tJoNSlSTENCV OF dEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 401 



Trees and their members, and even entire forests are found in simi- 

 lar situations. 



In general, the bones and trees are not mineralized, but are rather, 

 for the most part, in the condition of grave bones or ancient wood. 



The bones could not be found in the older strata, as the animals 

 were evidently not in existence when those strata were deposited. 

 Much less could we expect to find human bones in them, for man 

 Was not created till the earth was reduced to order, and many genera- 

 tions of animals and plants, had lived and died ; depositing their re- 

 mains in the rocks, whose formation was contemporaneous or immedi- 

 ately subsequent, or whose materials were accumulated, by catastro- 

 phes that also overwhelmed the organized beings. 



The relics of plants, (the coal formations excepted,) are far less 

 numerous than those of animals. It is in no way surprising that their 

 creation should have been successive, and associated with different 

 rock formations, and when the same plants occur in repetitions of the 

 same or of different formations, their seeds or roots might have been 

 preserved, and transported from other places, by the waters or other 

 causes. 



That state of things which attended a particular rocky deposition,, 

 may have been such, when the same kind of rock came to be depos- 

 ited again, as to favor the production of the same animal or vegetable 

 races from the germs, seeds, roots or individuals that had been pre- 

 served. 



In the same latitudes, there is now, on the earth, a great regularity 

 in the vegetable species, and in a less rigorous degree, in the animal 

 races. 



There is every reason to believe, that the creation of animals and 

 plants was successive ; not by equivocal generation— not by atomic 

 action, but by the fiat of the Almighty. 



Early animals — wood — trees— coal. 



Among the primitive rocks there are no traces of vegetation, any 

 more than of animal life. But we repeat in this connexion, that we 

 no sooner reach the transition rocks, than both animals and plants 

 begin to appear ; the animals, however, are marine, and are vastly 

 more numerous than the plants. There is no reason to believe that 

 plants appeared until there were shores, and even marine plants must 

 have, in general, points of attachment in shallow waters. 



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