84 RELICS OF PRIMEVAL LIFE 



The elevation of these mountain ridges forced 



the waters to recede into the lower levels. As the 



old psalm of creation has it, — 



"The mountains ascend, 

 the valleys descend into 

 the place Thou hast founded 

 for them," 



and so sea-basins and land were produced. 



Milton merely paraphrases this when he says, — 



"The mountains huge appear 

 Emergent, and their broad, bare backs upheave 

 Into the clouds ; their tops ascend the sky. 

 So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low 

 Down sunk a hollow bottom wide and deep. 

 Capacious bed of waters." 



Englishmen have been accused of taking their 

 ideas of creation from Milton rather than from 

 nature or the Bible. Milton had not the guidance 

 of modern geology. His cosmology is entirely that 

 of a close student of the Biblical narrative of 

 creation. He is in many respects the best commen- 

 tator on the early chapters of Genesis, because he 

 had a very clear conception of the mind of the 

 writer, and the power of expressing the ideas he 

 derived from the old record. For the same reason 

 he is the greatest bard of creation and primitive 

 man, and surprisingly accurate and true to nature. 



