Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 243 



Astronomy demands space, geology time ; the former has long 

 been conceded, and the latter will not be long withheld. 



It is already admitted by multitudes, that the chronology of 

 the Scriptures is, in strictness, applied only to the history of our 

 race, the sole moral beings whom God has placed in this world ; 

 while all that precedes man in the creation, is limited, in duration 

 backwards, only by that beginning, whose date is known to no 

 being but the infinite Creator, and which certainly precedes, by 

 many ages, the creation of man ; how long, it is neither import- 

 ant nor possible to determine ; long enough however to admit 

 of the arrangement, consolidation and elevation by natural laws, 

 of the crust of the earth and of all its wonderful, mineral, and or- 

 ganic contents. 



The records inscribed upon the volumes of the earth's solid 

 strata, and often buried beneath the mountains, are more copious, 

 more legible, and more authentic, than historical medals, than 

 Arundelian marbles, than Egyptian hieroglyphics, or Persepoli- 

 tan characters. They cannot be falsified, corrupted or suppres- 

 sed, and will remain, while the earth shall endure, a visible, tan- 

 gible history, written by the finger of God upon the work of his 

 own hands. Only a small portion of these volumes has yet been 

 perused, but enough has been deciphered to prove, that the work 

 has immense antiquity, and was compiled in successive epochs, 

 during a series of ages — the inscriptions being, like those of the 

 holy mount, on tables of stone. 



OF THE POWERS OR DYNAMICS BY WHICH ITS RESULTS ARE PRODUCED. 

 IGNEOUS CAUSES. 



On this wide topic, our time will permit us to say but little. 

 It embraces all physical and chemical laws, and includes the en- 

 tire philosophy of geology. 



As the phenomena of the planet, belonging to past ages and 

 recorded in its structure, conspire with the events still occurring 

 under our eyes, to prove that no portion of this earth is now in 

 the condition in which it was originally formed, we seek in vain 

 for a goal of departure, from which to date the series of geological 

 events. As the only direct revelation which we possess concern- 

 ing the origin of the earth, and of the universe of which it is a 

 part, is silent as to the condition in which the materials were 



