314 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



* God created the heavens and the earth. Ami the earth was with*' 

 out form and void : and darkness was upon the face of the deep, (or 

 abyss). Arid the Spirit of God moved upon the/ace of the waters? 



We are hence, therefore, necessarily led to infer that the first 

 change of the formless chaos, after its existence, was into a state of 

 universal aqueous solution ; for it was upon the surface of the waters 

 that the Divine Spirit commenced his operative power We are 

 next informed, that this chaotic mass acquired shape, not instantane- 

 ously, but by a series of six distinct days or generations, (that is 

 epochs), as Moses afterwards calls them (Gen. ii. 4) : and apparent- 

 ly through the agency of the established laws of gravity and crys- 

 tallization, which regulate it at the present moment. | 

 It tells us, that during the first of these days, or generations, was 

 evolved, what, indeed, agreeably to the laws of gravity, must have 

 been evolved first of all, the matter of light and heat ; of all materi- 

 al substances the most subtle and attenuate ; those by which alone 

 the sun operates, and has ever operated upon the earth and the 

 other planets, and which may be the identical substances that con- 

 stitute his essence. And it tells us, also, that the luminous matter 

 thus evolved produced light without the assistance of the sun or 

 moon, which were not set in the sky or firmament, and had no 

 rule till the fourth day, or generation : that the light thus produced 

 flowed by tides, and alternately intermitted, constituting a single 

 day and a single night of each of such .epochs or generations, what- 

 ever their length might be, of which we have no information com- 

 municated to us. 



It tells us, that during the second day, or generation, up rose pro- 

 gressively the fine fluids, or waters, as they are poetically and 

 beautifully denominated, of the firmament, and filled the blue ethe- 

 rial void with a vital atmosphere. That during the third day, or 

 generation, the waters more properly so called, or the grosser and 

 compactor fluids of the general mass) were strained off and gather- 

 ed together into the vast bed of the ocean, and the dry land began 

 to make its appearance, by disclosing the peaks or highest points of 

 the primitive mountains ; in consequence of which a progress instant- 

 ly commenced from inorganic matter to vegetable organization, the 

 surface of the earth, as well above as under the waters, being covered 

 with plants and herbs bearing seeds after their respective kinds ; thus 

 laying a basis for those carbonaceous materials, the remains of veget- 

 able matter, which are occasionally to be traced in some of the layers 

 or formations of the class of primitive rocks, (the lowest of the whole), 

 without a single particle of animal relics intermixed with them. 



It tells us, that during the fourth day, or epoch, the sun and 

 moon, now completed, were set in the firmament, the solar system 

 was finished, its laws were established, and the celestial orrery was 

 put into play ; in consequence of which the harmonious revolutions 

 of signs and of seasons, of days and of years, struck up for the first 

 time their mighty symphony. That the fifth period was allotted 

 exclusively to the formation of water-fowl, and the countless tribes 



