ON GEOLOGY. 



It tells us, that during the second day or generation uprose ptogressivel|' 

 the fine fluids, or waters, as they are poetically and beautifully denomi- 

 nated, of the firmament, and filled the blue ethereal void with a vital at- 

 mosphere. That during the third day or generation the waters more 

 properly so called, or the grosser and compacter fluids of the general 

 mass, were strained off* and gathered together into the vast bed of the ocean, 

 and the dry land began to make its appearance, by disclosing the peaks 

 or highest points of the primitive mountains ; in consequence of which a 

 progress instantly commenced from inorganic matter to vegetable organi- 

 zation, the surface of the earth, as well above as under the waters, being 

 covered with plants and herbs, bearing seeds after their respective kinds ; 

 thus laying a basis for those carbonaceous materials, the remains of vege- 

 table matter, which we have already observed are occasionally to be traced 

 in some of the layers or formations of the class of primitive rocks, (the 

 lowest of the whole,) without a single particle of animal relics intermixed 

 with them. 



It tells us, that during the fourth day, or epoch, the sun and moon, now 

 completed, were set in the firmament, the solar system was finished, its 

 laws were established, and the celestial orrery was put into play ; in con- 

 sequence of which the harmonious revolutions of signs and of seasons, of 

 days and of years, struck up for the first time their mighty symphony. 

 That the fifl;h period was allotted exclusively to the formation of the water- 

 fowl, and the countless tribes of aquatic creatures ; and, consequently, to 

 that of those lowest ranks of animal fife, testaceous worms, corals and 

 other zoophytes, whose relics, as we have already observed, are alone to 

 be traced in the second class of rocks or transition-formations, and still 

 more freely in the third or horizontal formations ; these being the only ani- 

 mals as yet created, since the air and the water, and the utmost peaks of 

 the loftiest mountains, were the only parts as yet inhabitable. It tells us, 

 still continuing the same grand and exquisite climax, that towards the 

 close of this period the mass of waters having sufficiently retired into the 

 deep bed appointed for them, the sixth and concluding period was dev.oted 

 to the formation of terrestrial animals ; and, last of all, as the master- 

 piece of the whole, to that of man himself. 



Such is the beautiful, but literal progression of the creation, according 

 to the Mosaic account, as must be perceived by every one who will care- 

 fully peruse it for himself. 



Of the extent, however, of the days or generations that preceded the 

 formation of the sun and moon, and their display in the sky or firmament 

 it gives us, as I have just observed, no information whatever. We only 

 know that the flow of luminous matter which measured them advanced or 

 was kindled up by regular tides ; so that it alternately appeared and disap- 

 peared, commencing with a dawn and terminating with a dusk of darkness ; 

 for at the close of each it is s^id, " and the evening and the morning were 

 the first day or, more literally, as indeed suggested in the marginal 

 reading of our national version, " and there was evening and there was 

 morning the first day that is, there was dusk and dawn, and by no 

 means such an evening and morning as we have at present. And hence, 

 Origen observes, that " no one of a sound mind can imagine there was 

 an evening and a morning during the three first days without a sun."* 

 So that the passage should, perhaps, be rendered, as most strictly it might 



* Ucpi 'Ap^ev : ia loc. 



