those strata, the attendant fossils denote, of course, that it was deposited with great rapidity. It was deposited, also, at a very early date, as shown by recessions of the ocean, which have had no parallel for a period long prior to the coal-formations. These various facts concur in showing that the calcareous deposits were a special circumstance growing out of the redundant solution of those substances at the period of the earth's consolidation. Lime stone, and its calcareous fossils, present far greater evidences of Design in the adaptation of means to the ends than gold, and silver, and iron, which have been so much admired, in this respect, by theoretical geology; since the former has vast relations to the exigencies of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, while the latter are limited alone to the conveniences and luxuries of man. Precisely the same is also true, in respect to organic life, of all the other sedimentary strata; and least of all, therefore, can it be imagined, that the Creator would have neglected the causes requisite for the production of these great instrumentalities immediately after the organization of the earth was completed. The very absence of any possible cause of these other "sedimentary strata" since man began his observations of nature, and the incompatibility of such causes with the diffusion of terrestrial animals, is alone demonstrative of their early and rapid operation; while their results which are so extensively subservient in the œconomy of vegetation, and so important to man, can leave no doubt with the philosophical mind, that those extraordinary agents, along with their effects, formed a consistent part of the Creative plan of properly adapting the earth to all the great final causes for which it was designed. This is all the "remodeling" we require. It provides abundantly for all those "sedimentary strata" through which mountains were speedily afterwards projected. But, least of all, can theoretical geology, with its "glacier theory," its "remodelings," "successive creations and extinctions," and many other analogous things staring in its face, object to our solution of the phenomena. It must first relieve itself from those "motes."

But theoretical geology and ourselves are on common ground as to the early date of the "sedimentary strata," and differ only in respect to the causes and the rapidity with which they

were formed. A principal cause of this difference, after the greater ones of their factitious thickness and their dependence upon agents now in operation, is the absence of the higher order of animals in these early strata. To the last objection we answer that reason, Revelation, the preservation in the ark, their present scarcity in their native state, all enforce the belief that their aggregate number, like the human species, was small. But, as great a reason exists in their perishable nature, especially under the influence of causes which were then in operation. And as to the contrast which theoretical geology makes of this particular circumstance with the profusion of testaceous exuviæ, we agree in opinion that those which are lowest down, or imbedded in mountains, represent the earliest races; and this entitles us to appeal to the authority of Revelation for an "abundance" of aquatic animals, and, without contradiction, to the well-known rapidity with which they multiply. But, in a general sense, the fossiliferous rocks which bear the exuviæ of aquatic animals, appear only as they originated beneath the sea and other waters, and which have come into view by the recession of the former, or the debouchment of the latter; and this farther shows their high antiquity. The absence or the rarity of piscatory remains follows the nature of the animals, who, like the birds, escape in their element when danger impends.

But, after all the effort of theoretical geology to prolong the age of the earth by its nebular hypothesis, and its immense system of sedimentary rocks, and their legendary "medals," effected, as assumed, by the simple causes which are now in operation, it had only just finished off the unfossiliferous shistose rocks by the creation of causes utterly at variance not only with its hypothesis of the secondary strata, but with its igneous doctrine of cooling down of the earth; for the principal of these creations was a fusible temperature to which theoretical geology has subjected the primitive strata that overlay the undisturbed granites-and this, notwithstanding the present crystalline structure of those stratifications. It is also worthy of remark, as aiding the reader in his interpretation of these granitic strata, such as gneiss, that this rock is often found intimately joined to granite, and imbedded in it,

and manifesting other irrefutable signs of the same interposition of Creative Power as was concerned in organizing the granites.

We need not pursue the subject into an analysis of the geological fabric which rises in systematic order upon the unfossiliferous stratifications. Nor shall we follow theoretical geology into its labyrinth of "medals"; but will simply point the attention of the reader to its fossil foot-steps of birds and quadrupeds, and even of fossil rain-drops, which it has erected into a collateral "science"-the "science of fossil foot-prints." These configurations appear mostly upon sand-stone, and others, also, in far greater variety than has ever been imagined to have been the result of any other probable cause than the disposition of this mineral to take on various configurations while passing from its condition of pulverulent sand to a solid state. Among these various marks has been found a net-work of figures resembling the interlacing of veins as seen on the inner face of the fresh hide of an ox; and there was greater reason for assuming that this was a "medal" of the hide than that the supposed foot-marks testify of beings to which there is nothing now analogous upon earth. The originals have vanished. The supposed birds were destitute of a hind toe, or an occasional exception would only prove more clearly the freak of nature, while the supposed foot-prints of quadrupeds remind us of night-mare spectres. Besides, who does not see that, if these were truly the foot-prints of birds, &c., the sand must have been in a humid state, and to have been maintained in that condition for an hour it must have been either constantly submerged or washed by water, and that, therefore, from the nature of sand, the prints would have been obliterated as soon as made. And, although, these unearthly creatures have left no other fossil memorial, not a bone, or a tooth, or a feather, they may be found, in theoretical geology, distributed in the most ornithological and reptilian manner into genera and species, with suggestive names.

It only remains now to be farther said, in respect to the sedimentary deposits, that the physical agents which have been in operation within the period of historical records shadow forth the desolation that might have speedily ensued upon

causes which evidently bore an incalculable proportion to such as have been subsequently manifested. It was, however, at a far distant age, in the calendar of modern times, when the present physical agencies had entombed cities extending over an area of hundreds of square miles, as Nineveh, and Babylon. But theoretical geology has limited its inductions to what it has witnessed in its daily course of observation; and hence the avidity with which it has pointed to the ravine below Niagara Falls in proof of their existence for 30,000 years,its great stand point in the New World. But here the conclusion has been founded from what is observed to be in progress at the present day, and in a characteristic manner, without any proper reference to the differences in the condition of the soil and rocks at different parts of the gorge, nor to the important fact that the bed of the river is more rapidly disintegrated at distances far above the falls than at their verge. Now, this may have so happened in particular parts that a mile of the ravine may have been formed in a century. A latitude, therefore, of three or four thousand years will seem to be a very ample amount of time to all who may regard the subject in its undoubted realities. But we have no such expectations of those who dream of nothing but inconceivable periods of time, or who demand thousands of years to make a fossil, or mistake a lusus naturæ for the foot-prints of animals, or expound the distribution of boulders from the palisades by the "glacier theory."

THE GENERAL DELUGE.

It is our remaining great purpose to show that the coalformations are the offspring of the general deluge, as the latter is recorded in Holy Writ, and that this catastrophe will explain all the geological "enigmas." The important obstacle, however, presents itself at the outset, that theoretical geology repudiates the event, and, as with the Record of Creation, commands a general acquiescence. This denial, too, professes to be founded upon the exigencies of the case, as determined by the paramount revelations of "science"; and the admission of the general deluge would be a great inconvenience to the VOL. III.-15.

igneous hypothesis of the earth's formation, which is held to be indispensable to the production of the vegetable matter of which the coal-fields consist. We shall, therefore, endeavour to remove, as well as we may, the barrier which thus blocks up our path; or at least so far as to enable us to enter upon our subject, when we shall be quite willing to leave the deluge to the united testimony of the Mosaic Narrative, our Lord's pronounciation, and the coal-formations. It will be seen, therefore, that, although we are thus compelled to begin by proving the Noahchian deluge before proceeding to the coal-formations, our only purpose in their analysis is to place the fact of the deluge, and the various references to it which occur in the Bible, beyond any farther question. Although the Narrative is generally regarded as "a myth", there are doubtless some who may have the simplicity to think that we might effect our object by calling up the corroborating testimony of Isaiah, where he speaks of the "waters of Noah", and again how the Creator "had sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth"; and this, too, in connection with a prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ. Or, perhaps, some may think that it should be enough to advert to Peter's and Paul's circumstantial allusions to the event, or, at least, to what our Lord says upon the subject, as quoted at the beginning of our inquiry. But all these things are as familiar as house-hold words.

Doubtless, like all other errors which carry away the public mind, the objections alleged by theoretical geology against the deluge are recommended by an air of plausibility, and especially by the fascinations of novelty. It starts with the bold assumption that the deluge must have been altogether the work of Creative Energy, or altogether the result of second causes, just as we have seen to be assumed of the organization of the earth; and, deducing the latter conclusion from Noah's admitted instrumentality, it proceeds to assume that the Creator could have had no part or lot in such a mixed affair. Upon these premises it moves on to show that there was not water enough to justify the Word of God as to its universal prevalence; that Noah could not have assembled the animals; that there could not have been food enough provided, espe