24 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGICAL 



tain of the remains of animals and vegetables, differing 

 more and more widely from existing species, as the strata in 

 which we find them are older, or placed at greater depths. 

 The fact that a large proportion of these remains belong to 

 extinct genera, and almost all of them to extinct species, that 

 lived and multiplied and died on or near the spots where 

 they are now found, shows that the strata in which they 

 occur were deposited slowly and gradually, during long 

 periods of time, and at widely distant intervals. These 

 extinct animals and vegetables could therefore have formed 

 no part of the creation with which we are immediately 

 connected. 



It has been supposed by others, that these strata were 

 formed at the bottom of the sea, during the interval between 

 the creation of man and the Mosaic Deluge ; and that, at 

 the time of that deluge, portions of the globe which had 

 been previously elevated above the level of the sea, and 

 formed the antediluvian continents, were suddenly sub- 

 merged ; while the ancient bed of the ocean rose to supply 

 their place. To this hypothesis also, the facts I shall sub- 

 sequently advance offer insuperable objections. 



A third opinion has been suggested, both by learned 

 theologians and by geologists, and on grounds independent 

 of one another ; viz. that the Days of the Mosaic creation 

 need not be understood to imply the same length of time 

 which is now occupied by a single revolution of the globe ; 

 but successive periods, each of great extent : and it has been 

 asserted that the order of succession of the organic remains 

 of a former w^orld, accords with the order of creation re- 

 corded in Genesis. This assertion, though to a certain de- 

 gree apparently correct, it is not entirely supported by geolo- 

 gical facts ; since it appears that the most ancient marine ani- 

 mals occui in the same division of the lowest transition strata 

 with the earliest remains of vegetables ; so that the evidence 

 of organic rjremains, as far as it goes, shows the origin of 

 these extinct species of plants and animals to have been 



