150 GEOLOGY AND MOSES. 



constituted the sea-beds, from which position they were sub 

 sequently elevated by subterranean forces. The animals and 

 plants, whose remains are thus preserved, " must have lived 

 and died " (says Professor Hitchcock) " on or near the spot 

 where they are found ; while it was cmly now and then that 

 there was current enough to drift them any considerable 

 distance, or break them into fragments ; * * * and frequently 

 all the shells found in a layer of rock, lie in the same position 

 which similar shells now assume upon the bottom of ponds, 

 lakes, and the ocean ; that is, with a particular part of the 

 shell uppermost."* 



Nor will we be astonished at these evidences of the high 

 antiquity of our globe, when we consider the immense periods 

 which seem to be consumed in its appointed movements in 

 space. For if there is any dependence to be placed upon the 

 observations and mathematical reasonings of Maedler and 

 others, the whole solar system is rapidly moving around a re- 

 mote center, in an orbit so vast, that a single revolution can 

 not be accomplished in less than eighteen millions of years ! 

 Considering this period as the annus magnus, or great year of 

 our planet and the family of orbs to which it belongs, it may 

 have accomplished several of these grand revolutions since it 

 assumed an individual existence, and still be only in the first 

 years of its existence an existence which may continue 

 through as many such revolutions as there are days or hours 

 'in the ordinary life of man! In fact, in the development of 

 the plans of an infinite God, who has a whole eternity as his 

 working period, it may emphatically be said, that " a thousand 

 years are but as one day." 



But these wonderful deductions from scientific facts have 



* Hitchcock's Geology, p. 88, 90 ; also, Silliman's Appendix to Bakewell's Geology, 

 p.5i4. 



