CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 317 







otherwise. In regard to the word day, we continually 

 use it in various senses, and Dana states that it is used 

 in five different senses in the Mosaic account of the cre- 

 ation. " c These are,' he says, (1 .) The light' God called 

 the light day,' v. 5 ; (2.) the ' evening and the morning' 

 before the appearance of the sun; (3.) the 'evening and 

 the morning' after the appearance of the sun ; (4.) the 

 hours of light in the twenty-four hours (as well as the 

 whole twenty-four hours), in verse 14 ; and, (5.) in the fol- 

 lowing chapter, at the commencement of another record 

 of creation, the whole period of creation is called ' a day.' 

 The proper meaning of ' evening and morning' in a his- 

 tory of creation is beginning and completion / and in 

 this sense darkness before light is but a common meta- 

 phor." It is a significant fact, I add, that the word day 

 is applied to the three first periods of creation, when as 

 yet the sun had not appeared. There could have been 

 then no such division as our day ; and, indeed, it is ex- 

 pressly stated that this division was introduced in the 

 fourth period or day of creation, for it is said of the 

 lights in the firmament, " Let them be for signs, and for 

 seasons, and for days, and years." 



429. Traditions and Superstitions. There have been 

 many traditions and superstitions in regard to creation, 

 and the origin of various fossils that were accidentally 

 found in the rocks before geology was knowu as a sci- 

 ence. I have here and there referred to some of these. 

 There is an interesting English legend in regard to fos- 

 sil ammonites. These abound in the neighborhood of 

 Whitby, in Yorkshire, and it was a common belief there 

 that they are petrified snakes. The story of their petri- 

 faction is this: As the snakes were so numerous as to 

 prove a great annoyance to the inhabitants, they im- 

 plored their patron saint, St. Hilda, to intercede for their 

 destruction, whereupon she not only prayed their heads 

 off, but prayed them also into stone. Sir Walter Scott 

 thus records the legend in his Marmion : 



