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affected by tbe lofty mountains and deep seas, were known in 
a very remarkable measure by this intelligent thinkei . 
An author like Steno, who could write such geology above 
two hundred years ago, is worthy of respect; and we may quote 
him at some iength on the relation of geology to Sacred scrip- 
ture. He had come to the conclusion that Etruria, which 
he had surveyed with some attention, had had six dilierent 
"faces” or states of the surface, and he conjectured that tins 
had been the case with the earth as a whole. So he says 
“ But lest there should be apprehended any danger m the 
novelty, I shall, in short, lay down the agreement of mature 
with Scripture , reciting withal the chief difficulties that may be 
raised about each face of the earth. As to the first face, 
Scripture and science agree in this, that all was covered wit 1 
water ; but how it began to be thus, and when, and how long 
this continued so, Nature is silent, Scripture is not. iken lie 
says : “ Of the second face of the earth, which was plain and 
dry, Nature is likewise silent when and how it began, but the 
Scripture is not so; meantime, that there was once such a face, 
of the earth, Nature affirms and Scripture confirms, foras- 
much that it teacheth that waters arising from one spring 
did water the whole earth.” So he writes as to the whole 
appearance of this world spoken of by Scripture and seen m 
Nature. He says : “ How great the height of the sea hath 
been, where Scripture determines it. Nature contradicts it 
not; forasmuch, I. There are certain marks of sea extant m 
places which are many hundred feet high above the surface 
of the sea; II. It cannot be denied that ail the solids of the 
earth were in the beginning of things covered with an aqueous 
fluid, as they may have been covered with it again,. m regard 
that the change of natural things is indeed continual, but 
there is no annihilation.” This passage gives ns a very fair 
view of geology in its relation to Scripture as it stood at this 
time, though we have given but a small portion of what bteno 
says on this relation, and its perfect harmony. He was, as we 
learn from his treatise, evidently a man of great ability and m 
a truly scientific spirit — worthy of being taken as the repre- 
sentative of the most advanced opinions of his time on the 
great subject we have in hand. 
Thus far it will be seen, that we have little in what may be 
called geological science that could seriously come into con- 
flict with anything that occurs in the Sacred Scriptures. I 
ideas of a vast duration through which changes have been fol- 
lowing one another in the earth's structure, ideas which have 
played so important a part in some recent controversies ; 
