compared with the Discoveries of the Modern Sciences. 255 
we believe that we have ascended a new step in the profound 
seale of our ignorance. 
Above all, it was necessary that Scripture should be intel- 
ligible to the most vulgar individuals, as well as to the most 
learned. Let us not, therefore be surprised that it expresses 
itself according to the habitual and familiar language of 
science, and that, with it, it speaks of the stars rising, the 
equinoxes retiring, the planets advancing and doubling their 
speed, standing still, and moving backwards. We need no 
longer be surprised that it speaks of the rising and the set- 
ting of the sun, since these modes of expression are sanc- 
tioned and adopted by the Annuaire of the bureau of longi- 
tudes. 
One circumstance may well surprise us, and that is, to find 
in the Bible mountains distinguished into two classes, very 
nearly in the same manner as they are distinguished by 
science into primitive and secondary. Thus, in the 104th 
Psalm, a composition of incomparable poetical beauty, the 
prophet gives us an idea of the formation of the earth; he 
represents it to us as still covered with the waters of the 
deep as with a garment. The waters stood above all the 
mountains, but many of these eminences became elevated, 
and rose above their level; the waters then retired and 
fled. New mountains then appeared, and valleys and plains, 
the lowest parts of the globe, were formed at their feet. 
Two principal epochs, then, must have been in the mind of 
the prophet, from the time of the rising up of the heights 
which appear on all parts of the globe; these two epochs 
correspond to the formation of primitive and secondary 
mountains. 
Thus the prophet (Proverbs viii. 25) in speaking of the 
elevation of mountains and hills, says that these events, 
which have singularly modified the relief of the globe, had 
their separate eras. Further, in the 97th Psalm, Scripture 
represents the mountains to be melting like wax, nearly as 
those might have done who had seen the rocks of Auvergne 
_ or Cantal in a fluid state, or the basalt of the Giant’s Cause- 
way melted like water. 
The Bible then represents to us the mass of mountains 
