626 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



I have been permitted to see in proof another statement from an 

 authority still more recent, Professor Prcstwich, Avhich is now passing 

 through the press. In it (pp. 80, 81) I find the following seniority- 

 assigned to the orders which I here name : 



1. Plants (cryptogamous) 4, Mammals 



2. Fishes 5. Man 



3. Birds 



It will now, I hope, be observed that, according to the probable 

 intention of the Mosaic writer, these five orders enumerated by him 

 correspond with the state of geological knowledge, presented to us by 

 the most recent authorities, in this sense ; that the origins of these 

 orders respectively have the same succession as is assigned in Genesis 

 to those representatives of the orders, which alone were probably 

 known to the experience of Adamic man. My fourfold succession 

 thus grows into a fivefold one. By placing before the first plant-life 

 the Azoic period, it becomes sixfold. And again by placing before 

 this the principal stages of the cosmogony, it becomes, according as 

 they are stated, nine or tenfold ; every portion holding the place most 

 agreeable to modern hypothesis and modern science respectively. 



I now notice the points in which, so far as I understand, the text 

 of the Proem, as it stands, is either incomplete or at variance with the 

 representations of science : 



1. It docs not notice the great periods of invertebrate life standing 

 between (1) and (2) of ray last enumeration. 



2. It also passes by the great age of Reptiles, with their ante- 

 cessors the Amphibia, which come between (2) and (3). The second- 

 ary or Mesozoic period, says the Manual (i. 511), "has often been 

 temaed the age of Reptiles." 



3. It mentions plants in terms which, as I understand from Pro- 

 fessor Huxley and otherwise, correspond with the later, not the 

 earlier, forms of plant-life. 



4. It mentions reptiles in the same category with its mammals. 

 Now, as regards the first two heads, these omissions, enormous 



with reference to the scientific record, are completely in harmony 

 with the probable aim of the Mosaic writer, as embracing only the 

 formation of the objects and creatures with which early man was con- 

 versant. The introduction of these orders, invisible and unknown, 

 would have been not agreeable, but injurious, to his purpose. 



As respects the third, it will strike the reader of the Proem that 

 plant-life (verses 11, 12) is mentioned with a particularity which is 

 not found in the accounts of the living orders ; nor in the second 

 notice of the Creation, which appears, indeed, pretty distinctly to 

 refer to recent plant-life (Gen. ii., 5, 8, 9). Questions have been 

 raised as to the translation of these passages, which I am not able to 

 solve. But I bear in mind the difiiculties which attend both oral 

 traditions and the conservation of ancient MS., and I am not in any 



