134 FAMOUS SCOTS 



the evening and the morning have completed the second 

 day. 



* Yet again the light rises under a canopy of cloud, but the 

 scene has changed, and there is no longer an unbroken 

 expanse of sea. The white surf breaks, at the distant 

 horizon, on an insulated reef, formed mayhap by the 

 Silurian or Old Red coral zoophytes ages before, during 

 the bygone yesterday ; and beats in long lines of foam, 

 nearer at hand, against the low, winding shore, the seaward 

 barrier of a widely-spread country. For at the Divine 

 command the land has arisen from the deep not incon- 

 spicuously and in scattered islets, as at an earlier time, but 

 in extensive though flat and marshy continents, little raised 

 over the sea-level ; and a yet further fiat has covered them 

 with the great carboniferous flora. The scene is one of 

 mighty forests of cone-bearing trees of palms and tree- 

 ferns, and gigantic club-mosses, on the opener slopes, and 

 of great reeds clustering by the sides of quiet lakes and 

 dark rolling rivers. There is a deep gloom in the recesses 

 of the thicker woods, and low, thick mists creep along the 

 dank marsh or sluggish streams. But there is a general 

 lightening of the sky overhead ; as the day declines, a 

 redder flash than had hitherto lighted up the prospect falls 

 athwart fern-covered bank and long withdrawing glade. 

 And while the fourth evening has fallen on the prophet, he 

 becomes sensible, as it wears on, and the fourth day 

 approaches, that yet another change has taken place. 



'The Creator has spoken, and the stars look out from 

 openings of deep unclouded blue ; and as day rises, and the 

 planet of morning pales in the east, the broken cloudlets 

 are transmuted from bronze into gold, and anon the gold 

 becomes fire, and at length the glorious sun arises out of the 



