200 



The First Men. 



It is distiiiclly declared in Genesis tliat the evening of the first day 

 ■was marked by just such concealment or confusion. The earth was 

 formless and void. Darkness was upon the face of the deep, or tliclioiiu 

 a word closely related to thohu, or confusion; as liosliok, the original 

 Hebrew for darkness, is related to hasak, which denotes absence of 

 action, or refraining. This deep is termed mayim, a word which usu- 

 ally means waters, but which is also a general term for the fluids of 

 the universe.. When the Spirit of (xod moved upon this chaotic mass, 

 motion was produced, and light followed, precisely as the nebular 

 hypothesis explains. This was the first day. 



There followed another period of confusion, when all the elements 

 of the earth were mixed together, at high temperature; but from this 

 confusion tliere finally came an orb covered with water over its entire 

 surface, which water was separated from the waters above by an expanse. 

 The morning of this day did not end until the chaos of the stormy 

 evening had been superseded by order ; and, as the appearance of water 

 was followed by the appearance of life, this second day may properly 

 be termed the Ezoic cycle. At some time during this day, from the 

 not-life of the preceding Azoic cycle, there came the first marine 

 creatures of our planet. 



Another period of confusion followed. Land appeared above the 

 surface of the waters, but it was at first barren and shapeless. Con- 

 cealed in this new-made soil, however, were the germs of vegetation, 

 which the land was to bring forth. The reference is to the original 

 Palaeozoic vegetation — the vegetation alluded to in the second chap- 

 ter being of a different character, the plants of the field, that is, do- 

 mestic grains. This, then, was that great Phytozoic cycle, which had 

 its culmination in the carboniferous vegetation. 



Now comes the fourth period of confusion — the burial of this vege- 

 tation in great coal vaults. With all the mixed and confused terrestrial 

 phenomena which must have occurred up to this time, there were 

 no seasons, as we now know them, as the uniformity of life in every 

 section of the globe attests. Order was restored; the land, after various 

 upheavals and subsidences, became quiet; life was no longer uniform 

 in every section of the globe ; the pulpy trees of the carboniferous 

 ]>eriod were succeeded by the fibrous and woody vegetation of the 

 Permian period, and, with the appearance of winter, the fishes of 

 the old time, which had been fitted for the warmer waters of their day, 

 were superseded by others, adapted to cooler waters. Thus is the 

 proof afforded that on this, the fourth day, the sun, moon and stars 

 were completed, and took their places as ruling orbs. 



The confusion which followed the Permian period was so great, the 

 break so extensive, that geologists are yet unable to tell us what took 



