GENESIS, GEOLOGY, AND EVOLUTION 325 



its offspring " after his kind," generation after generation, without any 

 noticeable change. Any other animals than those now living on the 

 globe were never conceived. Fossil shells were supposed to be either 

 deep-sea creatures thrown up upon the beach, or, if found on land and 

 upon hills, easily accounted for by the Deluge. 



Every living thing was believed to have been created at once by 

 the word of the Lord : and all within the space of six literal days. 



When geology came to be studied with some philosophic spirit, it 

 Was soon discovered that many fossils were not of living species ; that 

 six days was incontestably too short a period to account for geological 

 phenomena ; that a flood, even if conceded to have been universal, 

 was unable to solve many a problem of disturbance and stratification. 

 Moreover, it was perceived that the earth's structure was separable 

 into several strata ; and that each stratum contained a group of fossils 

 unknown either in the stratum above or below it ; and upon this dis- 

 covery was based the principle that disconnected strata might be rec- 

 ognized by the identity of their organic remains. In addition to these 

 facts, the phenomena now known as dislocation, contortion, upheaval, 

 unconformahility, and others, frequently occurred, and apparently often 

 during periods intervening between the deposition of strata. 



These latter appearances, taken into consideration with the daily 

 phenomena of volcanic action, induced the geologist to conceive, 

 and the theologian to adopt, the theory of successive creations after 

 cataclysmic and predetermined destructions of all existing life by the 

 Almighty : while, to meet the now well-established truth of almost in- 

 finite ages having elapsed, the theologian adopted the interpretation 

 of ages for the Hebrew word yom or day. If, however, the first 

 chapter of Genesis be read without any reference to or thought of 

 geological discoveries, and the first three verses of the second chapter 

 be carefully compared with the fourth commandment, it will not ap- 

 pear how any notion of an indefinite time can be given to the word 

 " day " at all. The writer of Genesis seems to signify a day in the 

 ordinary sense, and apparently without any conception of indefinite 

 periods at all 



Geology ceased not to pursue her avocations steadily and uncom- 

 promisingly. 



The study of the rocks soon brought to light a large increase of 

 the number of strata : so that at the present day there are thirteen 

 "formations," embracing thirty-nine principal "strata," the strata 

 themselves being often subdivided into minor ones. If, therefore, the 

 miraculous recreations be true, they must have been very numerous. 

 But with the discovery of additional strata a larger insight was ob- 

 tained into the distribution in time of animal and vegetal life. It 

 was then discovered that these " created groups " were not so rigidly 

 defined as at first supposed, and consequently the rule established by 

 geologists themselves can only be applied cautiously in attempting to 



