Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 243 
Astronomy demands space, geology time; the former has long 
been conceded, and the latter will not be long withheld. © 
It is already admitted by multitudes, that the chronology of 
the Scriptures is, in strictness, applied only to the history of our 
race, the sole moral beings whom God has placed in this world ; 
while all that precedes man in the creation, is limited, in duration 
backwards, only by that beginning, whose date is known to no 
being but the infinite Creator, and which certainly precedes, by 
many ages, the creation of man; how long, it is neither import- 
ant nor possible to determine; long enough however to admit 
of the arrangement, consolidation and elevation by natural laws, 
of the crust of the earth and of all its wonderful, mineral, and or- 
ganic contents. 
The records inscribed upon the volumes of the earth’s solid 
strata, and often buried beneath the mountains, are more copious, 
more legible, and more authentic, than historical medals, than 
Arundelian marbles, than Egyptian hieroglyphics, or Persepoli- 
tan characters. 'They cannot be falsified, corrupted or suppres- 
sed, and will remain, while the earth shall endure, a visible, tan- 
gible history, written by the finger of God upon the work of his 
own hands. Only a small portion of these volumes has yet been 
perused, but enough has been deciphered to prove, that the work 
has immense antiquity, amd was compiled in successive epochs, 
during a series of ages—the inscriptions being, like those of the 
holy mount, on tables of stone. — , 
OF THE POWERS OR DYNAMICS BY WHICH ITS RESULTS ARE PRODUCED. 
oa IGNEOUS CAUSES. oo 
On this wide topic, our time will permit us to say but little. 
It embraces all physical and chemical laws, and includes the en- 
tire philosophy of geology. — 
As the phenomena of the planet, belonging to past ages and 
recorded in its structure, conspire with the events still occurring 
under our eyes, to prove that no portion of this earth is now in 
the condition in which it was originally formed, we seek in vain 
for a goal of departure, from which to date the series of geological 
events. As the only direct revelation which We possess concern- 
ing the origin of the earth, and of the universe of which it isa 
part, is silent as to the condition in which the materials were 
