34 The discoveries of Geology 



in doing this seems confirmed by the circumstance, that the Hebrew 

 has another term for pasture ; and if this interpretation of that word 

 be admitted, then deshe might signify here plants rather fi^tted for 

 lying down on, as the mosses and ferns, than for pasture, which 

 would make out a consistent image expressed in this clause or sen- 

 tence, in opposition to the one derived from the abundance of pasture, 

 which is evidently already sufficiently completed in the terms, "The 

 Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." This passage, then, when 

 rightly understood, rather serves to confirm the meaning which we 

 have suggested for deshe. Another passage is Job vi. 5, " Doth 

 the wild ass bray when he hath grass (deshe), or loweth the ox over 

 his fodder ?" but no stress can be laid upon this, when we consider 

 that both the ass and the horse eat, of choice, various species of 

 ferns and equiseta, a fact which it is not unreasonable to suppose might 

 be known to the author of a book which contains so much accurate 

 and interesting natural history as this of Job. The plants, whatever 

 they might be, which formed a supply for the wild ass, are at least ob- 

 viously set in contradistinction to those which formed the fodder of 

 the ox. The third passage is Jeremiah 1. 11, "because ye are 

 grown fat as the heifer at grass (deshe)." But there is in a great 

 number of manuscripts a various reading for deshe here, by which 

 the meaning becomes, " ye are grown fat, hke a heifer thrashing, 

 or treading, out the corn ;" and several circumstances shew the latter 

 reading to be the more probably correct one. 



It remains, then, very highly probable, upon the whole, that deshe^ 

 in the 11th and 12th verses, is intended to express the cryptogamous 

 vegetation. 



In our observations on the terms employed in the history of the 

 creation of the animals, we shall arrive at some important conclu- 

 sions that are more absolutely certain. 



The first thing that we would observe in regard to this, is, that 

 there are two distinct words, of very different origin, which the 

 English translators have rendered, promiscuously, creeping creatures 

 or thing, and also moving creatures, following, no doubt, the authority 

 of the Septuagint, which has given spifsra for both ; thus occasioning 

 • a great confusion instead of a clear and perspicuous order of creations 

 exhibited in the Hebrew text. The first of these words is sheretz, 

 as in verse 20th, in the history of the fifth day's work, " God said, 

 Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature (sheretz)," 



