The question recurs—Why are God's days so long? He is not like us, a being of yesterday. He is "from Olam to Olam," and even in human history one day is with him as a thousand years; and we who live in these later days of the world know full well how slow the march of his plan has been even in human history. We shall know in the endless ages of a future eternity that even to us these long creative days may at last become but as watches in the night.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ATMOSPHERE.

"And God said, Let there be an expanse between the waters; and let it separate the waters from the waters. And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which are under the expanse from the waters which are over the expanse: and it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."—Genesis i. 6-8.

The regular and constant constituents of the atmosphere are the elements oxygen and nitrogen, which, at the temperature and pressure existing on the surface of our globe, are permanently aeriform or gaseous. Beside these gases, the air always contains a quantity of the vapor of water in a perfectly aeriform and transparent condition. This vapor is not, however, permanently gaseous. At all temperatures below 212 degrees it tends to the liquid state; and its elastic force, which preserves its particles in the separated state of vapor, increases or diminishes at a more rapid rate than the increase or diminution of temperature. Hence the quantity of vapor that can be suspended in clear air depends on the temperature of the air itself. As the temperature of the air rises, its power of sustaining vapor increases more rapidly than its temperature; and as the temperature of the air falls, the elastic force of its contained vapor diminishes in a greater ratio, until it can exist as an invisible vapor no longer, but becomes condensed into minute bubbles or globules, forming cloud, mist, or rain. Two other circumstances operate along with these properties of air and vapor. The heat radiated from the earth's surface causes the lower strata of air to be, in ordinary circumstances, warmer than the higher; and, on the other hand, warm air, being lighter than that which is colder, the warm layer of air at the surface continually tends to rise through and above the colder currents immediately over it. Let us consider the operation of the causes thus roughly sketched in a column of calm air. The lower portion becomes warmed, and if in contact with water takes up a quantity of its vapor proportioned to the temperature, or in ordinary circumstances somewhat less than this proportion. It then tends to ascend, and as it rises and becomes mixed with colder air it gradually loses its power of sustaining moisture, and at a height proportioned to the diminution of temperature and the quantity of vapor originally contained in the air, it begins to part with water, which becomes condensed in the form of mist or cloud; and the surface at which this precipitation takes place is often still more distinctly marked when two masses or layers of air at different temperatures become intermixed; in which case, on the principle already stated, the mean temperature produced is unable to sustain the vapor proper to the two extremes, and moisture is precipitated. It thus happens that layers of cloud accumulate in the atmosphere, while between them and the surface there is a stratum of clear air. Fogs and mists are in the present state of nature exceptional appearances, depending generally on local causes, and showing what the world might be but for that balancing of temperature and the elastic force of vapor which constitutes the atmospheric firmament. [68]

The quantity of water thus suspended over the earth is enormous. "When we see a cloud resolve itself into rain, and pour out thousands of gallons of water, we can not comprehend how it can float in the atmosphere." [69] The explanation is—1st, the extreme levity of the minute globules, which causes them to fall very slowly; 2d, they are supported by currents of air, especially by the ascending currents developed both in still air and in storms; 3dly, clouds are often dissolving on one side and forming on another. A cloud gradually descending may be dissolving away by evaporation at the base as fast as new matter is being added above. On the other hand, an ascending warm current of air may be constantly depositing moisture at the base of the cloud, and this may be evaporating under the solar rays above. In this case a cloud is "merely the visible form of an aerial space, in which certain processes are at the moment in equilibrium, and all the particles in a state of upward movement." [70] But so soon as condensation markedly exceeds evaporation, rain falls, and the atmosphere discharges its vast load of water—how vast we may gather from the fact that the waters of all the rivers are but a part of the overflowings of the great atmospheric reservoir. "God binds up the waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent under them." It is thus that the terrestrial waters are divided into those above and those below that expanse of clear air in which we live and move, exempt from the dense, dark mists of the earth's earlier state, yet enjoying the benefits of the cloudy curtain that veils the burning sun, and of the cloudy reservoirs that drop down rain to nourish every green thing.

We have no reason to suppose that the laws which regulate mixtures of gases and vapors did not prevail in the period in question. It is probable that these laws are as old as the creation of matter; but the condition of our earth up to the second day must have been such as prevented them from operating as at present. Such a condition might possibly be the result of an excessive evaporation occasioned by internal heat. The interior of the earth still remains in a heated state, and includes large subterranean reservoirs of melted rock, as is proved by the increase of temperature in deep mines and borings, and by the widely extended phenomena of hot springs and volcanic action. At the period in question the internal temperature of the earth was probably vastly greater than at present, and perhaps the whole interior of the globe may have been in a state of igneous fluidity. At the same time the external solid crust may have been thin, and it was not fractured and thickened in places by the upheaval of mountain chains or the deposition of great and unequal sheets of sediment; for, as I may again remind the reader, the primitive chaos did not consist of a confused accumulation of rocky masses, but the earth's crust must then have been more smooth and unbroken than at any subsequent period. This being the internal condition of the earth, it is quite conceivable, without any violation of the existing laws of nature, that the waters of the ocean, warmed by internal heat, may have sent up a sufficient quantity of vapor to keep the lower strata of air in a constant state of saturation, and to occasion an equally constant precipitation of moisture from the colder strata above. This would merely be the universal operation of a cause similar to that which now produces fogs at the northern limit of the Atlantic Gulf Stream, and in other localities where currents of warm water flow under or near to cooler air. Such a state of things is more conceivable in a globe covered with water, and consequently destitute of the dry and powerfully radiating surfaces which land presents, and receiving from without the rays, not of a solar orb, but of a comparatively feeble and diffused luminous ether. The continued action of these causes would gradually cool the earth's crust and its incumbent waters, until the heat from without preponderated over that from within, when the result stated in the text would be effected.

The statements of our primitive authority for this condition of the earth might also be accounted for on the supposition that the permanently gaseous part of the atmosphere did not at the period in question exist in its present state, but that it was on the second day actually elaborated and caused to take its place in separating the atmospheric from the oceanic waters. The first is by far the more probable view; but we may still apply to such speculations the words of Elihu, the friend of Job:

"Stand still and consider the wonderful works of God.
Dost thou know when God disposes them,
And the lightning of his cloud shines forth?
Dost thou know the poising of the dark clouds,
The wonderful works of the Perfect in knowledge?"

We may now consider the words in which this great improvement in the condition of the earth is recorded. The Hebrew term for the atmosphere is Rakiah, literally, something expanded or beaten out—an expanse. It is rendered in our version "firmament," a word conveying the notion of support and fixity, and in the Septuagint "Stereoma," a word having a similar meaning. The idea conveyed by the Hebrew word is not, however, that of strength, but of extent; or as Milton—the most accurate of expositors of these words—has it:

"The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure,
Transparent, elemental air, diffused
In circuit to the uttermost convex
Of this great round."

That this was really the way in which this word was understood by the Hebrews appears from several passages of the Bible. Job says of God, "Who alone spreadeth out the heavens." [71] David, in the 104th Psalm, which is a poetical paraphrase of the history of creation, speaks of the Creator as "stretching out the heavens as a curtain." In later writers, as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, similar expressions occur. The notion of a solid or arched firmament was probably altogether remote from the minds of these writers. Such beliefs may have prevailed at the time when the Septuagint translation was made, but I have no hesitation in affirming that no trace of them can be found in the Old Testament. In proof of this, I may refer to some of the passages which have been cited as affording the strongest instances of this kind of "accommodation." In Exodus xxiv., 10, we are told, "And they saw the God of Israel, and under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire, and as it were the heaven itself in its clearness." This is evidently a comparison of the pavement seen under the feet of Jehovah to a sapphire in its color, and to the heavens in its transparency. The intention of the writer is not to give information respecting the heavens, or to liken them either to a pavement or a sapphire; all that we can infer is that he believed the heavens to be clear or transparent. Job mentions the "pillars of heaven," but the connection shows that this is merely a poetical expression for lofty mountains. The earthquake causes these pillars of heaven to "tremble." We are informed in the book of Job that God "ties up his waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent under them." We are also told of the "treasures of snow and the treasures of hail," and rain is called the "bottles of heaven," and is said to be poured out of the "lattices of heaven." I recognize in all these mere poetical figures, not intended to be literally understood. Some learned writers wish us to believe that the intention of the Bible in these places is actually to teach that the clouds are contained in skin bottles, or something similar, and that they are emptied through hatches in a solid firmament. To found such a belief, however, on a few figurative statements, seems ridiculous, especially when we consider that the writers of the Scriptures show themselves to be well acquainted with nature, and would not be likely on any account to deviate so far from the ordinary testimony of the senses; more especially as by doing so they would enable every unlettered man who has seen a cloud gather on a mountain's brow or dissolve away before increasing heat to oppose the evidence of his senses to their statements, and perhaps to reject them with scorn as a barefaced imposture. But, lastly, we are triumphantly directed to the question of Elihu in his address to Job:

"Hast thou with him stretched out the sky,
Which is firm and like a molten mirror?"

But the word translated sky here is not "rakiah," or "shamayim," but another signifying the clouds, so that we should regard Elihu as speaking of the apparent firmness or stability, and the beautiful reflected tints of the clouds. His words may be paraphrased thus: "Hast thou aided Him in spreading out those clouds, which appear so stable and self-sustaining, and so beautifully reflect the sunlight?" [72] The above passages form the only authority which I can find in the Scriptures for the doctrine of a solid firmament, which may therefore be characterized as a modern figment of men more learned in books but less acquainted with nature than the Scripture writers. As a contrast to all such doctrines I may quote the sublime opening of the poetical account of creation in Psalm civ., which we may also take here as elsewhere as the oldest and most authoritative commentary on the first chapter of Genesis:

"Bless the Lord, O my soul!
O Lord, my God, thou art very great:
Thou art clothed with honor and majesty,
Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment,
Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain (of a tent),
Who layest the beams of thy chambers in the waters,
Who makest the clouds thy chariots,
Who walkest upon the wings of the wind."

The waters here are those above the firmament, the whole of this part of the Psalm being occupied with the heavens; and there is no place left for the solid firmament, of which the writer evidently knew nothing. He represents God as laying his chambers on the waters, instead of on the supposed firmament, and as careering in cloudy chariots on the wings of the wind, instead of over a solid arch. For all the above reasons, we conclude that the "expanse" of the verses under consideration was understood by the writers of the book of God to be aerial, not solid; and the "establishment of the clouds above," as it is finely called in Proverbs, is the effect of those meteorological laws to which I have already referred, and which were now for the first time brought into operation by the divine Legislator. The Hebrew theology was not of a kind to require such expedients as that of solid heavenly arches; it recurred at once to the will—the decree—of Jehovah; and was content to believe that through this efficient cause the "rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full," for "to the place whence the rivers came, thither they return again," through the agency of those floating clouds, "the waters above the heavens," which "pour down rain according to the vapor thereof."

God called the expanse "Heaven." In former chapters we have noticed that heaven in the popular speech of the Hebrews, as in our own, had different meanings, applying alike to the cloudy, the astral, and the spiritual heavens. The Creator here sanctions its application to the aerial expanse; and accordingly throughout the Scriptures it is used in this way; rakiah occurs very rarely, as if it had become nearly obsolete, or was perhaps regarded as a merely technical or descriptive term. The divine sanction for the use of the term heaven for the atmosphere is, as already explained, to indicate that this popular use is not to interfere with its application to the whole universe beyond our earth in verse 1st.

The poetical parts of the Bible, and especially the book of Job, which is probably the most ancient of the whole, abound in references to the atmosphere and its phenomena. I may quote a few of these passages, to enable us to understand the views of these subjects given in the Bible, and the meaning attached to the creation of the atmosphere, in very ancient periods. In Job, 38th chapter, we have the following:

"In what way is the lightning distributed,
And how is the east wind spread abroad over the earth?
Who hath opened a channel for the pouring rain,
Or a way for the thunder-flash?
To cause it to rain on the land where no man is,
In the desert where no one dwells;
To saturate the desolate and waste ground,
And to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth."

Here we have the unequal and unforeseen distribution of thunder-storms, beyond the knowledge and power of man, but under the absolute control of God, and designed by him for beneficent purposes. Equally fine are some of the following lines:

"Dost thou lift up thy voice to the clouds,
That abundance of waters may cover thee?
Dost thou send forth the lightnings, and they go,
And say unto thee, Here are we?
Who can number the clouds by wisdom,
Or cause the bottles of heaven to empty themselves?
When the dust groweth into mire,
And the clods cleave fast together?"

In the 36th and 37th chapters of the same book we have a grand description of atmospheric changes in their relation to man and his works. The speaker is Elihu, who in this ancient book most favorably represents the knowledge of nature that existed at a time probably anterior to the age of Moses—a knowledge far superior to that which we find in the works of many modern poets and expositors, and accompanied by an intense appreciation of the grandeur and beauty of natural objects:

"For he draweth up the drops of water,
Rain is condensed [73] from his vapor,
Which the clouds do drop,
And distill upon man abundantly.
Yea, can any understand the distribution of the clouds
Or the thundering of his tabernacle. [74]
Behold he spreadeth his lightning upon it,
He covereth it as with the depths of the sea. [75]
By these he executes judgment on the people,
By these also he giveth food in abundance;
His hands he covers with the lightning,
And commands it (against the enemy) in its striking;
He uttereth to it his decree, [76]
Concerning the herd as well as proud man.
At this also my heart trembles,
And bounds out of its place;
Hear attentively the thunder of his voice,
And the loud sound that goes from his mouth.
He directs it under the whole heavens,
And his lightning to the ends of the earth.
After it his voice roareth,
He thundereth with the voice of his majesty;
And delays not (the tempest) when his voice is heard.
God thundereth marvellously with his voice,
He doeth wonders which we can not comprehend;
For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth.
Also to the pouring rain, even the great rain of his might.
He sealeth up the hand of every man,
That all men may know his work.
Then the beasts go to their dens,
And remain in their caverns.
Out of the south cometh the whirlwind
And cold out of the north,
By the breath of God the frost is produced
And the breadth of waters becomes bound;
With moisture he loads the thick cloud,
He spreads the cloud of his lightning,
And it is turned about by his direction,
To execute his pleasure on the face of the world;
Whether for correction, for his land, or for mercy,
He causeth it to come.
Hearken unto this, O Job,
Stand still and consider the wonderful works of God.
Dost thou know when God disposes these things,
And the lightning of his cloud flashes forth?
Dost thou know the poising of the clouds,
The wonderful work of the Perfect in knowledge?
When thy garments become warm
When he quieteth the earth by the south wind;
Hast thou with him spread out the clouds
Firm and like a molten mirror?" [77]

It would not be easy to find, in the poetry of any nation or time, a description of so many natural phenomena, so fine in feeling or truthful in delineation. It should go far to dispel the too prevalent ideas of early Oriental ignorance, and should lead to a more full appreciation of these noble pictures of nature, unsurpassed in the literature of any people or time. I trust that the previous illustrations are sufficient to show, not only that the stereoma, or solid firmament of the Septuagint, is not to be found in Scripture, but that the positive doctrine of the Bible on the subject is of a very different character. For instance, in the above extract from the book of Job, Elihu speaks of the poising or suspension of the clouds as inscrutable, and tells us that God draws up water into the clouds, and pours down rain according to the vapor thereof; he also speaks of the clouds as being scattered before the brightness of the sun; and notices, in truthful as well as exalted language, the nature and succession of the lightning's flash, the thunder, and the precipitation of rain that follows. Solomon also informs us that the "establishment of the clouds above" is due to the law or will of Jehovah. Finally, in this connection, the divine sanction given to the use of the term heaven for the atmosphere may in itself be regarded as an intimation that no definite barrier separates our film of atmosphere from the boundless abyss of heaven without.

Of this period natural science gives us no intimation. In the earliest geological epochs organic life, dry land, and an atmosphere already existed. At the period now under consideration the two former had not been called into existence, and the latter was in process of elaboration from the materials of the primeval deep. If the formation of the atmosphere in its existing conditions was, as already hinted, a result of the gradual cooling of the earth, then this period must have been of great length, and the action of the heated waters on the crust of the globe may have produced thick layers of detrital matter destined to form the first soils of the succeeding æon. We know nothing, however, of these primitive strata, and most of them must have been removed by denuding agencies in succeeding periods, or restored by subterranean heat to the crystalline state. The events and results of this day may be summed up as follows:

"At the commencement of the period the earth was enveloped by a misty or vaporous mantle. In its progress those relations of air and vapor which cause the separation of the clouds from the earth by a layer of clear air, and the varied alternations of sunshine and rain, were established. At the close of the period the newly formed atmosphere covered a universal ocean; and there was probably a very regular and uniform condition of the atmospheric currents, and of the processes of evaporation and condensation."

But while we must affirm that no idea of a solid atmospheric vault can be detected in the Bible, and while we may also affirm that such an idea would have been altogether foreign to its tone, which invariably refers all things not to secondary machinery, but to the will and fiat of the Supreme, we must not forget that a most important moral purpose was to be served by the assertion of the establishment of the atmospheric expanse. Among all nations the phenomena of the atmosphere have had important theological and mythological relations. The ever-changing and apparently capricious aspects of the atmosphere and its clouds, the terrible effects of storms, and the balmy influence of sunshine and calm, deeply impress the minds of simple and superstitious men, and this all the more that in their daily life and expeditions they are constantly subjected to the effects of atmospheric vicissitudes. Hence the greatest gods of all the ancient nations are weather-gods—rulers of the atmospheric heavens—displaying their anger in the thunder-storm and tornado. It is likely that in most cases, as in many barbarous tribes of modern times, these weather-gods were malevolent beings contending against the genial influences of the heavenly Sun-god; but in nearly every case their supposed practical importance has elevated them, as in the case of the Olympian Zeus, the Scandinavian Thor, and the American Hurakon, to the place of supreme divinity. This was one of the superstitions which the Hebrew monotheism had to overcome. Hence the atmosphere is affirmed to be under Jehovah's law, and all its phenomena are attributed to his power. The value of this as cutting at the root of the most widespread superstitions it is easy to understand, and it has a farther value in teaching that even the apparently unstable and capricious air is a thing established from the first and amenable to the ordinance of God. How difficult it has been to eradicate superstitious views of the atmosphere may be learned from the fact that St. Paul, in writing to the enlightened citizens of Ephesus, could speak of the power which the heathen worshipped as the "Prince of the powers of the air," and it is also evidenced by the abundant notions of this kind which have survived from the Middle Ages among the more ignorant part of the people even in lands called Christian.

While, however, the Bible affirms the atmosphere to be subject to law, it does not carry this into the domain of physical necessity, and affirm with some modern materialistic philosophers that it is useless to pray for rain. It is God who gives rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, and what he gives he can withhold. Perhaps no part of our subject can better than this illustrate the rational distinction between a mere physical fatalism, or a mere superstitious fear of capricious nature, and that belief in a divine Lawgiver which lies between these extremes. Modern science may smile at the poor Indian, who in his fear invokes Hurakon or Tlaloc or the terrible Thunder-bird, and may even despise that nobler worship of the great Phoenician Sun-god, the source and fountain of all light and life; against which, though it was the grandest of all the old idolatries, Elijah waged war to the death. But may it not equally deride the faith of Elijah himself, when, after three years of drought, he prayed in the sight of assembled Israel for rain? It may do so if physical law amounts to an invariable necessity, and if there is no supreme Will behind it. But if natural laws are the expression of the divine will, if these laws are multiform and complicated in their relations, and regulate vastly varied causes interacting with each other, and if the action and welfare of man come within the scope of these laws, then there is nothing irrational in the supposition that God, without any capricious or miraculous intervention, may have so correlated the myriad adjustments of his creation as that, while it is his usual rule that rain falls alike on the evil and on the good, he may make its descent at particular times and places to depend on the needs and requests of his own children. In truth the belief in law is essential to the philosophical conception of prayer. If the universe were a mere chaos of chances, or if it were a result of absolute necessity, there would be no place for intelligent prayer; but if it is under the control of a Lawgiver, wise and merciful, not a mere manager of material machinery, but a true Father of all, then we can go to such a being with our requests, not in the belief that we can change his great plans, or that any advantage could result from this if it were possible, but that these plans may be made in his boundless wisdom and love to meet our necessities. There is also in the Bible the farther promise that, if we are truly the children of God, regulating our conduct by his will and enlightened by his spirit, we shall know how to pray for what is in accordance with his divine purpose, and how to receive with gladness whatever he sees fit to give. While, therefore, the Biblical doctrine as to natural law emancipates us from fears of angry storm-demons, it draws us near to a heavenly Father, whose power is above all the tempests of earth, and who, while ruling by law, has regulated all things in conformity with the higher law of love. When God had made the atmosphere, he saw that it was good, and the highest significance is given to this by the consideration that God is love. The position of the Bible is thus the true mean between superstitions at once unhappy and debasing, and a materialistic infidelity that would reduce the universe to a dead, remorseless machine, in which we must struggle for a precarious existence till we are crushed between its wheels.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DRY LAND AND THE FIRST PLANTS.

The elevation of the dry land is more frequently referred to in Scripture than any other cosmological fact; and while all have been misapprehended, the statements on this subject have been even more unjustly dealt with than others. In the text, the word "earth" (aretz [78] ) is, by divine sanction, narrowed in meaning to the dry land; but while some expositors are quite willing to restrict it to this, or even a more limited sense, in the first and second verses of this chapter, almost the only verses in the Bible where the terms of the narrative make such a restriction inadmissible, they are equally ready to understand it as meaning the whole globe in places where the explanatory clause in the verse now under consideration teaches us that we should understand the land only, as distinguished from the sea. I may quote some of these passages, and note the views they give; always bearing in mind that, after the intimation here given, we must understand the term "earth" as applying only to the continents or dry land, unless where the context otherwise fixes the meaning. We may first turn to Psalm civ.:

"Thou laidst the foundations of the earth,
That it should never be removed;
Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment;
The waters stood above the mountains;
At thy rebuke they fled;
At the sound of thy thunder they hasted away;
Mountains ascended, valleys descended
To the place thou hast appointed for them:
Thou hast appointed them bounds that they may not pass,
That they return not again to cover the earth."

The position of these verses in this "the hymn of creation" leaves no doubt that they refer to the events we are now considering. I have given above the literal reading of the line that refers to the elevation of mountains and subsidence of valleys; admitting, however, that the grammatical construction gives an air of probability to the rendering in our version, "they go up by the mountains, they go down by the valleys," which, on the other hand, is rendered very improbable by the sense. In whichever sense we understand this line, the picture presented to us by the Psalmist includes the elevation of the mountains and continents, the subsidence of the waters into their depressed basins, and the firm establishment of the dry land on its rocky foundations, the whole accompanied by a feature not noticed in Genesis—the voice of God's thunder—or, in other words, electrical and volcanic explosions. The following quotations refer to the same subject:

"Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills was I (the Wisdom of God) brought forth;
While as yet he had not made the earth,
Nor the plains, nor the higher parts of the habitable world.
When he gave the sea his decree
That the waters should not pass his limits,
When he determined the foundations of the earth."
—Proverbs viii., 25.

"Thou hast established the earth, and it endureth,
According to thy decrees they continue this day,
For all are thy servants."
—Psalm cxix., 90.

"Who shaketh the earth out of its place,
And its pillars tremble."
—Job ix., 6.

"Where wast thou when I founded the earth?
Declare, if thou hast knowledge.
Who hath fixed the proportion thereof, if thou knowest?
Who stretched the line upon it?
Upon what are its foundations settled?
Or who laid its corner-stone,
When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Who shut up the sea with doors
In its bursting forth as from the womb?
When I made the cloud its garment,
And swathed it in thick darkness,
I measured out for it my limit,
And fixed its bars and doors;
And said, Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther,
And here shall thy proud waves be stayed."
—Job xxxviii., 4.

In these passages the foundation of the earth at first, as well as the shaking of its pillars by the earthquake, are connected with what we usually call natural law—the decree of the Almighty—the unchanging arrangements of an unchangeable Creator, whose "hands formed the dry land." [79] This is the ultimate cause not only of the elevation of the land, but of all other natural things and processes. The naturalist does not require to be informed that the details, in so far as they are referred to in the above passages, are perfectly in accordance with what we know of the nature and support of continental masses. Geological observation and mathematical calculation have in our day combined their powers to give clear views of the manner in which the fractured strata of the earth are wedged and arched together, and supported by internal igneous masses upheaved from beneath, and subsequently cooled and hardened. A general view of these facts which we have learned from scientific inquiry, the Hebrews gleaned with nearly as much precision from the short account of the elevation of the land in Genesis, and from the later comments of their inspired poets. From the same source our own great poet, Milton, learned these cosmical facts, before the rise of geology, and expressed them in unexceptionable terms:

"The mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky.
So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow bottom, broad and deep,
Capacious bed of waters."

In further illustration of the opinions of the Scripture writers respecting the nature of the earth, and the disturbances to which it is liable, I quote the following passages. The first is from the magnificent description of Jehovah descending to succor his people amid the terrors of the earthquake, the volcano, and the thunder-storm, in Psalm xviii.:

"Then shook and trembled the earth,
The foundations of the hills moved and were shaken,
Because he was angry.
Smoke went up from his nostrils,
Fire from his mouth devoured,
Coals were kindled by it.
Then were seen the channels of the waters,
And the foundations of the world were discovered,
At thy rebuke—O Jehovah—
At the blast of the breath of thy nostrils."

In another place in the Psalms we find volcanic action thus tersely sketched:

"He looketh on the earth and it trembleth,
He toucheth the hills and they smoke."
—Psalm civ., 32.

Perhaps the most remarkable discourse on this subject in the whole Bible is that in Job xxviii., in which mining operations are introduced as an illustration of the difficulty of obtaining true wisdom. This passage is interesting both from its extreme antiquity, and the advancement in knowledge and practical skill which it indicates. It presents, however, many difficulties; and its details have almost entirely lost their true significance in our common English version:

"Surely there is a vein for silver,
And a place for the gold which men refine;
Iron is taken from the earth,
And copper is molten from the ore.
To the end of darkness and to all extremes man searcheth,
For the stones of darkness and the shadow of death.
He opens a passage [shaft] from where men dwell,
Unsupported by the foot, they hang down and swing to and fro. [80]
The earth—out of it cometh bread;
And beneath, it is overturned as by fire. [81]
Its stones are the place of sapphires,
And it hath lumps [82] of gold.
The path (thereto) the bird of prey hath not known,
The vulture's eye hath not seen it. [83]
The wild beasts' whelps have not trodden it,
The lion hath not passed over it.
Man layeth his hand on the hard rock,
He turneth up the mountains from their roots,
He cutteth channels [adits] in the rocks,
His eye seeth every precious thing.
He restraineth the streams from trickling,
And bringeth the hidden thing to light.
But where shall wisdom be found,
And where is the place of understanding?"

This passage, incidentally introduced, gives us a glimpse of the knowledge of the interior of the earth and its products, as it existed in an age probably anterior to that of Moses. It brings before us the repositories of the valuable metals and gems—the mining operations, apparently of some magnitude and difficulty, undertaken in extracting them—and the wonderful structure of the earth itself, green and productive at the surface, rich in precious metals beneath, and deeper still the abode of intense subterranean fires. The only thing wanting to give completeness to the picture is some mention of the fossil remains buried in the earth; and, as the main thought is the eager and successful search for useful minerals, this can hardly be regarded as a defect. The application of all this is finer than almost any thing else in didactic poetry. Man can explore depths of the earth inaccessible to all other creatures, and extract thence treasures of inestimable value; yet, after thus exhausting all the natural riches of the earth, he too often lacks that highest wisdom which alone can fit him for the true ends of his spiritual being. How true is all this, even in our own wonder-working days! A poet of to-day could scarcely say more of subterranean wonders, or say it more truthfully and beautifully; nor could he arrive at a conclusion more pregnant with the highest philosophy than the closing words:

"The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;
And to depart from evil is understanding."

The emergence of the dry land is followed by a repetition of the approval of the Creator. "God saw that it was good." To our view that primeval dry land would scarcely have seemed good. It was a world of bare, rocky peaks, and verdureless valleys—here active volcanoes, with their heaps of scoriæ and scarcely cooled lava currents—there vast mudflats, recently upheaved from the bottom of the waters—nowhere even a blade of grass or a clinging lichen. Yet it was good in the view of its Maker, who could see it in relation to the uses for which he had made it, and as a fit preparatory step to the new wonders he was soon to introduce. Then too, as we are informed in Job xxxviii., "The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." We also, when we think of the beautiful variety of the terrestrial surface, the character and composition of its soils, the variety of climate and exposure resulting from its degrees of elevation, the arrangements for the continuance of springs and streams, and many other beneficial provisions connected with the merely mechanical arrangements of the dry land, may well join in the tribute of praise to the All-wise Creator. There is, however, a farther thought suggested by the approval of the great Artificer. In this wondrous progress of creation, it seems as if every thing at first was in its best estate. No succeeding state could parallel the unbroken symmetry of the earth in the fluid and vaporous condition of the "deep." Before the elevation of the land, the atmospheric currents and the deposition of moisture must have been surpassingly regular. The first dry land may have presented crags and peaks and ravines and volcanic cones in a more marvellous and perfect manner than any succeeding continents—even as the dry and barren moon now, in this respect, far surpasses the earths. In the progress of organic life, geology gives similar indications, in the variety and magnitude of many animal types on their first introduction; so that this may very possibly be a law of creation.

During the emergence of the first dry land, large quantities of detrital matter must have been deposited in the waters, and in part elevated into land. All of these beds would, probably, be destitute of organic remains; but if such beds were formed and still remain, they are probably unknown to us, for the oldest formations that we know—those of the Eozoic age—contain traces of such remains. It has, indeed, been suggested that these most ancient organisms are, as it were, overlooked in the history of creation, or regarded as equivalent to those shapeless monsters and animals of the darkness that are referred to in the older Turanian versions of this story of creation. I doubt very much, however, if this is a fair interpretation of our ancient record; but we shall be in a better position to discuss it when we come to the actual introduction of animals.

Modern analogy would induce us to believe that the land was not elevated suddenly; but either by a series of small paroxysms, as in the case of Chili, or by a gradual and imperceptible movement, as in the case of Sweden—two of the most remarkable modern instances of elevation of land—accompanied, however, in the case of the last by local subsidence. [84] In either of these ways the seas and rivers would have time to smooth the more rugged inequalities, to widen the ravines into valleys, and to spread out sediment in the lower grounds; thus fitting the surface for the habitation of plants and animals. We must not suppose, however, that the dry land had any close resemblance to that now existing in its form or distribution. Geology amply proves that since the first appearance of dry land, its contour has frequently been changed, and probably also its position. Hence nearly all our present land consists of rocks which have been formed under the waters, long after the period now under consideration, and have been subsequently hardened and elevated; and since all the existing high mountain ranges are of a comparatively late age, it is probable that this primeval dry land was low, as well as, in the earlier part of the period at least, of comparatively small extent. It is, however, by no means certain that there may not have been a greater expanse of land toward the close of this period than that which afterwards existed in those older periods of animal life to which the earliest fossiliferous rocks of the geologist carry us back; since, as already hinted, it seems to be a rule in creation that each new object shall be highly developed of its kind at its first appearance, and since there have been in geological time many great subsidences as well as elevations. Neither must we forget that the oldest land has been subjected throughout geological time to wearing and degrading agencies, and that from its waste the later formations have been mainly derived.

It would be wrong, however, to omit to state that, though we may know at present no remains of the first dry land, we are not ignorant of its general distribution; for the present continents show, in the arrangement of their formations and mountain chains, evidence that they are parts of a plan sketched out from the beginning. It has often been remarked by physical geographers that the great lines of coast and mountain ranges are generally in directions approaching to northeast and southwest, or northwest and southeast, and that where they run in other directions, as in the case of the south of Europe and Asia, they are much broken by salient and re-entering angles, formed by lines having these directions. Professor R. Owen, of Tennessee, and Professor Pierce, of Harvard College, were, I believe, the first to point out that these lines are in reality parts of great circles tangent to the polar circles, and the latter to suggest a theory of their origin, based on the action of solar heat and the seasons on a cooling earth. This has been more fully stated by Mr. W. Lowthian Green in his curious book, "Vestiges of the Molten Globe." [85] It would appear that the great circles in question are in reality at right angles to the line of direction of the attraction of the sun and moon at the period of either solstice, and when they happen to be in conjunction or opposition at these periods; and that such circles would be the lines on which the thin crust of a cooling globe would be most likely to be ruptured by its internal tidal-wave. Whatever the cause of the phenomenon, it is evident that in the formation of its surface inequalities the earth has cracked—so to speak—along two series of great circles tangent to the polar circles; and that these, with certain subordinate lines of fracture running north and south and east and west, have determined the forms of the continents from their origin.

M. Elie de Beaumont, and after him most other geologists, have attributed the elevation of the continents and the upheaval and plication of mountain chains to the secular refrigeration of the earth, causing its outer shell to become too capacious for its contracting interior mass, and thus to break or bend, and to settle toward the centre. This view would well accord with the terms in which the elevation of the land is mentioned throughout the Bible, and especially with the general progress of the work as we have gleaned it from the Mosaic narrative; since from the period of the desolate void and aeriform deep to that now before us secular refrigeration must have been steadily in progress. Let us also observe here that the earliest fractures of the crust would determine the first coast lines, and the first slopes along which sedimentary matter would descend from the land and be deposited in the sea. They would also modify the direction of the ocean currents. Thus the deposition of new formations would be directed by these old lines, as would also to some extent the course of all subsequent fractures and plications. Thus it happens that the lines of outcrop of the oldest rocks first raised out of the waters already marked out the forms of the continents, and that the later formations appear rather as fillings-up and extensions of the skeleton established by the first dry land. Farther, the lines of plication first established along the borders of the continents formed resisting walls along which, in the continued contraction of the earth, pressure was exerted from the ocean bed, widening and elevating these lines of upheaval, and still farther fixing the general forms of the continents, and giving variety to their surfaces. In the progress of geological time there have also been successive depressions and re-elevations of the continental plateaus, subjecting them alternately to the wearing and disintegrating action of the atmosphere and its waters, and to the influence of waves and ocean currents, and especially to that of the deep-seated polar currents which have throughout geological ages been loading the submerged areas of the earth's surface with the products of the waste caused by frost and ice in the polar regions. These causes again have been progressively increasing the oblateness of the earth's figure, and, along with the slackening of its rotation, preparing the way for those periodical collapses in the equatorial and temperate regions which form the boundaries of some of our most important geological periods. [86] Throughout all these changes the great general plan of the continents, first sketched out when the "foundations of the earth" were laid, before Eozoic time, was being elaborated.

The same creative period that witnessed the first appearance of dry land saw it also clothed with vegetation; and it is quite likely that this is intended to teach that no time was lost in clothing the earth with plants—that the first emerging portions received their vegetable tenants as they became fitted for them—and that each additional region, as it rose above the surface of the waters, in like manner received the species of plants for which it was adapted. What was the nature of this earliest vegetation? The sacred writer specifies three descriptions of plants as included in it; and, by considering the terms which he uses, some information on this subject may be gained.

Deshé, translated "grass" in our version, is derived from a verb signifying to spring up or bud forth; the same verb, indeed, used in this verse to denote "bringing forth," literally causing to spring up. Its radical meaning is, therefore, vegetation in the act of sprouting or springing forth; or, as connected with this, young and delicate herbage. Thus, in Job xxxviii., "To satisfy the desolate and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the young herbage to spring forth." Here the reference is, no doubt, to the bulbous and tuberous rooted plants of the desert plains, which, fading away in the summer drought, burst forth with magical rapidity on the setting-in of rain. The following passages are similar: Psalm xxiii., "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures" (literally, young or tender herbage); Deuteronomy xxiii., "Small rain upon the tender herb;" Isaiah xxxvii., "Grass on the house-tops." The word is also used for herbage such as can be eaten by cattle or cut down for fodder, though even in these cases the idea of young and tender herbage is evidently included; "Fat as a heifer at grass" (Jer. xiv.)—that is, feeding on young succulent grass, not that which is dry and parched. "Cut down as the grass, or wither as the green herb," like the soft, tender grass, soon cut down and quickly withering. With respect to the use of the word in this place, I may remark: 1. It is not here correctly translated by the word "grass;" for grass bears seed, and is, consequently, a member of the second class of plants mentioned. Even if we set aside all idea of inspiration, it is obviously impossible that any one living among a pastoral or agricultural people could have been ignorant of this fact. 2. It can scarcely be a general term, including all plants when in a young or tender state. The idea of their springing up is included in the verb, and this was but a very temporary condition. Besides, this word does not appear to be employed for the young state of shrubs or trees. 3. We thus appear to be shut up to the conclusion that deshé here means those plants, mostly small and herbaceous, which bear no proper seeds; [87] in other words, the Cryptogamia—as fungi, mosses, lichens, ferns, etc. The remaining words are translated with sufficient accuracy in our version. They denote seed-bearing or phoenogamous herbs and trees. The special mention of the fructification of plants is probably intended not only for distinction, but also to indicate the new power of organic reproduction now first introduced on the surface of our planet, and to mark its difference from the creative act itself. That this new and wondrous phenomenon should be so stated is thus in strict scientific propriety, and it is precisely the point that would be seized by an intelligent spectator of the visions of creation, who had previously witnessed only the accretion and disintegration of mineral substances, and to whom this marvellous power of organic reproduction would be in every respect a new creation.

The arrangement of plants in the three great classes of cryptogams, seed-bearing herbs, and fruit-bearing trees differs in one important point—viz., the separation of herbaceous plants from trees—from modern botanical classification. It is, however, sufficiently natural for the purposes of a general description like this, and perhaps gives more precise ideas of the meaning intended than any other arrangement equally concise and popular. It is also probable that the object of the writer was not so much a natural-history classification as an account of the order of creation, and that he wishes to affirm that the introduction of these three classes of plants on the earth corresponded with the order here stated. This view renders it unnecessary to vindicate the accuracy of the arrangement on botanical grounds, since the historical order was evidently better suited to the purpose in view, and in so far as the earlier appearance of cryptogamous plants is concerned, it is in strict accordance with geological fact.

A very important truth is contained in the expression "after its kind"—that is, after its species; for the Hebrew "min," used here, has strictly this sense, and, like the Greek idea and the Latin species, conveys the notion of form as well as that of kind. It is used to denote species of animals, in Leviticus i., 14, and in Deuteronomy xiv., 15. We are taught by this statement that plants were created each kind by itself; and that creation was not a sort of slump-work to be perfected by the operation of a law of development, as fancied by some modern speculators. In this assertion of the distinctness of species, and the production of each as a distinct part of the creative plan, revelation tallies perfectly with the conclusions of natural science, which lead us to believe that each species, as observed by us, is permanently reproductive, variable within narrow limits, and incapable of permanent intermixture with other species; and though hypotheses of modification by descent, and of the production of new species by such modification, may be formed, they are not in accordance with experience, and are still among the unproved speculations which haunt the outskirts of true science. We shall be better prepared, however, to weigh the relations of such hypotheses to our revelation of origins when we shall have reached the period of the introduction of animal life.

Some additional facts contained in the recapitulation of the creative work in Chapter II. may very properly be considered here, as they seem to refer to the climatal conditions of the earth during the growth of the most ancient vegetation, and before the final adjustment of the astronomical relations of the earth on the fourth day. "And every shrub of the land before it was on the earth, and every herb of the land before it sprung up. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground; but a mist ascended from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground." This has been supposed to be a description of the state of the earth during the whole period anterior to the fall of man. There is, however, no Scripture evidence of this; and geology informs us that rain fell as at present far back in the Palæozoic period, countless ages before the creation of man or the existing animals. Although, however, such a condition of the earth as that stated in these verses has not been known in any geological period, yet it is not inconceivable, but in reality corresponds with the other conditions of nature likely to have prevailed on the third day, as described in Genesis. The land of this period, we may suppose, was not very extensive nor very elevated. Hence the temperature would be uniform and the air moist. The luminous and calorific matter connected with the sun still occupied a large space, and therefore diffused heat and light more uniformly than at present. The internal heat of the earth may still have produced an effect in warming the oceanic waters. The combined operation of these causes, of which we, perhaps, have some traces as late as the Carboniferous period, might well produce a state of things in which the earth was watered, not by showers of rain, but by the gentle and continued precipitation of finely divided moisture, in the manner now observed in those climates in which vegetation is nourished for a considerable part of the year by nocturnal mists and copious dews. The atmosphere, in short, as yet partook in some slight degree of the same moist and misty character which prevailed before the "establishment of the clouds above"—the airy firmament of the second day. The introduction of these explanatory particulars by the sacred historian furnishes an additional argument for the theory of long periods. That vegetation should exist for two or three natural days without rain or the irrigation which is given in culture, was, as already stated, a circumstance altogether unworthy of notice; but the growth during a long period of a varied and highly organized flora, without this advantage, and by the aid of a special natural provision afterward discontinued, was in all respects so remarkable and so highly illustrative of the expedients of the divine wisdom that it deserved a prominent place.

It is evident that the words of the inspired writer include plants belonging to all the great subdivisions of the vegetable kingdom. This earliest vegetation was not rude or incomplete, or restricted to the lower forms of life. It was not even, like that of the coal period, solely or mainly cryptogamous or gymnospermous. It included trees bearing fruit, as well as lichens and mosses, and it received the same stamp of approbation bestowed on other portions of the work—"it was good." We have a good right to assume that its excellence had reference not only to its own period, but to subsequent conditions of the earth. Vegetation is the great assimilating power, the converter of inorganic into organic matter suitable for the sustenance of animals. In like manner the lower tribes of plants prepare the way for the higher. We should therefore have expected à priori that vegetation would have clothed the earth before the creation of animals, and a sufficient time before it to allow soils to be accumulated, and surplus stores of organic matter to be prepared in advance: this consideration alone would also induce us to assign a considerable duration to the third day. After the elevation of land, and the draining off from it of the saline matter with which it would be saturated, a process often very tedious, especially in low tracts of ground, the soil would still consist only of mineral matter, and must have been for a long period occupied by plants suited to this condition of things, in order that sufficient organic matter might be accumulated for the growth of a more varied vegetation; a consideration which perhaps illustrates the order of the plants in the narrative.

It may be objected to the above views that, however accordant with chemical and physiological probabilities, they do not harmonize with the facts of geology; since the earliest fossiliferous formations contain almost exclusively the remains of animals, which must therefore have preceded, or at least been coeval with, the earliest forms of terrestrial vegetation. This objection is founded on well-ascertained facts, but facts which may have no connection with the third day of creation when regarded as a long period. The oldest geological formations are of marine origin, and contain remains of marine animals, with those of plants supposed to be allied to the existing algæ or sea-weeds. Geology can not, however, assure us either that no land plants existed contemporaneously with these earliest animals, or that no land flora preceded them. These oldest fossiliferous rocks may mark the commencement of animal life, but they testify nothing as to the existence or non-existence of a previous period of vegetation alone. Farther, the rocks which contain the oldest remains of life exist as far as yet known in a condition so highly metamorphic as almost to preclude the possibility of their containing any distinguishable vegetable fossils; yet they contain vast deposits of carbon in the form of graphite, and if this, like more modern coaly matter, was accumulated by vegetable growth, it must indicate an exuberance of plants in these earliest geological periods, but of plants as yet altogether unknown to us. It is possible, therefore, that in these Eozoic rocks we may have remnants of the formations of the third Mosaic day; and if we should ever be so fortunate as to find any portion of them containing vegetable fossils, and these of species differing from any hitherto known, either in a fossil state or recent, and rising higher, in elevation and complexity of type, than the flora of the succeeding Silurian and Carboniferous eras, we may then suppose that we have penetrated to the monuments of this third creative æon. The only other alternative by which these verses can be reconciled with geology is that adopted by the late Hugh Miller, who supposes that the plants of the third day are those of the Carboniferous period; but, besides the apparent anachronism involved in this, we now know that the coal flora consisted mainly of cryptogams allied to ferns and club-mosses, and of gymnosperms allied to the pines and cycads, the higher orders of plants being almost entirely wanting. For these reasons we are shut up to the conclusion that this flora of the third day must have its place before the Palæozoic period of geology.

To those who are familiar with the vast lapse of time required by the geological history of the earth, it may be startling to ascribe the whole of it to three or four of the creative days. If, however, it be admitted that these days were periods of unknown duration, no reason remains for limiting their length any farther than the facts of the case require. If in the strata of the earth which are accessible to us we can detect the evidence of its existence for myriads of years, why may not its Creator be able to carry our view back for myriads more. It may be humbling to our pride of knowledge, but it is not on any scientific ground improbable, that the oldest animal remains known to geology belong to the middle period of the earth's history, and were preceded by an enormous lapse of ages in which the earth was being prepared for animal existence, but of which no records remain, except those contained in the inspired history.

It would be quite unphilosophical for geology to affirm either that animal life must always have existed, or that its earliest animals are necessarily the earliest organic beings. To use, with a slight modification, the words of an able thinker on these subjects, [88] "For ages the prejudice prevailed that the historical period, or that which is coeval with the life of man, exhausted the whole history of the globe. Geologists removed that prejudice," but must not substitute "another in its place, viz., that geological time is coeval with the globe itself, or that organic life always existed on its surface."

A second doubt as to the existence of this primitive flora may be based on the statement that it included the highest forms of plants. Had it consisted only of low and imperfect vegetables, there might have been much less difficulty in admitting its probability. Farther, we find that even in the Carboniferous period scarcely any plants of the higher orders flourished, and there was a preponderance of the lower forms of the vegetable kingdom. We have, however, in geological chronology, many illustrations of the fact that the progress of improvement has not been continuous or uninterrupted, and that the preservation of the flora and fauna of many geological periods has been very imperfect. Hence the occurrence in one particular stratum or group of strata of few or low representatives of animal and vegetable life affords no proof that a better state of things may not have existed previously. We also find, in the case of animals, that each tribe attained to its highest development at the time when, in the progress of creation, it occupied the summit of the scale of life. Analogy would thus lead us to believe that when plants alone existed, they may have assumed nobler forms than any now existing, or that tribes now represented by few and humble species may at that time have been so great in numbers and development as to fill all the offices of our present complicated flora, as well as, perhaps, some of those now occupied by animals. We have this principle exemplified in the Carboniferous flora, by the magnitude of its arborescent club-mosses, and the vast variety of its gymnosperms. For this reason we may anticipate that if any remains of this early plant-creation should be disinterred, they will prove to be among the most wonderful and interesting geological relics ever discovered, and will enlarge our views of the compass and capabilities of the vegetable kingdom, and especially of its lower forms.

A farther objection is the uselessness of the existence of plants for a long period, without any animals to subsist on or enjoy them, and even without forming any accumulation of fossil fuel or other products useful to man. The only direct answer to this has already been given. The previous existence of plants may have been, and probably was, essential to the comfort and subsistence of the animals afterwards introduced. Independently of this, however, we have an analogous case in the geological history of animals, which prevents this fact from standing alone. Why was the earth tenanted so long by the inferior races of animals, and why were so much skill and contrivance expended on their structures, and even on their external ornament, when there was no intelligent mind on earth to appreciate their beauties. Even in the present world we may as well ask why the uninhabited islands of the ocean are found to be replete with luxuriant vegetable life, why God causes it to rain in the desert where human foot never treads, or why he clothes with a marvellous exuberance of beautiful animal and plant forms the depths of the sea. We can but say that these things seemed and seem good to the Creator, and may serve uses unknown to us; and this is precisely what we must be content to say respecting the plant-creation of the Eozoic period.

Some writers [89] on this subject have suggested that the cosmical use of this plant-creation was the abstraction from the atmosphere of an excess of carbonic acid unfavorable to the animal life subsequently to be introduced. This use it may have served, and when its effects had been gradually lost through metamorphism and decay, that second great withdrawal of carbon which took place in the Carboniferous period may have been rendered necessary. The reasons afforded by natural history for supposing that plants preceded animals are thus stated by Professor Dana:

"The proof from science of the existence of plants before animals is inferential, and still may be deemed satisfactory. Distinct fossils have not been found, all that ever existed in the azoic [90] rocks having been obliterated. The arguments in the affirmative are as follows:

"1. The existence of limestone rocks among the other beds, similar limestones in later ages having been of organic origin; also the occurrence of carbon in the shape of graphite, graphite being, in known cases in rocks, a result of the alteration of the carbon of plants.

"2. The fact that the cooling earth would have been fitted for vegetable life for a long age before animals could have existed; the principle being exemplified everywhere that the earth was occupied at each period with the highest kinds of life the conditions allowed.