AMERICAN GEOLOGY DECADE <)F 1830-1839. 



317 



merit of sacred history. "Any attempt to disprove the truth or gen- 

 uineness of the Pentateuch, and Genesis in particular, is wholly 

 superfluous, and quite aside from any question that can in this age 

 be at issue between geologists." "No geologist at the present day 

 erects any system upon the basis of the scripture history/* But 

 admitting that the Mosaic history is genuine and true, he felt that 

 one might with historical and philosophical propriety compare geology 

 with history and regard historical coincidence with observed phe- 

 nomena as interesting, "because they are mutually adjuvant and con- 

 firmatory. 1 ' As with other workers, including even some of the 

 present time, he found most that is confirmatory in a study of the 

 drift or "diluvial," which was naturally ascribed to torrential action, 

 and perhaps concomitant with the universal deluge recorded in Gen- 

 esis. After a somewhat prolonged discussion of the meaning of the 

 term "days,' 1 as used in Genesis, he gave the following: 



Table of coincidences between the order of events as described in Genes'is and that unfolded 



by geological investigations. 



