78 
the deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters.” (Gen. i. 2.) “ And God said, Let the waters under 
the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry- 
land appear, and it was so.” (Gen. i. 8.) 
Until recently the generally received geological theory has 
been this : — The lowest parts or foundations of the earth con- 
sist of unstratified rocks, called plutonic, all of igneous forma- 
tion. Above these lie the metamorphic, or stratified crystalline 
rocks, containing, like the former, no trace of organic life. 
These are assumed to have had an aqueous formation, but to 
have become crystalline and lost all traces of organic struc- 
tures by the action of heat. Above these, the strata, all 
sedimentary in character, are divided into three great divisions 
— primary, secondary, and tertiary. Each of these again into 
numerous subdivisions. These strata lie over one another 
always in the same order, though they are frequently raised 
from the horizontal position to every angle up to the perpen- 
dicular. Many of these strata are often altogether wanting. 
Any one may form the surface of a country, and frequently 
the plutonic rocks themselves are quite bare and destitute of any 
overlying strata. The strata are not distinguished from one ano- 
ther by any certain mineralogical or lithological characteristics, 
their age and position being determined by the organic re- 
mains they contain. To their gradual formation millions of 
ages have been assigned. Until very recently (except by a 
few geological heretics) they were supposed to indicate as 
many successive creations as they contained distinct fauna, 
man and the present vegetable and animal inhabitants of the 
world not making their appearance in the geological records till 
the post-tertiary period. 
To account for the varied appearances, contortions, inver- 
sions, and breaks in these fossiliferous strata, the now dry 
land, was at one time supposed to have been at the bottom of 
the sea ; then to have been raised above the waves ; its coasts 
worn away by the sea, and its hills denuded by rainfalls ; then 
depressed again below the ocean for many fathoms ; this 
process repeated again and again ; the temperature at one 
time that of the torrid zone, and another of the arctic regions; 
most places at one time lying under an ocean teeming with 
melting icebergs, or else overlaid by vast glaciers. This may 
be called the successive creation theory. It met for a long 
time with almost universal acceptation. It presented little or 
no difficulty to the theologian ; as Ur. Buckland’s interpretation 
of the first chapter of Genesis was supposed to reconcile all 
difficulties. All these changes took place in that vast period 
which, on the authority of great Hebrew scholars (maintained 
