ILLINOIS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 207 



Moses, as one of the sons of men, describes to the sons of men in 

 language suited to them, concerning the fitting up of this planetary sys- 

 tem for the f)resenl race of inhabitants, and showed in opposition to the 

 l)antheistic, polytheistic, and atheistic cosmologies of ancient times, 

 that the existing things of earth are the work of oiir and the same self- 

 existent, self-concious, and intelligent God. 



Moses is brief, but his record stood out above all the jumbled up 

 theories of mere fallen man. 



Our {>owers of mind were given us to investigate the things within 

 our reach — to study with pleasure — with wonder, and with love. 



I say — In the beginning (lod created the heavens and the earth, 

 and the earth was without form and void — to us an incomprehensible 

 and confused mass. 



Now when this was, according to our measuring lines, I don't know, 

 and good scholars say there is nothing in the original language to prevent 

 us from saying, millions of years ago. 



All scholars af nature, that are also scholars of revelation, say that 

 it has been geological, or immense ages. 



It is evident that after the center of the earth was formed, that 

 water holding in solution many impurities, co\ered the earth a great 

 depth, occasicmally threw down sediments differing widely in appearance 

 and elements, forming layers around the earth like coats around an 

 onion. 



But these coatings were not continuous, but drawn together here and 

 there, and thicker in some places than in others, but always alike in some 

 respects. 



After many coatings were deposited containing no signs of animal 

 or vegetable life, then, from some unknown cause great heat seems to 

 have melted the central portions of the earth, w^hen the expansions and 

 rontractif)ns broke up those strata in mountain piles, throwing up 

 the melted r(jck, ;ind throwing them over upon the lop of the later 

 formed strata. 



The motion of this melted matter was so great, like great waves, 

 that it broke up. tumbled and tilted the unmelted lavers above, in curi- 

 ous shapes, heating, condensing and crystallizing, and giving peculiarity 

 to those early formations. 



After the primary formati(Mis were waved, tilted, tumbled, and par- 

 tially covered, the depositions went on before, and containing as before 

 fragments of former formations, with the sediments from water, and in 

 these formations begins to be found the lower order of ancient animals. 



From this upwards, format ious continued more less shaken and 

 broken through and mixed w\) with the primiti\e formations, and increased 

 and fastened together by sedimentary formations. 



The earthquakes and ufjheavals of mountains, tumbled the waters 

 backwards and forwards with terrific force, occasionally destroying 

 the animals and vegetation that at the time inhabited the earth. 



Class after class were swept off, rising in importance or perfection, 



