463 
is only on the surface, or in some superficial stratum, or in compara- 
tively some lately-formed deposition, that any remains of these animals 
are to be found. 
The creation of man, we are informed, was the work of the last 
period : * and in agreement with his having been created after all the 
other inhabitants of the earth is the fact, that not a single decided 
fossil relic of man has been discovered. 
This last circumstance will be considered by many as contradictory 
of the account of the Deluge, by which the earth, with man, was said 
to have been destroyed ; since in the remains of the deluged world 
man might be expected to be found in subterraneous situations. The 
fact, however, is, that although no remains of man are found, the 
surface of the earth, which is inhabited by man, displays, even at the 
present day, manifest and decided marks of the mechanical agency of 
violent currents of water. Nor is there a single stratum of all those 
which have been mentioned, which does not exhibit undeniable proofs 
of its having been broken, and even dislocated, by some tremendous 
power, which has acted with considerable violence on this planet, 
since the deposition of the strata of even the latest formation. 
From the whole of this examination a pleasing, and perhaps unex- 
pected accordance appears between the order in which, according to 
the scriptural account, creation was accomplished, and the order in 
which the fossil remains of creation are found deposited in the supei - 
ficial layers of the earth. So close, indeed, is this agreement, that the 
Mosaic account is thereby confirmed in every respect, except as to 
the age of the world, and the distance of time between the com- 
pletion of different parts of the creation. These, in consequence of 
the literal acceptation of the word day , in that account, are reckoned 
to be much less than what every examination of the earth’s structure 
authorizes their being supposed. If we are constrained to receive this 
word as descriptive of that length of time in which this planet now 
* Genesis i. 26. 
