206 Bibliographical Notice. 
conceive it possible that statements are not necessarily untrue simply 
because they themselves do not at once intuitively understand them, 
will find a fund of valuable information and suggestions scattered 
throughout this pleasantly written volume. 
To enter into the general plan of the ‘ Archaia’ would require far 
greater space than that which is here afforded ; but we cannot better 
describe it than as a ‘“‘ running commentary’’ on the early announce- 
ments of Genésis, in which a close collation is made of the Hebrew 
original with the modern discoveries of science. Separate chapters 
are devoted to the “days,”’ or eons, of creation, and to an inquiry 
into the nature of the actual facts to which allusion is made in the 
Mosaic history of the Cosmos. In his sixth chapter Dr. Dawson 
inclines strongly towards La Place’s theory, commonly known as the 
Nebular Hypothesis, as most in accordance with the scriptural ac- 
count of the existence of light before any mention is made of the 
luminous centre of our system: ‘‘ What, then, was the nature of the 
light which on the first day shone without the presence of any local 
luminary? It must have proceeded from luminous matter diffused 
through the whole space of the solar system, or surrounding our 
globe as with a mantle. It was ‘clothed with light as with a gar- 
igen ae Sphered in a radiant cloud; for yet the sun was not.’ 
We have already rejected the hypothesis that the primeval night 
proceeded from a temporary obscuration of the atmosphere ; and the 
expression ‘ God said, Let light be,’ affords an additional reason, since, 
in accordance with the strict precision of language which everywhere 
prevails in this ancient document, a mere restoration of light would 
not be stated in such terms. If we wish to find a natural explana- 
tion of the mode of illumination referred to, we must recur to one 
or other of the suppositions mentioned above, that the luminous 
matter formed a nebulous atmosphere slowly concentrating itself 
towards the centre of the solar system, or that it formed a special 
envelope of our earth, which subsequently disappeared” (p. 88). 
The various points which are usually supposed to be antagonistic 
to each other in the two records are examined seriatim, and, as it 
seems to us, in most instances answered satisfactorily. According to 
the Hebrew narrative, “all the earth’s physical features were per- 
fected on the fourth day, immediately before the creation of animals’ 
(p. 196); and geological discovery, in which animals play the first 
part, carries us back to an epoch corresponding with the beginning | 
of the fifth day, which “day,” or zecn, would appear “to include the 
whole of the Paleeozoic and Mesozoic epochs of geology.” But in 
the Mosaic epitome it will be remembered that plants are stated to 
have made their appearance on the third day, and thus to have pre- 
ceded animals in the order of succession; so that “we are shut up 
to the conclusion that the flora of the third day must have its place 
before the Paleeozoic period of geology.” ‘ But that there were 
plants,” continues our author, ‘before this period, we may infer 
almost with certainty from the abundance and distribution of carbo- 
naceous matter in the form of graphite in the Azoic or Laurentian 
