in Reply to F, E——s. 261 
struction imputed to them. The LXX certainly did not under- 
stand the words which describe the fifth day’s creation as in- 
cluding corals and bivalves, otherwise : they surely would not have 
rendered them t2 xyry T2 weyara, xal mary durghy Choy & EQmeT diy. 
The Hebrew word which the LXX have rendered égzera Ene 
the idea of progressive motion ; and it occurs in a similar sens 
in many other places, but particularly in Psalm civ. 20, Sie 
it is applied’ to the roving of wild beasts in the night. It is 
therefore very certain, as your correspondent has hinted, that 
Moses has assigned no place for zodphytes and testacea ; neither 
has he mentioned forest-trees, or shrubs, or lichens, for he did 
not write the Cosmogony with the Systema Nature before him. 
The Hebrew language being very poor in terms of classification, 
a few leading objects in each class are mentioned; and we are 
left to understand that the analogous kinds were conjoined with 
those which are named. - Thus in the third day’s creation we are 
told that ‘‘ grass and seed-bearing herbs and fruit-learing trees” 
began to exist; and we are left to supply all the remainder of 
the vegetable world, including marine plants to which no allu- 
sion is made. It is not going much further out of the way to 
add corals and madrepores, and even testacea, considering that 
no other place is allotted to them, and that on the next day 
whales and progressive aquatic animals only are mentioned. At 
any rate, it is evident that Moses had it not in contemplation 
to make a complete census of the whole number of created 
beings: and when we find zodphytes and testacea associated in 
the earth with the earliest remains of vegetable productions, and 
evidently belonging to the same epoch in the creation, the pre- 
sence of the former constitutes no exception to the coincidence 
which would otherwise be complete. 
Mr. F. E s seems to have given up his hypothesis for ex- 
plaining the revolution of night and day before the creation of 
the sun, and even avows that he was aware of the physical cir- 
cumstances which render it untenable, before he advanced it, 
There is one interpretation, however, of the fourteenth and fol- 
lowing verses which will assist him out of this difficulty, and 
will even remove one great objection to the sense he attaches to 
the six days. The explanation I allude to, is that which was 
proposed by Dr. Geddes, a learned but bold commentator, whose 
method of criticism merit#in many instances the severest repre- 
hension. In this particular passage I believe he has discovered 
the true sense; and I shall therefore cite his translation of it, 
though it deprives me of one argument in favour of my own hy- 
pothesis which has not been answered,’ Dr. G. considers the 
words Let there be, lights in the firmament of heaven to il- 
luminate the earth,” as ‘equival: ent to Let lights appear,” &c, 
Rs and 
