26 The discoveries of Geology 



periment ; reason has done her part, when experiment does hers, 

 nature will not refuse to sanction the whole. Aerial navigation will 

 present the works of nature in all their charms; to commerce and 

 the diffusion of knowledge, it will bring the most efficient aid, and 

 it can thus be rendered serviceable to the whole human family. 

 I now offer my sch^e to the public, expecting soon to see a practi- 

 cal and satisfactory demonstration of the truth of its principles. 

 East Nassau, Rensselaer County, N. Y., June 10, 1833. 



Art. ITT. — Remarks* on the connection between the Mosaic His- 

 tory of the creation and the Discoveries of geology, occasioned by 

 the Lectures of Baron Cuvier on the History of the Natural Sci- 

 ences, and published in Prof. Jameson^s Edinburgh New Philo- 

 sophical Journal. in 1832. 



[Various subjects critical, historical, he. are discussed in the paper 

 from which these remarks are extracted, but we insert only that part 

 which bears on the topic stated at the head of this article. They are 

 introduced by the following passage from Cuvier's Lectures. — JGJ.} 



"The books of Moses shew us, that he had very perfect ideas 

 respecting several of the highest questions of natural philosophy. 

 His cosmogony especially, considered in a purely scientific view, is 

 extremely remarkable, inasmuch as the order which it assigns to the 

 different epochs of creation, is precisely the same as that which has 

 been deduced from geological considerations." 



This, then, is the issue, in the opinion of Baron Cuvier, of that 

 science, which has been held by many persons to teach conclusions 

 at variance with the Book of Genesis, — when at last more matured 

 by a series of careful observations and legitimate induction, it teaches 



* No opinion can be heretical but that which is not true. Truths can never 

 •war against each other. I affirm, therefore, that we have nothing to fear from the 

 results of our inquiries, provided they be followed in the laborious but secure road 

 of honest induction. In this way, we may rest assured, we shall never arrive at 

 conclusions opposed to any truth, either physical or moral, from whatsoever source 

 that truth may be derived ; nay, rather that new discoveries will ever lend support 

 and illustration to things which are already known, by giving us a larger insight 

 into the universal harmonies of Nature. — Professor SedgwicWs Address to the 

 Geological Society, February 19, 1830. 



