434 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 



contain much water of crystallization may present a serious difficulty, 

 but perhaps pressure may have retained the water and as the parts 

 of the mineral concreted, in cooling, the molecules of water may have 

 taken their place in the regular solid. Still we can see no reason for 

 excluding water and other dissolving agents, acting with intense ener- 

 gy under vast pressure and at the heat of even high ignition, from 

 playing a very important part in crystallization. 



If we give granite to igneous fusion it is hardly possible to avoid 

 admitting the conjoined action of water on the crystallized slaty rocks 

 that usually cover it. 



Nature and Application of the Argument. 



It is we trust obvious that we have been occupied, not in the su- 

 perfluous labor, of giving a complete system, but in selecting from 

 the great store house of nature, a few facts taken from the principal 

 geological classes and epochs, to evince that our planet, before it was 

 inhabited by man, was subjected to a long course of formation and ar- 

 rangement, the object of which evidently was, to fit it for the recep- 

 tion, first of plants and animals, and finally of the human race. 



In that remote period of which he who recorded the fact probably 

 knew not the date : — In the beginning God created the heavens and 

 the earth, and established the physical laws, the ordinances of heaven, 

 by which the material world was to be governed. 



The earliest condition of the surface of the planet, appears to have 

 been that of a dark abyss of waters of unknown depth and continu- 

 ance, which repressed the deep seated forces of internal fires. 



The structure of the crust of the planet aflfords decisive evidence of 

 a long series of events, in relation both to the formation of rocks, and 

 to the creation and succession of organized bodies, of which many of 

 them contain such astonishing quantities. 



Time and order of time ; event, succession and revolution are plain- 

 ly recorded in the earth ; and sacred history expressly states that the 

 events involved both time and order of time. 



Geology cannot decide on the amount of time, but it assures us 

 that there was enough to cover all the events connected with the for- 

 mation of the mineral masses, and with the succession of the genera- 

 tions of living beings, whose remains are found preserved in the 

 strata. 



It is obvious that ages must have passed, while the various geolo- 

 gical events, which are recorded in the structure of the earth, were 

 happening, and particularly while the innumerable organic forms. 



