had no personal knowledge whatever. Nay more; nothing would have appeared more improbable to an uninspired writer, as theoretical geology will readily allow, than, in the first place, that the whole earth should have been deluged with water, and, secondly, that the Creator should have destroyed mankind in their very infancy-for Adam had but just died when Noah was born.

Nevertheless, it would be fatal to the present state of theoretical geology, to admit the occurrence of the general deluge. It must be discarded, at all hazards, even so far as it respects the human race; for it is a fundamental assumption, in that cautious aspect of theoretical geology which only insinuates spontaneity of being, that when man was created all antecedent animals had been extinguished, and all the existing species of animals, aquatic as well as terrestrial, were, in a general sense, produced at the same time with man, and that no calamity has since befallen them; although, on approaching such details as the marsupials and ornithorynchus of Australia, and "the fauna of the Galapagos Islands," it slides into the principle as expressed by the eminent Dr. Mantel, that "the age of reptiles may be considered merely an exaggerated effect of the ORGANIC LAW OF CREATION, which IMPARTED to the fauna of the Galapagos Islands its reptilian character." And theoretical geology sees, also, that an admission of the Design of the Creator in preserving animals in the ark "to keep seed alive upon all the earth," would be fatal to its fundamental assumptions of repeated "creations" and "extinctions", upon which reposes, mostly, its immense fabric of the "sedimentary rocks"; and that an admission of the deluge would become applied to the interpretation of the coal-formations, (though it does not see in what possible way), and thus make a fatal invasion not only upon its igneous hypothesis, but its glacier also. The latter assumption, however at variance with that of the earth's evolution out of an igneous nebular condition, and a progressive reduction of temperature down to the present day, will still be made to explain the boulders and other associated drift, albeit though in one direction only, and often piled into hills with a variety of other drift, and notwithstanding, also, the alleged deficiency of water to constitute a general deluge; and partial

floods will still be assumed as instrumental in the coal-formations, however they may appear in all parts of the globe-till some coming generation, less credulous or less indulgent than our own, shall rise up in the majesty of reason and of truth, and dispose of them after the manner of the French Academy, who, when smarting under the infidelity of the Revolution at the close of the last century, overhauled more than eighty systems in geology that had then prevailed, and voted them all at war with Revelation; nor is the theoretical fabric of our own day essentially any thing more than a resuscitation of the great outlines of these, with the more dangerous pretense superadded of being "a science" founded upon a greater accumulation of facts, and professing to corroborate Revelation. Men will continue, also, to be lampooned who do not surrender their faith and their common sense to the ambitious objects of those who have banded together for the overthrow of both; and for the better accomplishment of the whole, devout professions will continue to gild the poison, and impudent pretenses will abound of coming to the support of that Revelation which nobody had questioned till it was assailed by the verbal criticisms of theoretical geology. A mere accumulation of geological facts, which is all that can be of the slightest benefit to man, offer no attractions to the gifted in mind or the ambitious of fame. There must be generalization and principles, however absurd the attempt to predicate laws and principles of those results which have ensued in an accidental manner alone, and which render theoretical geology so eminently worthy of reproof for its aspirations to the dignity of a science.

We ask, therefore, cui bono? What advantages to mankind are contemplated by the general effort to unsettle the established faith of the masses of society in the natural construction of the Mosaic Narrative of Creation and of the flood, and as interpreted, also, by our Lord, the Prophets, and the Apostles? Is it likely to increase their respect for such authorities, or for the Sabbath-day, or for a Book which is declared to be positively enigmatical in its plain and simple account of Creation, and positively false in that of the second great event of the globe? Is there any practical or spiritual benefit to ensue; any thing but a generation of infidels to follow in our wake,

by breaking up a foundation upon which mankind have stood from the day when the Almighty God stamped upon the Mosaic Narrative of Creation a philosophy which, in every detail, none but Infinite Wisdom could have devised, and confirmed Himself as its Author, when, sounding the artillery of heaven, He proclaimed the fourth commandment as a summary review of His Work, and as a standard of interpretation for its several stages?

Nevertheless, powerful minds are engaged in this extraordinary revolution; and, although we are deeply convinced of their unwise and mischievous error, and believe that we shall have established it by demonstration, we may well have the modesty to think it possible that what we shall have said may not command attention; and we may say with Bishop Newton, when about to cast upon the stream of time his Commentaries upon the Prophecies, that "what satisfaction we may give to others is very uncertain; but we shall at least have the satisfaction ourselves of tracing the ways of Providence."

THE COAL-FORMATIONS.

We shall now proceed to indicate, very briefly, the modus operandi of the general deluge in giving rise to the coal-formations; when we shall find in it a full explanation of the general occurrence, in northern as well as tropical regions, of fossilized tropical plants throughout their wide extent, of the interposition of fossiliferous and other mineral strata, of the faults and dykes, and of whatever else has given rise to a voluminous mass of absurd speculations; and we shall find in the coal-fields themselves, and in each one of their "enigmas", the greatest monumental proof of a desolating and universal flood. It is for the development, especially, of this proof that we have undertaken the inquiry. We must, therefore, as in the investigations already made, be still employed in minute analysis.

But, in the first place, we may state that it is the general doctrine of theoretical geology that the coal-fields are transformations of plants which grew in their neighborhood, and which were washed down into valleys, and became overlaid

with mineral strata by submersions beneath the ocean. It assumes, therefore, that there were as many successive growths of plants, and as many washings and renewals of the soil as there are strata of coal in the different basins, and as many "submersions beneath the ocean", and as many "upheavals", as there are interpositions of mineral strata, especially those of a fossiliferous nature. It assumes, also, that there existed at their highest locality in northern regions a tropical temperature during the carboniferous era", and this era is supposed to have occupied about a million of years, when it came abruptly to an end, but without any cause within the compass of geological "science." But what is rather more obvious, it grants that the coal-formations were in simultaneous progress in all the regions where they occur, and that they are generally about on a level with the ocean.

Such is a broad outline of the geological philosophy of the coal-formations; upon which we think it unnecessary, at present, to make a single other comment than to call in question the consistency of these vast contradictions of the present order of nature with the rejection of any extraordinary causes for "the sedimentary rocks", and the denial of adequate causes for a general deluge.

But, amid the extraordinary assumptions, we have seen that it is admitted that the coal-fields came into being at the same period of time, and that the process ceased abruptly and for ever. Besides, therefore, the foregoing burlesque upon nature, theoretical geology necessarily supposes that all those lusus naturæ, forming the strangest medley of unnatural phenomena that the wildest imagination can devise, happened at one and the same time, and without leaving a trace behind-excepting the "enigmas" of the coal-formations. We have seen, also, that it is admitted that the coal-fields occupy about a common level with the ocean, and that, in geological phraseology, "no mineral coal, both good in quality and abundant in quantity, has ever been found either in the primary or in the lower transition rocks, or in the upper secondary or the tertiary strata." The last of these admitted facts places the coal-formations at precisely the right period for the general deluge;

and the other premises are all that we desire at the hands of theoretical geology.

As to the "tertiary strata," it may be useful to explain, that, although existing antecedently to the general deluge, they were owing to causes comparatively very local with the earlier "sedimentary rocks", and, therefore, comparatively very circumscribed, and are situated in localities inconsistent with the causes which arrested the drifting flood-wood, and, as we shall see, could have formed no part of those obstacles through whose agency the forests were accumulated in valleys, since their formation was subsequent to the production of those obstacles, and they were not elevated into the requisite condition of hills. Nor will we neglect saying, that the prevailing nomenclature of the "tertiary strata" as based on the numerical proportion of supposed recent and ancient fossil shells, under the designations of eocene, miocene, pliocene, and newer pliocene, is objected to by the very able and learned Professor B. Silliman, in his Appendix to Bakewell's Geology (though belonging to the school) after the following manner :

"The numerical proportion of recent to ancient fossil shells is stated to increase in each division of the tertiary strata by a certain percentage, beginning with the eocene, from the Greek êws (eos), or Aurora, indicating the first dawn or appearance of recent species." "But the geologist is told that he cannot be expected to discover the proportions of recent to fossil shells, and that he must consult some able conchologist, who is to determine the proportions for him. Now this method has been tried, with respect to the shells of the Crag, and other tertiary formations, and has been found entirely fallacious. Different conchologists have given very different and opposite enumerations of the proportions. Where M. Deshayes finds in the Crag fifty per cent. of species analogous to recent shells, other eminent conchologists say there is none. This discrepancy ever must arise from a method so vague and empirical, depending upon the skill or caprice of the different shell sorters." "Great caution, indeed, is required in drawing inferences from fossil conchology alone, when unsupported by the evidence of position or by collateral testimony. For want of this caution, the most extravagant opinions have been advanced. A foreign naturalist, disregarding the remains of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus, that occur abundantly in the Crag of Norfolk, and in the strata over it, and drawing his conclusions from the shells alone, asserts, that the temperature of England at the epoch of the Crag, was that of the arctic regions (!) But the above animals, particularly the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, are constant inhabitants of warm climates, and whenever their remains occur in northern latitudes, it is considered as a proof of the high former temperature of such latitudes."

Such are the important admissions of theoretical geology,