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which so entirely agrees with the facts of geology in other respects should differ so completely on this one subject of time. For if by a creative day we are to understand a day of 24 hours, then the Mosaic record is egregiously and hopelessly at variance with the indubitable facts of geology. Whatever may be the length of the Mosaic days, nothing is more certain than that geological days are of vast duration. Geologists differ widely in their estimates of the probable duration of geological time; but no one acquainted with the subject can doubt for a moment its great length. The crust of the earth, so far as known to us, consists mainly of sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, slate and shale, and of organic rocks such as limestone and marble. The former are the slow accumulation of water-borne sand and mud; the latter the still slower growth of animalculine, coral and molluscan remains. In the Palaeozoic Age alone the sedimentary rocks are estimated as being about 50,000 feet in thickness, and the organic rocks or limestones as being about 13,000 feet. Let any one try to calculate the time required for the deposition of the former according to the rates of deposit observed at the mouths of the Nile, Mississippi, Ganges and Yellow River; or let him reckon the time needed for the growth of that vast mass of limestone, and in both cases he will find his line of figures becoming confusingly long. Yet these are only the rocks of one age. Add those of the other ages and then add up the grand total! *

SECOND DAY.

And God said, Let there be an expanse between the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the expanse, and divided the waters which are under the expanse from the waters which are above the expanse: and it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. Gen. 1. 6-8.

During the first creative day the vapours enveloping the earth were so far reduced as to admit the light of the sun, and day broke in upon the long night. The second day witnessed a further change in the same direction-the formation of an atmosphere. The surface of the earth was still one great ocean; but the earth had cooled and the waters with it, and consequently the exhalation of vapour from the surface had gradually diminished, till the lower portions of the * Sir Charles Lyell estimates that two hundred and forty millions of years have elapsed since the formation of the earliest stratified rocks. Thus giving about twenty millions to each of the 12 geological periods. Sir William Thomson basing his calculations on physical considerations reckons the possible age of the earth's crust at from one to two hundred millions of years. Professor G. Tait and others arguing from the cooling of the earth, radiation of heat from the sun, tidal retardation, &c., consider that not more than 10 or 15 millions of years can have elapsed since the solidification of the earth's crust. The lowest estimate however gives an enormous length to each day.

atmosphere had become comparatively clear, while in the higher and cooler regions the vapour still hung in dense clouds completely veiling the heavens and all their starry host.

Whether that mixture of oxygen and nitrogen which constitutes our present atmosphere had existed or not before this second day of creation, cannot of course be proved. Possibly it did not, but was now first produced, and gradually resulted in the formation of an under stratum of comparatively clear atmosphere, while great cloud masses still floated above. Hitherto the watery ocean and the watery sky had blended in one almost indistinguishable mass; now for the first time they are separated by an expanse or atmosphere.

It seems strange at first to speak of "separating the waters under the expanse from the waters above the expanse," yet such language is by on means inappropriate. The quantity of moisture held in suspension in the atmosphere, and partly visible to us in the form of clouds, is enormous. During those tremendous downpours which occur each rainy season in this and other countries it does appear as if the floodgates of heaven were opened. It seems impossible that such a mass of water could be suspended in the atmosphere. But the clouds which we see are as thin snow-flakes to the dense, unbroken masses which floated above our earth on the day when God divided the waters above from the waters below.

THIRD DAY.

The dry land and the first plants.

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together in one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering of the waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the springing herb, the herb bearing seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit, after its kind upon the earth, whose seed is in it on the earth: and it was so, &c., &c. Gen. 1. 10, 11.

This third day of creation is the first day of geology. What was the condition or history of our earth prior to the deposition of the oldest stratified rocks, we can know nothing positively. The current theories may be true; still they are only theories. But to-day the wonderful story of the rocks begins, and henceforth we have its unfailing light to guide us.

Up to the period we are now considering, the earth was covered by a universal ocean; its surface was a vast waste of waters without any living thing. But this third day initiates stupendous changes. Dry land appears above the vasty deep, and vegetation adorns its sandy shores and muddy flats.

The causes which led to this upheaval of the land, we can easily surmise. The earth's newly formed crust was necessarily thin; the cooling was still going on in the interior molten mass; as it cooled it shrank away from the crust, leaving it unsupported, till unable to bear its own weight and the pressure of the superincumbent waters, it collapsed or crumped up, rising in ridges in one direction and sinking into hollows in another, just as a bladder collapses when the inside air escapes or shrinks by cooling.

Whether the collapse was sudden or gradual we have no positive proof; most probably the latter, just as some parts of the earth's surface are now being slowly elevated while others are being depressed. The contorted, flexured appearance of the older strata, seem to witness to this gradually crumpling of the earth's crust.

This crumpling probably commenced soon after the formation of a solid crust, the thinner or weaker parts sinking dowwards, the thicker being forced upwards in peaks and ridges, the internal fires breaking through at many points and belching forth great streams of burning lava.

This crust motion has continued with greater or less force from that time till this. The northern shores of Scandinavia are now rising at the rate of four feet in a century, while its southern shores are sinking. Similar phenomena are witnessed in Greenland, Chili and elsewhere.

But these early elevations were not permanent. Again and again they sank beneath the waters; sometimes here and sometimes there. An examination of the stratified rocks almost anywhere clearly proves this. Those rocks were all formed under water. They consist of numerous strata of limestone, sandstone, shale and so on, thus showing that the place where they were deposited was subject to repeated elevation and depression. For instance, in some localities the coal measures consist of as many as fifty or more beds of coal with intervening strata of sandstone and shale, a feature which can only be accounted for by supposing repeated subsidences and elevations.

But though that first land was not permanent, the lines of the first crumpling have remained unchanged. Its depressions are the great ocean beds of to-day, and its ridges the backbone of our present mountain ranges. I say backbone, for the great mountain chains of the world, such as the Alps in Europe, the Rocky Mountains and Andes in America, and the Himalayas in Asia are of quite recent origin. They belong to the beginning and middle of the Tertiary Period. The direction of the great mountain chains is mostly from north-east to south-east and appears to result from solar-lunar attraction on the

molten mass of the earth when the first crust crumplings took place. The great ocean depths too have probably never changed since the day when God said "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place."

The fixed direction of the mountain ranges first mentioned; the configuration of the bed of the ocean, its abysural depths in the centre, and sudden elevation towards the edges of the continents, as well as the fact that nearly all the stratified rocks are of comparatively shallow water formation, seem conclusively to prove the permanency of the earth's early configuration.

The land of this third day was of, very limited extent; but the process of elevation had begun and was continued in each succeeding era till towards the end of the Tertiary, the land attained its present form and extent.

The work of the third day is of two well marked kinds; first the elevation of the land, and secondly the production of vegetation. The second part is thus described: "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the tender [or springing] herb, the herb bearing seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in it on the earth: and it was so." Three kinds of plants are here specified:-1. The tender or springing herb, by which is probably meant cryptogams or plants having no flowers and no apparent seed-vessels. 2. The herb yielding seed, comprising all the flowering and seed-bearing plants such as grasses and herbaceous plants. 3. The fruit tree yielding fruit, comprising all our timber and fruit trees.

This division differs from the classification of modern botany in separating herbaceous plants from fruit-bearing trees; still it is sufficient for general description; and the order, first cryptogams and then phanerogams, is also the order in which fossil plants occur in the strata of the earth.

According to the Mosaic account these plants, not animals, were the first living things introduced on our world. The oldest fossils, however, formed in the rocks are animals not plants. The oldest known fossil is the Eozoon Canadeuse, discovered in 1862 by the Canadian survey in the Laurentian strata in Canada. It belongs to the foraminfera, and the fossil consists of a coral-like mass of calcareous shells or coverings. Worm-trails and burrows have since been discovered in the same strata, but no fossil plant has as yet been detected farther back than the Cambrian strata. Are we then to infer that animals preceded plants on the earth? By no means. Here zoology comes to our aid. We know that animals cannot live on inorganic water, while plants can. Notwithstanding, therefore, the absence of fossil

plants in the oldest fossiliferous strata we are compelled to believe that plants preceded animals on the earth.

That no plant-remains exist in those early rocks, need not surprise us. Plants from their destructible nature are much more difficult of preservation than the hard calcareous coverings of animals. Moreover, these old Laurentian rocks have undergone complete metamorphosis, shales having been converted into crystalline schists, sandstones into quartzite, and limestones into sparkling marble, so that any traces of plants which may have once existed have been obliterated.

But although no fossil plants exist in the Laurentian strata, those strata contain considerable quantities of graphite, which is probably mineralized vegetation, produced in the same way as coal. Indeed, graphite is probably metamorphosed anthracite, as anthracite is metamorphosed bituminous coal. The occurence, too, in these strata of stratified iron ore points to the existence of an abundant vegetation. We may, therefore, safely infer that plants preceded animals on our earth as stated in the Mosaic record.

But there is another difficulty of a more real kind. The Mosaic record seems to state that the two great classes of plants, the cryptogamous or flowerless plants, and the phanerogamous or flowering plants, were introduced simultaneously or at least during the same creative day, whereas the earliest fossil plants are all cryptogams such as seaweeds, horse-tails (equisetums), club-mosses, (lycopods) and such like. It is not until the Devonian period that we find any trace of phanerogamous plants and then only the inferior order of gymnosperms or the coniferæ. There are no remains of the higher flowering plants before the Crebaleo Period. As a matter of fact also, it is not land plants that first appear but seaweeds, principally fucoids. The Cambrean and Lower Silurian rocks contain no traces of land plants; the Upper Silurian only obscure remains of plants allied to the lycopods or club-mosses, and even in the Devonian Period the species are few.

In explanation of these apparent discrepancies, I would suggest that the great fact taught us regarding the work of the third day, is the introduction of vegetable life. It is probably not intended to teach that all the now existing orders of plants were made during the same period, but that plant-life was now introduced from which all subsequent orders sprang, in the order here indicated, first cryptogamous plants, then phanerogamous plants. In such a brief statement as the Mosaic record, all we can reasonably expect is a broad and substantial agreement with the facts of science and such an agreement there is. If any insist upon a minute, detailed correspondence, all I can say is

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