On the Mosaic account of the Creation. 379 



that the intermediate soils are those which succeed in the 

 order of time, from coal beds to the first appearance of or- 

 ganised beings. I purposely avoid affirming, in this definition 

 whether or not the coal appertains to the intermediate class." 

 But if coal be marine vegetation, originally produced in 

 a bed, which must have been of the earliest intermediate 

 formation, since it was formed by the first disruption and de- 

 pression of primitive formations, according to the Mosaical 

 geology; then it will naturally be found at the point at 

 which the definition of M. D^Aubuisson supposes.* 



Now were not the elucidation of the several changes which 

 have occurred on our earth a matter too serious to be trifled 

 with, we might almost feel inclined to smile at the absurdity 

 which is involved in these contradictory statements of one, 

 who in his anxiety to upset the theories of what by way of 

 distinction he has termed the " mineral geology,'* has rush- 

 ed blindfold as it were into errors, which not only completely 

 overthrow his own views, but might even, in the minds of 

 many, bring discredit upon that record which he professes to 

 uphold. 



Thus, if his first miscalled revolution is to be dated from 

 the period when land and sea were first separated, which se- 

 paration he tells us was caused by the deepening or disrup- 

 tion of a portion of the earth, in order to form a bed for the 

 reception of the waters ; we at once and without difficul- 

 ty perceive, that it was completed before that vegetation from 

 which he derives his coal was called into existence, and conse- 

 quently that it could have been in no wise instrumental to the 

 deposition of that which actually did not exist. He has him- 

 self recorded in a subsequent chapter, the following words, 

 namely, (i that this first revolution took place before the exist- 

 ence, that is, before the creation of any organised being s."^ 



* Perm's " Comparative Estimate of the Mosaical and Mineral Geo- 

 logies," p. 385, et seq. 



t Comp. Estimate, p. 413. 



