On the Mosaic account of the Creation. 375 



Nor is it surprising that he should have deemed them in- 

 adequate to account for these " changes," since the first of 

 those periods was no revolution at all, but occurred before the 

 vegetable and animal races, whose remains constitute the 

 chief phenomena of our strata, were created, and therefore 

 it could have been in no wise instrumental either to their des- 

 truction or deposition. It is evident moreover that this first 

 (so called) revolution could in reality be no revolution, but a 

 creation. A revolution implies the overthrow or upsetting 

 of an already established order of things, while here in this 

 first period, we know that there was no overthrow, but an 

 originating or setting in order, of things which had not yet 

 existed ; therefore it was a creation or calling into existence 

 an order or system of things which subsequently, as we shall 

 see, were overthrown through the disobedience of created 

 beings. The separation therefore of the land and sea, by 

 which our earth was first called to light, can be looked upon 

 only as a creation of dry land which had not heretofore exist- 

 ed ; and such indeed it is considered by the sacred historian, 

 for he tells us that in the beginning the materials from which 

 our land was to be formed were called into being, and that 

 on the third day of creation (a period evidently remote from 

 the beginning) the interim having been occupied in perfect- 

 ing other arrangements, all tending towards its welfare, the 

 earth was separated from the waters, and the existence of the 

 dry land commenced. 



True the record mentions two, and only two distinct gene- 

 ral revolutions, but the Mosaic, equally with the mineral 

 geologist, has disregarded and passed over the first of them, 

 which occurred not during, but subsequent to the creation, 

 when man first transgressed the commandment of his Maker. 



Thus it would appear that geologists are right in referring 

 the fossil exuviae of the secondary strata to a revolution long 

 prior to that of the Deluge, and they have only erred in not 

 assigning to it the actual period pointed out by the record. 



