THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND NATURE. 453 



will be observed that, if "fowl" means only "bird," or at most flying 

 vertebrate, then the first certain evidence of the latter, in the Jurassic 

 epoch, is posterior to the first appearance of truly terrestrial Amphibia^ 

 and possibly of true reptiles, in the Carboniferous epoch (Middle Pale- 

 ozoic) by a prodigious interval of time. 



The water-population of vertebrated animals first appears in the 

 Upper Silurian. Therefore, if we found ourselves on vertebrated ani- 

 mals and take "fowl" to mean birds only, or, at most, flying verte- 

 brates, natural science says that the order of succession was water, 

 land, and air population, and not — as Mr. Gladstone, founding himself 

 on Genesis, says — water, air, land population. If a chronicler of Greece 

 affirmed that the age of Alexander preceded that of Pericles and im- 

 mediately succeeded that of the Trojan War, Mr. Gladstone would 

 hardly say that this order is " understood to have been so affirmed by 

 historical science that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion 

 and established fact." Yet natural science "affirms" his "fourfold 

 order" to exactly the same extent — neither more nor less. 



Suppose, however, that "fowl" is to be taken to include flying 

 insects. In that case, the first appearance of an air-population must 

 be shifted back for long ages, recent discovery having shown that they 

 occur in rocks of Silurian age. Hence, there might still have been 

 hope for the fourfold order, were it not that the Fates unkindly deter- 

 mined that scorpions — "creeping things that creep on the earth" par 

 excellence — turned up in Silurian strata, nearly at the same time. So 

 that, if the word in the original Hebrew translated "fowl" should 

 really, after all, mean "cockroach" — and I have great faith in the 

 elasticity of that tongue in the hands of biblical exegetes — the order 

 primarily suggested by the existing evidence — 



2. Land and air population, 



1. Water-population, 

 and Mr. Gladstone's order — 



3. Land-population, 



2. Air-population, 



1. Water-population, 

 can by no means be made to coincide. As a matter of fact, then, 

 the statement so confidently put forward turns out to be devoid of 

 foundation and in direct contradiction of the evidence at present at our 

 disposal.* 



* It may be objected that I have not put the case fairly, inasmuch as the solitary 

 insect's wiug which was discovered twelve months ago in Silurian rocks, and which is, at 

 present, the sole evidence of insects older than the Devonian epoch, came from strata of 

 Middle tellurian age, and is therefore older than the scorpions which, within the last two 

 years, have been found in Upper Silurian strata in Sweden, Britain, and the United States. 

 But no one who comprehends the nature of the evidence afforded by fossil remains would 

 venture to say that the non-discovery of scorpions in the Middle Silurian strata, up to thia 

 time, affords any more ground for supposing that they did not exist, than the non-dis- 

 covtry of flying insects in the Upper Silurian strata, up to this time, throws any doubt on 



