Archaia. 471 



of a nation's culture, we may expect that as our population increases 

 and the influences of our Schools and Universities are more gene- 

 rally diffused, we shall attain to a respeetable standing in the 

 province of" Belles Lettres," The advent of "Archaia" indicates 

 a decided step in literary progress. Here is a work not on any 

 local question for which, irrespective of its merits, a circle of 

 indulgent readers may be secured, but one embracing fields of 

 investigation of universal interest and challenging the attention of 

 both religion and science. We congratulate ourselves that a colonial 

 author has been found capable of grasping with a firm hand 

 questions at once profound and intricate and of treating them in 

 their multifarious bearings with clearness and force. Whatever 

 opinions may be entertained of the speculations which this volume 

 contain, there will, we are persuaded, be but one opinion as to 

 the thoroughness with widen its topics have been discussed, the 

 patient labour which has been bestowed on every section, the 

 eloquence with which many of its truths are stated, and the wide 

 and accurate knowledge of contemporary science which it mani- 

 fests. Our author has not given crude and ill-digested specula- 

 tions to the world, or claimed the attention of his fellows to that 

 which he himself has not completely mastered or regarding which 

 he has not something new and important to say. The reader 

 may take up this book with confidence that he will find in it 

 truths of vital importance to Christianity, together with the latest 

 .and highest inductions of science in its bearings on religious faith, 

 detailed in well conceived and carefully expressed terms. 



The preface informs us that " this work is not intended as a 

 treatise on elementary Geology with Theological applications nor 

 as an attempt to establish a scheme of reconciliation between Geo- 

 logy and the Bible. It is the result of a series of exegetical 

 studies of the first chapter of Genesis in connection with the 

 numerous incidental references to nature and creation in other 

 parts of the Holy Scriptures." Undertaken primarily for the 

 author's private information these studies " are now published as 

 affording the best answer which he can give to the numerous ques- 

 tions on this subject addressed to him in his capacity as a teacher of 

 Geology." 



From this it will be seen that the book does not embrace all 

 the references in Scripture to important physical phenomena. The 

 field of view is, as we think, advantageously limited and con- 

 fines attention to a particular circle of things and events which, if 



