OF CREATION. 21 



universal, as the granitic rocks themselves. At the 

 end, therefore, of this our first period, we may suppose 

 that there existed a globe, whose surface exhibited al- 

 ternations of land and water; the land having in some 

 places as distinctly stratified an appearance as it has 

 at present, and the thick masses of strata resting on 

 huge bosses and peaks of granite and other igneous 

 rock : but all was then bare and desolate; not a moss 

 nor a lichen covered the naked skeleton of the globe ; 

 not a sea-weed floated in the broad ocean ; not a 

 trace existed even of the least highly organized ani- 

 mal or vegetable ; everything was still, and with the 

 stillness of absolute death. The earth was indeed pre- 

 pared, and the fiat of creation had gone forth; but 

 there was as yet no inhabitant, and no being endowed 

 with life had been introduced to perform its part in 

 the great mystery of Creation. 



It must, however, be distinctly understood that this 

 view is strictly hypothetical, and is, after all, only one 

 means of explaining certain phenomena. So far as it 

 is an illustration of facts that have been observed, it 

 has its value, and may be received provisionally ; but, 

 so far as it is merely a theory of the earth, it is worth 

 neither more nor less than other different theories, 

 many of which were proposed by cosmogonists of 

 ancient date, and some have been put forth in our 

 own time by persons who have as little ground for 

 theorizing. I have chosen in the present case to 

 present it as a sketch, embodying many facts and re- 

 sults of observation, although the cause of the absence 

 of fossils in metamorphic rocks, and of the other ap- 

 pearances that have been observed, may undoubtedly 

 have been very different. 



