structed in a manner fitting each to its own enjoyment of the pleasures of existence, and placing it in due and useful relations to the animal and vegetable kingdoms by which it was surrounded." He then concludes his observations on the tertiary series with the following just and striking remarks. "Every comparative anatomist is familiar with the beautiful examples of mechanical contrivance and compensations which adapt existing species of herbivora and carnivora, to their own peculiar place and state of life. Such contrivances began not with living species. The geologist demonstrates their prior existence in the extinct forms of the same genera, which he discovers beneath the surface of the earth; and he claims for the Author of these fossil forms, under which the first types of such mechanisms were embodied, the same high attributes of wisdom and goodness, the demonstration of which, exalts and sanctifies the labors of science, in her investigations of the organizations of the living world."

This latter period is believed to have immediately preceded the Mosaic creation, and to have ended in some universal catastrophe, which entirely broke up and deranged the whole face of the earth, destroying all vegetable and animal life, and reducing the whole materials of the globe to that state of chaos which the sacred historian so briefly, but emphatically describes, when he says, that "the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

It would be inconsistent with my plan to enter, with any minuteness, into a detail of the arguments by which geologists maintain the truth of these views; but I may mention, in a single sentence, that the rocks, called primary, obtain this name, because, though they frequently are found to have burst through all the other strata of which the crust of the earth is composed, and even to overtop them all, forming our most elevated mountain ranges, yet they uniformly dip deeper down below the earth's surface than all the rest, and form the substratum on which the others recline. Immediately above these, lies the transition deposit, then the secondary, and then

the tertiary formations. The obvious conclusion is, that, if we may at all suppose successive periods of deposit, these periods must have occurred in the order we have described; and the existence of peculiar forms of organized beings, connected respectively with these periods, while it strangely excites curiosity, and gives a very deep and mysterious interest to the subject, by opening, as it were, a glimpse into former worlds, cannot readily be accounted for in any other way than by the hypothesis of successive epochs and successive creations. If, indeed, the plants and animals of one formation were found intermingled with those of another, there might be some ground for hesitation. But this is not the case; and, what is particularly worthy of remark, it appears that the whole individuals of the organized beings, which existed during those primeval periods, had been destroyed before the era of the Mosaic creation, none of such species being in existence at the present day.

What a surprising, and at. the same time consistent, view does this present of the operations of the Eternal Mind. We have been accustomed to think of the Selfexistent Being as only beginning to exert his creative energies, within the last six thousand years, when our globe was brought out of a state of chaos, and the human race was formed. But it is natural for the inquiring mind to ask, if it be indeed true that an eternity had passed before the Almighty displayed His perfections by calling worlds into existence, and exercising over them that paternal care which is so conspicuous and so endearing in the present state of things. This inquiry we may not be able satisfactorily to answer; but it is undoubtedly a step towards the solution of the question, to discover, that the materials of which the present earth is composed, have been employed by the Creator, in previous periods, of unknown but vast duration, in the formation of other worlds, of which other beings, strangers to the existing earth, were denizens; and we seem to acquire a more sublime idea of the Divine perfections, when we think of those primeval times, "in which plants and flowers, now totally unknown, adorned the face of nature, and

rose to luxuriance under warmer suns; in which animals of different forms and species, roamed the woods and forests; and in which the ocean rolled its billows, and the finny tribes found food and enjoyment, where now fertile fields wave with grain, and the lofty trees of the forest throw their boughs toward heaven, and man and beast tread the solid ground."*

THIRTEENTH WEEK-TUESDAY.

III. GEOLOGY.-SUCCESSIVE PERIODS OF ORGANIZED EX

ISTENCES.

If the view of our modern geologists, which I have adopted, be correct, there is something exceedingly interesting, and certainly, as I have already observed, not inconsistent with the character of the Creator, as we read it inscribed on His works, in the gradual developement of the powers of Nature, and in the adaptation of living beings to the progress of that developement. "In the beginning," the earth was, according to this hypothesis, created a mass of inert matter, perhaps in a liquid state from excessive heat, but crystallizing as it cooled, till the whole crust of the globe was comprised in the two great divisions of sea and crystallized rocks, surrounded with an atmosphere. This was its primitive state; and under these circumstances, neither vegetables nor animals could exist; but, being intended for the habitation of living beings, the powers inherent in matter were employed in breaking down, abrading, and disuniting the harder substances, so as to form soil fit for the maintenance of vegetable produce; and thus, in process of time, it passed into the transition state. No sooner was the globe, to this extent, prepared, than vegetables were created by

* Study of Nature, p. 202.

the Almighty Hand; and food being thus produced for living creatures, these also were called into being, with faculties and endowments admirably fitted for the earth, as it then was.

Still the process of decomposition and crumbling down went on, till the world became fitted for a new change. A catastrophe, therefore, took place, by which all organized existences were destroyed and submerged; and, by a most wonderful provision, these were laid up in storehouses, as it were, below the surface, for the future use of the rational creatures which were, in the succession of ages, to be created, being meanwhile, by pressure and disintegration, converted, the marine productions into lime, and the produce of the land into coal. And now, a new operation of creative wisdom takes place. More nourishing qualities have been infused into the waters of the sea, and the surface of the earth has acquired more fertile powers, by which the whole globe is fitted for the maintenance of higher species of plants and animals. They are accordingly produced. A more noble and luxuriant vegetation clothes the face of the earth.

ing creatures of gigantic proportions swim in the ocean, or frequent the vast swamps and marshes which compose its shores, or feed among the mighty palms and ferns which spring up on the elevated grounds. But the wonderful plan formed in the Eternal Mind is not yet completed. Another period elapses, in which further changes have been going on, and continued preparations have been making. At length new epochs arrive, and new catastrophes take place. Again and again the surface of the globe is broken up; its vegetable and animal productions are again and again entombed, to add to the stores of the higher race destined to appear in a new era and a renovated world.

Last of all, the time arrives, when the globe is fitted for a race of rational creatures. "The earth is without form, and void." The elements are commixed; and thickest darkness broods over the profound abyss. God speaks; it is light,. and the clouds ascend. He speaks again; the solid foundations of the world are disturbed;

an irresistible force heaves the ancient granite from its bed, causing it to shake off the superincumbent strata which ages had formed, and to throw aloft its rugged peaks, till they threaten to penetrate the sky. The waters subside, and are gathered together. An effectual separation is thus made between the seas and the dry land, and a new character is given to the earth's surface, which fits it for its coming destiny. Once more the Creator utters his voice. "The earth brings forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit." Yet again the command is issued, and the clearing atmosphere gives free admittance to the direct rays of the sun, moon, and stars. Thus is the world once more prepared, as the

*"It is marvellous that mankind should have gone on for so many centuries in ignorance of the fact, which is now so fully demonstrated, that no small part of the present surface of the earth is derived from the remains of animals, that constituted the population of the ancient seas. Many extensive plains and massive mountains form, as it were, the great charnel-houses of preceding generations, in which the petrified exuviæ of extinct races of animals and vegetables are piled into stupendous monuments of the operations of life and death, during almost immeasurable periods of past time." "At the sight of a spectacle,' says Cuvier, so imposing, so terrible as that of the wreck of animal life, forming almost the entire soil on which we tread, it is difficult to restrain the imagination from hazarding some conjectures as to the causes by which such great effects have been produced.'"-Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 112.

† Speaking of the 14th, and four succeeding verses of the first chapter of Genesis, Dr. Buckland, in agreement with what is stated in the text, thus argues :-"What is herein stated of the celestial luminaries, seems to be spoken solely with reference to our planet, and more especially to the human race, then about to be placed upon it. We are not told that the substance of the sun and moon were first called into existence upon the fourth day. The text may equally imply that these bodies were then prepared, and appointed to certain offices of high importance to mankind to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day, and over the night;' to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.' The fact of the creation had been stated before in the first verse. The stars also are mentioned, (Gen. i. 16,) in three words only, almost parenthetically, as if for the sole purpose of announcing that they also were made by the same Power as those luminaries which are more important to us—the sun and the moon. The interpretation here proposed seems, moreover, to solve the difficulty which would otherwise attend the statement of the appearance of light on the first day, while the sun and moon and stars were not made to appear until the fourth. If we suppose all the heavenly bodies and the earth to have been created