 

 to each other in the two records are examined seriatim, and, as it 

 seems to us, in most instances answered satisfactorily. According to 

 the Hebrew narrative, " all the earth's physical features were per- 

 fected on the fourth day, immediately before the creation of animals" 

 (p. 196) ; and geological discovery, in which animals play the first 

 part, carries us back to an epoch corresponding with the beginning 

 of the fifth day, which " day," or aeon, would appear " to include the 

 whole of the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic epochs of geology." But in 

 the Mosaic epitome it will be remembered that plants are stated to 

 have made their appearance on the third day, and thus to have pre- 

 ceded animals in the order of succession ; so that "we are shut up 

 to the conclusion that the flora of the third day must have its place 

 before the Palaeozoic period of geology." " But that there were 

 plants," continues our author, "before this period, we may infer 

 almost with certainty from the abundance and distribution of carbo- 

 naceous matter in the form of graphite in the Azoic or Laurentian 



