CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 449 



mos). The young lions roar after their prey." In the 24th and 25th 

 verses, (remes) is grouped with cattle (behemach), and beast of the 

 earth (haith haaretz). Proofs are abundant, and too tedious to be all 

 referred to, that by (behemah) the Hebrews generally expressed the 

 larger herbivorous animals, and by (haith haaretz) the larger beasts of 

 prey. (For the former see Genesis xxxiv. 23, and for the latter Le- 

 viticus xxvi. 22.) Thus we find races of mammalia expressed by 

 these terms, and to comprehend the whole class we must understand 

 (remes) as referring to its other tribes. It is at least no race of insects 

 that can be meant by the term, for, in point of fact, where any of these 

 are obviously meant in other Hebrew passages, either the name (she- 

 retz) is given to them, as in Leviticus xi. 42, " Whatsoever doih mul- 

 tiply feet among all creeping things,^^ (hasheretz), or the name (oph), 

 as we have already seen. 



It is true that remes is applied to the oviparous tribes, but not as a 

 noun or name, but as a verb to express their motion, just as in some 

 passages above quoted, we have seen sheretz applied as a verb, but 

 not a name to mammalia. 



Previously to setting down the following table of coincidences be- 

 tween the first chapter of Genesis and the results of geological obser- 

 vation, it is necessary to make a remark on one passage in Hum- 

 boldt's table of geological formations, which possesses a classical ce- 

 lebrity over Europe. In that table, following an earher authority, he 

 has placed the formations of transition, in the limestones of which 

 are found several species of shells, intermediately between the primi- 

 tive formations and those containing bituminous coal ; and his table 

 would thus indicate that an animal creation had preceded any vege- 

 table one. We shall not need to discuss the question, whether the 

 formations, named transition, are considered in a right point of view, 

 when they are placed between the primitive and pit-coal strata, since 

 it is sufficient for our present purpose to remark, that several obser- 

 vations, among which we may particularly refer to those of Thomas 

 Weaver, Esq. F. R. S., on the geological relations of the south of Ire- 

 land, have proved that the anthracite or glance coal of the transition 

 formations, with some of its accompanying strata, are full of impress- 

 ions of various plants ;* so that in the transition strata a vegetable 

 creation is discovered as well as an animal. 



In the following table we have taken the geological facts from va- 

 rious authorities. The passages quoted, are selected chiefly on ac- 

 count of their brevity. In the quotation from, and reference to Genesis, 

 the events on which geology can throw no certain light are in italics, 



* This is true, on avast scale and in innumerable instances, in the anthracite 

 mines of Pennsylvania; not to mention that most geologists now include the bitu.- 

 minous coal in the transition cIslss— Ed. 



hi 



