458 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 



physically possible — without calling in the aid of miracles in a case 

 where natural successions are sufficient to account for the facts. 



4. It has been supposed that the succession of geological events 

 may have happened in the first ages of the world, after the creation 

 of man. 



This supposition is wholly irreconcilable with facts. The great se- 

 ries of geological events was inconsistent with the existence of man 

 upon the earth : they precluded even the existence of terrestrial quad- 

 rupeds, which both geology and the scripture history assign to a late 

 period in the order of things, the same period in the close of which 

 man himself first appears ; they were, until the period immediately 

 preceding, incompatible with the existence of any beings that re- 

 quired more land than amphibious reptiles; and the vast deposits of 

 fossilized and of crystallized rocks that preceded the period of rep- 

 tiles, demanded an alternate anil concomitant prevalence of water on 

 the surface, and of fire beneath, which were entirely hostile to the 

 quiet and firm state of the surface, such as we see it now. Beyond 

 the effects of just such agents as are now in operation, water, tem- 

 perature, storms, volcanos, earthquakes, &.c. we have no reason to 

 suppose that the earth has undergone any very important changes, 

 affecting the integrity of its entire crust, since man appeared in the 

 world. 



5. It has been supposed that a general deluge will account for all 

 the geological events that have been described. 



This view is entirely inadmissible, except as to those superficial 

 ruins which have been already spoken of as diluvial. In geology, 

 without reference to sacred history, a deluge is a sudden rise and 

 overflow of water. It has no exact limit in time, altitude or violence. 



The facts revealed by geology demand many partial deluges, and 

 they are admitted by all geologists, with greater or less extent, to 

 account for the transport and deposition of those things which water 

 alone could convey ; it is necessary also to suppose, that both fresh 

 and salt waiter, either by rise of water, or subsidence of land, alter- 

 nately prevailed and retired after continuing an indefinite period ; 

 sufficiently long, however, to give time for the various animals and 

 plants to be deposited and entombed, which we find in successive 

 strata, now marine or littoral, or pelagian, now of fresh water, fluvia- 

 tile, or lacustrine. The rise and subsidence of the land, by subter- 

 ranean efforts and collapses, arising from igneous action, was the 

 probable cause of these alternate movements. 



