SECOND AND THIRD DAYS. 159 



those early times, there was probably every intermediate gra- 

 dation between the most dense fluid and the most expanded 

 vapor, the fluid and aeriform substances having no very 

 marked line of distinction. While such was the case, the " cir- 

 cumambient space" supposed, could have had no distinct exist- 

 ence. A physical change which established the water, at- 

 mosphere, and aqueous vapor and clouds respectively as 

 such, was of course the next necessary step in creation's pro- 

 gress ; and this is all that appears to be alluded to in the passage 

 before us as constituting the work of the second period or 

 "day-" 



It was probably during the period comprised within this 

 day, that the transition rocks beneath the coal measures were 

 deposited. These contain the remains of animals and plants 

 of low types, which are almost exclusively marine. But to 

 the creation of these, Moses seems to make no allusion, which 

 fact will not excite particular surprise, when we consider their 

 comparative unimportance to the grand object which he had in 

 view, which was simply to describe how the physical structure 

 and conditions by which man is more obviously surrounded, 

 came to exist. 



The next work consisted in the partition of land and water 

 (or the elevation of the former), and the development of ter- 

 restrial vegetation. " And God said, Let the waters under 

 the heaven be gathered together, and let the dry land ap- 

 pear : and it was so. ... And God said, Let the earth bring 

 forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yield- 

 ing fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth : 

 and it was so." This was the work of the third great period 

 or day, and manifests a surprising agreement with the events 

 of the period of the great Coal Formation. The universal 

 prevalence of almost exclusively marine, and the almost total 



