Distribution of Plants, ' 5!2S 



manner in which vegetables were dispersed over the world ; 

 whether by progressive steps from one point, or by one con- 

 temporaneous dispersion, spread over the Hice of the earth. 



The first of these suppositions will be hardly tenable, if it 

 be fully examined, and the arguments by which it is supported 

 be thoroughly canvassed. The supporters of this theory 

 assert, that, since we are expressly informed that the different 

 animals were dispersed from one original station at the time 

 of the expulsion of our first parents from paradise, that from 

 the same original locality vegetables in like manner emigrated. 

 Now, this appears not only incredible, but perfectly inconsist- 

 ent with divine beneficence and the Mosaic history. When 

 our first parents were doomed to wander exiles from the 

 happy scenes of their primeval residence, would the Almighty 

 have compelled them to wander over a barren and desolate 

 wilderness ? How were they to have obtained the necessary 

 subsistence, if the earth had been a naked rock? They 

 would, beyond a doubt, have perished miserably. There are 

 many theories and hypotheses respecting the land which was 

 then uncovered by the waters of the ocean ; some asserting 

 that but a very small portion was left bare. With these vision- 

 ary dreamings we have no concern : we must be understood 

 to assert that the creation of vegetables was antecedent to that 

 of animals ; and that, wherever the land was not covered by 

 the sea, there was to be found abundance of earth's vegetable 

 treasures. Even supposing that the grand dispersion was 

 coeval with the expulsion of our first progenitor, this theory 

 will gain no advantage. The earth, we are well aware, must 

 needs have suffered many important changes before it could 

 support vegetable life ; and daily experience proves this 

 change to have been gradual. It is much more reasonable 

 to suppose, that, long previous to the creation of mankind, 

 or even of the lower animals, the earth had, by the store of 

 food universally extended, become adapted to their support. 

 But how does the Mosaic history bear with reference to this ? 

 " And God said. Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb 

 yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, 

 whose seed is in itself, upon the earth : and it was so." " And 

 the evening and the morning were the third day." (Genesis, 

 chap. i. ver. 11. and J 3.) Here we are told that the earth 

 became covered with grass and herbs of various kinds, with- 

 out any specification of time or place. Now, the word day, 

 in this passage, appears to signify a certain period or length 

 of time ; that is to say, the third period from the creation of 

 the earth : viz., first, the vicissitudes of day and night, since, 

 without light, nothing possessed of life can come to perfection ; 



