202 



are riot informed. So far as revelation is con- 

 cerned, the whole previous history of the earth 

 is left a total blank ; but if any indications should 

 appear to human research, leading to a belief in 

 earlier forms of organized existence, the terms 

 in which the revelation is couched, seem pur- 

 posely so expressed as to favour that belief, and 

 leave room for discovery. 



Now, it is here precisely that researches and 

 discoveries have been made. It has been found, 

 that the matter of which the earth is composed 

 bears marks of an antiquity much beyond that of 

 the human race ; and that, while every geologi- 

 cal appearance confirms the truth of the Mosaic 

 history, as regards the period when the organized 

 existences which at present cover the earth re- 

 ceived their origin, there are undeniable proofs 

 of long and successive epochs before that pe- 

 riod, in which plants and flowers, now totally 

 unknown, adorned the face of nature, and rose 

 to luxuriance under warmer suns in which ani- 

 mals of different forms and species roamed the 

 woods arid forests, and in which the ocean rolled 

 its billows, and the finny tribes found food and 

 enjoyment, where now fertile fields wave with 

 grain, and the lofty trees of the forest throw their 

 boughs towards heaven, and man and beast tread 

 the solid ground. 



There are, therefore, two distinct periods of 

 time to which the geologist has to direct his at- 

 tention, that which preceded the Mosaic crea- 

 tion, and that which is subsequent to it arid two 



