34 The discoveries of Geology 
in doing this seems confirmed by the circumstance, that the Hebrew 
has another term for pasture ; and if this interpretation of that word 
_ be admitted, then deshe might signify here plants rather fitted for 
lying down on, as the mosses and ferns, than for pasture, which 
would make out a consistent image expressed in this clause or sen- 
tence, in opposition to the one derived from the abundance of pasture, 
which is evidently already sufficiently completed in the terms, “ The 
Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” ‘This passage, then, when ~ 
rightly understood, rather serves to confirm the meaning which we 
have suggested for deshe. Another passage is Job vi. 5, “ Doth 
the wild ass bray when he hath grass (deshe), or loweth the ox over 
his fodder?” but no stress can be laid upon this, when we. consider 
that both the ass and the horse eat, of choice, various species of 
ferns and equiseta, a fact which it is not unreasonable to suppose might 
be known to the author of a book which contains so much accurate 
and interesting natural history as this of Job. The plants, whatever 
they might be, which formed a supply for the wild ass, are at least ob- 
viously set in contradistinction to those which formed the fodder of 
the ox. The third passage is Jeremiah 1. 11, “because ye are 
grown fat as the heifer at grass (deshe).” But there is in a great 
number of manuscripts a various reading for deshe here, by which 
the meaning becomes, “ ye are grown fat, like a heifer thrashing, 
or treading, out the corn;” and several circumstances shew the latter 
reading to be the more probably correct one. 
_ It remains, then, very highly probable, upon the whole, that deshe, 
in the 11th and 12th verses, is intended to express the cryptogamous 
In our observations on the terms employed in the history of the 
creation of the animals, we shall arrive at some sp cae conclu- 
sions that are more absolutely certain. 
The first thing that we would observe in regard to this, is, that 
there are two distinct words, of very: different origin, which the 
English translators have rendered, promiscuously, creeping creatures 
or thing, and also moving creatures, following, no doubt, the authority 
of the Septuagint, which has given épxsr« for both; thus occasioning 
a great confusion instead of a clear and perspicuous ener of creations 
exhibited in the Hebrew text. The first of these words is sheretz, 
as in verse 20th, in the history of the fifth day’s work, “God said, 
Let the waters bring forth abundantly: the moving creature (sheretz),” 
