Rough Notes on the controversy against Geologists. 487 



few days only intervened between these events ; whoever 

 does so, does what in him may lie at once to bring to issue 

 the relative weights of the material evidence supporting 

 geology, and of the moral evidence of the truth of revela- 

 tion. On this the whole question hinges, for undoubtedly 

 lapse of time, even to the extent of countless ages, is the one 

 prominent and indelible feature impressed upon the geologi- 

 cal structure of the surface of our globe. 



In filling up the very scanty outline of the sketch of 

 creation given in the Scriptures, much must be left to the 

 exertions of fancy. Still there will be found much for 

 which there is a solid foundation in the received facts of 

 geology, astronomy, chemistry and mechanical philosophy. 



According to the first of the hypotheses which have 

 been noticed, it may be assumed that, in the beginning, the 

 materials only of the earth and solar system were created ; 

 and that upon these were impressed from the first those 

 laws by which the visible creation has since been found 

 to be regulated ; by the continuous effect of the operation 

 of which, the whole was gradually wrought into order and 

 beauty. Herschel has found nebulae in the heavens, vapo- 

 rous bodies apparently condensing into systems like our 

 own. Let us suppose, what is in no view improbable, that our 

 solar system was formed out of such a nebula, an immense 

 mass of vaporous matter, filling a space larger than the orbit 

 of the remotest planet. Suppose farther, that this vapour, 

 at its first existence by the fiat of creation, was in an intensely 

 heated state. Let us now consider what, according to the 

 known laws to which matter is subject, would follow upon 

 this, and how these consequences would tally with known 

 facts. The most intense heat with which we are acquainted 

 is that produced by the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, and, when 

 the hydrogen is free from foreign admixture, which however 

 it is very apt to contain, in consequence of this extreme heat 

 the flame is invisible, all being so thoroughly vaporous as to 



