192 REV. A. IRVING, D.SC., B.A., ON 
I have omitted the consideration of Fungi here, with their 
anomalous physiological function in the absence of chlorophyll. 
It has long seemed to me conceivable that enormous and rapid 
fungus growths in the dusky dank atmosphere of later Paleeozoic 
times, may account for much of the spore-containing material of 
the coal-seams, possibly washed down from the early continental 
regions by water. 
V. THE Brrtu or THE Moon. 
We begin now to see the possibility of both marine and 
terrestrial vegetation appearing on this planet and reaching a 
fairly high stage of development before the sun appeared as a 
definite luminary orb to the earth itself. But what of the moon ? 
It is necessary to remind ourselves that the inspired writer does 
not pretend to tell us anything as to the modus operandi of their 
origin ; and he tells us nothing as to the time when they were 
made. He only recognizes them here as set for lights in the 
heaven to give light wpon the earth, and to be for signs and for 
seasons, for days and for years; and this fits in with our 
conception of the sequence of things from the inferences which 
science justifies, as indicated in brief outline only in this paper. 
Well, the moon at its birth was probably thrown off the earth 
in a way with which Sir Robert Ball, F.R.S., the Cambridge 
Astronomer (following up the calculations of Sir George Darwin, 
F.R.S.) has made us familiar for some years past.* The writer 
of Genesis knew nothing of that portentous event, though it 
would be impossible to say what great ideas may not have flitted 
through his brain. At all events he deals only with the moon as 
a luminary to the earth. To argue therefore, as it was argued by 
Professor Driver—that according to the Genesis account the 
moon must have been thrown off the earth after vegetation 
appeared-upon this globe involves a strange misconception. If 
the moon (according to the latest computations) was thrown off 
from the molten earth fifty million years ago, and (as we follow 
Lord Kelvin) the sun lad not entered by contraction upon the 
“solar phase ” before some twenty-five million years ago, ample 
time would seem to be allowed in the interval, for that 
development, up to a certain stage, of vegetable and animal life 
(both marine and terrestrial), of which the geological record 
* On the authority of Professor Turner of Oxford, Professor Driver 
tells us that this is consid: red by astronomers to have taken place about 
50,000,000 years ago. (Guardian, Oct. 23rd, 1907.) 
