CHAPTER VIII. 



A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE CREATION AS RECORDED 

 IN THE STRATA OF THE EARTH, SHOWING THAT THE 

 TREES WHICH' NOW COVER ITS SURFACE WERE NOT ALL 

 CREATED AT THE SAME TIME, BUT WERE INTRODUCED AS 

 THE EARTH BECAME FITTED FOR THEIR RECEPTION — TREES 

 WERE CREATED IN SUCCESSION — THOSE OF A LOW TYPE 

 OF ORGANIZATION ARE THE MOST ANCIENT INHABITANTS 

 OF THE GLOBE — THE MORE HIGHLY ORGANIZED TREES 

 HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED AT A COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING 

 MODERN GEOLOGICAL EPOCH. 



Just as a tree contains in the woody layei^ of its stem a 

 record of its progressive life-Mstory through the past years 

 of its existence, so with the organism of the earth. We have 

 recorded, in its strata, a faithful account of the progress of 

 Creation, a history of those physical and organic changes 

 which the earth has undergone, with this difference, that the 

 time expended in producing them is to be estimated not by 

 years, but by myriads of ages, periods of duration all but 

 infinite — fragments of eternity. The History of Creation 

 has, in fact, been written in the rocks, which may be regarded 

 as so many separate volumes laid up in the library of Nature. 

 To interpret correctly the language in yrhich this history is 

 written, requires the highest attainments in Natural History 

 and Physics. It has up to the present time been only par- 

 tially interpreted. The following facts have, however, been 

 fully elicited. 



All the elements which enter into the composition of the 

 solid and fluid parts of the earth once existed uncombined, 

 and in the gaseous form. The earth was, during this epoch, 

 an immense sphere of gaseous matter. In the course of vast 



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