NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 6r 



As yet there were do land animals or plants, and for 

 this the presumable reason is, that no dry land as yet 

 existed. We are not left to make this inference solely 

 from the absence of land animals and plants; in the 

 arrangement of the primary (stratified) rocks, we have 

 further evidence of it. That these rocks were formed in 

 a generally horizontal position, we are as well assured as 

 that they were formed at the bottom of seas. But they 

 are always found greatly inclined in position, tilted up 

 against the slopes of the granitic masses which are 

 beneath them in geological order, though often shooting 

 up to a higher point in the atmosphere. No doubt can 

 be entertained that these granitic masses, forming our 

 principal mountain ranges, have been protruded from 

 below, or, at least, thrust much further up, since the 

 deposition of the primany rocks. The protrusion was 

 what tilted up the primary rocks ; and the inference is, 

 of course, unavoidable, that these mountains have risen 

 chiefly, at least, since the primary rocks were laid down. 

 It is remarkable that, while the primary rocks thus 

 incline towards granitic nuclei or axes, the strata higher 

 in the series rest against these again, generally at a less 

 inclination, or none at all, showing that these strata 

 were laid down after the swelling mountain eminences 

 had, by their protrusion, tilted up the primary strata. 

 And thus it may be said an era of local upthrowing of 

 the primitive and (perhaps) central matter of our planet, 

 is established as happening about the close of the primary 

 strata, and beginning of the next ensuing system. It 

 may be called the Era of the Oldest Mountains, or, more 

 boldly, of the formation of the detached portions of dry 

 land over the hitherto watery surface of the globe — an 

 important part of the designs of Providence, for which 

 the time was now apparently come. It may be remarked 



