GEOLOGY IN GENESIS. 31 



mals, many of which have bodies that far out-measure, out-weigh, and over-power 

 his. If men should ever prove that the body of man is developed from that of 

 some lower form of life, they would even then be far from proving a like origin 

 for his spiritual nature ; and till they have more marked success in demonstrat- 

 ing the former, there is little ground for fear that they will soon or ever establish 

 the latter. 



Authorities differ widely as to what particular geological formations belong 

 to the work of each creative day. 



As the plants of early geologic time were marine, and perhaps entirely sub- 

 merged, it is reasonable to suppose they would not attract the notice of Moses, 

 as the scenes were pictured before his mind's eye, with anything like the vivid- 

 ness of the vast forests of the Carboniferous Age which formed our coal beds 

 thousands of square miles in extent and scores of feet in aggregate thickness. 

 Prof. Dana estimates that *' for a bed of pure anthracite thirty feet thick the bed 

 of vegetation should have been at least 240 feet thick." If we compare this 

 thickness with the depth of fallen and decaying vegetable matter on our oldest 

 and densest timber-lands, we can easily imagine how much ranker must have 

 been the vegetation ot those primeval forests. If the luxuriance of this vegeta- 

 ble growth was what Moses referred to, the third creative day must correspond 

 with our Carboniferous period. The excessive heat, the great amount of car- 

 bonic anhydride in the air, and the thick fogs and vapors which still concealed 

 the Sun, were all favorable to this profuse and dense vegetation. 



The first and second days would then be represented by the Arch^n, or 

 oldest rocks formed, and the Silurian and Devonian Ages following. In these 

 strata nearly all the remains of life we find are marine and would not impress 

 the mind of an observer. During all these ages, too, the geologic record informs 

 us there was but little land raised above the ocean, and this little was but slightly 

 elevated and was barren of all life but the meanest vegetable forms. At best it 

 would have presented but a most desolate and unattractive picture to an eye- 

 witness. But in the Carboniferous Age the land was greatly extended, and the 

 contrast it presented to the desolation of all previous time must have been pecul- 

 iarly noteworthy. 



During the fourth day, while the atmosphere was being cleared of its mists 

 and clouds so as to reveal the celestial luminaries, the submergence of this pro- 

 fuse vegetable deposit and its burial by the detritus of the sea under thick layers 

 of clay and sand, such as we now find above the coal, might have been going on. 

 Then, when the waters brought forth the swarm of monster "whales" and flying 

 reptiles of the fifth day, would follow in geologic order the Reptilian Age which 

 abounded in just such animals. Following these, the geologic record next dis- 

 closes the crawling sloth of monstrous size and the other huge terrestrial mam- 

 mals associated above with the flint implements of pre-historic m^n, which closely 

 correspond with the creeping things, the cattle, and lastly man, of the sixth Mo- 

 saic day. 



