548 Recent Literature. [ August, 
bias, which we think he displays in a disposition to see more 
scientific precision in the language of Moses than a plain reading 
of the text will permit. 
First, as to the statement that the Mosaic account “ does not speak 
of any vegetation, except seed-yielding herbage and trees whose 
fruit enclosed the seed.” We think that the text will not bear 
this restricted interpretation. It says, “ Let the earth bring forth 
grass, the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after 
his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth.” It is, to our 
mind, a gratuitous assumption, that the language “ whose seed is 
in itself,’ signifies vegetation “ whose fruit encloses the seed,” or 
angiospermous plants. But even supposing this to be the render- 
ing of the text, the seeds of gymnospermous plants are enclose 
in the unripe cones for a considerable time, and to ordinary obser- 
vation the opening of the cones at maturity does not differ from 
the same process in a seed vessel. By claiming too much morpho- 
logical meaning for the text, Mr. Warring taxes our credulity too 
seriously. What he further understands by the language “herb 
yielding seed,” will appear later; for us, it means any kind of 
vegetable whatever. 
cond, we note the relation of this Mosaic statement to the 
facts of vegetable paleontology. The author of the article, find- 
ing that the angiospermous plants have not yet been found below 
the Cretaceous horizon, concludes that Moses referred to this 
period when describing the creations of the “third day.” He 
evidently thinks that Moses intended phænogamous plants in the 
expression, “ herbs yielding seed,” that is, that he distinguished 
seeds from the spores of cryptogamic plants. Here again he 
goes beyond the legitimate use of the text. For us, Moses 
describes the creation of all kinds of vegetation, cryptogamic as 
well as phzenogamic, and that any relation of the text to the his- 
tory of the Cretaceous period is imaginary. Indeed, the ancient 
record is better supported by the liberal interpretation which we 
give it. But this coincidence of the enlarged interpretation with 
geologic history is not so remarkable as to be incapable of 
explanation on rational principles. In the Mosaic text the crea- 
tion of plants very naturally follow the first elevation of land, as 
it could not have taken place earlier; and it precedes its occupa- 
tion by animals, in plain accordance with the necessary existing 
relations of the two forms of life, as open to the view of any 
observing person. 
Thirdly, a greater significance than the language admits of, 1s 
discovered by the author under consideration, in the verse with 
which the account of the third day’s work opens. It reads, “ Let 
the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one 
place,” “ a remarkable statement,” says our author, “ to come from 
one who knew only of separate bodies of water and nothing of 
their real connection. We now know that the oceans are all one.” 
For us, the latter is the more remarkable statement of the ai 
