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LIBRARY 
 
 BS 651 .E6 1871 
 
 Elliot, James 
 
 Moses and modern science 
 
MOSES AND MODERN SCIENCE. 
 
.•VIURRAV AND GIBB, EDINBURGH. 
 PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. 
 
MOSES 
 
 MODERN SCIENCE, 
 
 By JAMES ELLIOT, 
 
 FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN QUEEn's COLLEGE, LIVEKFOOI- 
 
 'Prove all things: Jiddfast that -which is good.' — t Thess. v. 21. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1871. 
 
MOSES AND MODERN SCIENCE, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IF we make our first approach to the Bible on 
 the side of the Old Testament, we see much 
 that looks to us, at first sight, unlike what we 
 might expect to find in a volume given to us 
 by divine inspiration. We meet, at the very out- 
 set, with an account of the creation of the world 
 which seems to be essentially at variance with 
 modern science, and of an apparently universal 
 deluge which the philosophy of the present day de- 
 clares to have been impossible ; we encounter a 
 chronology which does not leave room for the 
 peopling of the world with those multitudes of men 
 which must have existed at certain given periods, or 
 for the succession of national and of natural changes 
 which archaeologists and geologists assert to have 
 taken place since man first appeared on earth ; we 
 find a history which, according to our fallible judg- 
 ment, falls beneath the dignity of inspiration in some 
 
2 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 of its apparently unimportant details, and these some- 
 times expressed in terms such as we can hardly 
 suppose the Holy Spirit to have dictated ; we oc- 
 casionally detect particular numbers irreconcilable 
 with each other and with the probabilities of history ; 
 we seem to have a spirit of war, hatred of enemies, 
 and revenge, rather than of peace and charity, per- 
 vading certain portions of some of the books, and a 
 narrative of actual wars carried on to the extent of the 
 extermination of whole nations, — men, women, and 
 children, — under the sanction of the Almighty him- 
 self ; and, finally, we meet with instances of acts not 
 unlike those of fraud, treachery, or cruelty related 
 in such a way that we might suppose them to be pro- 
 fessedly sanctioned, or at all events not condemned. 
 If, however, we are first introduced to the Bible 
 through the New Testament, we enter upon a scene 
 of a different aspect. In it we behold a code of morals 
 sublime in its purity; fraud, violence, and revenge en- 
 tirely forbidden ; pacific principles inculcated to the 
 extent of our seeking the good of all men, of no less 
 than loving our enemies, and of not even resisting 
 €vil. In it we behold a wonderful scheme displayed, 
 such as it could never have entered into the mind of 
 man to conceive — of reconciling mercy with justice, 
 of uniting hatred to sin with pardon to the sinner, 
 iand of restoring fallen man to communion with his 
 jail-holy Creator. In it we have the most wonderful 
 
Introduction. 3 
 
 history that has ever been written — of the Son of 
 God descending from the glories of heaven, taking 
 our humble nature upon him^ passing through a life 
 incident to all the sufferings and even to the trials 
 of humanity, going about continually doing good, 
 labouring for the restoration of fallen men, perform- 
 ing wonderful miracles either in attestation of his 
 divine character or in manifestation of his compas- 
 sion for human sufferers, and ultimately dying a 
 cruel death on the cross, and, in the course of the 
 third day, rising from the grave as the first fruit of 
 a general resurrection. We have all these things 
 related, not in the most accurately grammatical 
 language (as, indeed, we have ■ no reason to expect 
 from men of humble life, and writing also in a foreign 
 tongue)-, nor yet with the slightest tinge of the 
 misty and bombastic style into-which men in their 
 position of life would inevitably have fallen in de- 
 scribing events so wonderful, if they had been de- 
 ceivers or even deceived, but in language of such 
 unembellished simplicity and dignity, as to bear upon 
 it an outward stamp of honesty and veracity, and 
 consequently, under the circumstances, of truth. 
 Nothing could account for such a style on such a 
 subject unless divine guidance. 
 
 Why, then, should we not receive the New Testa- 
 ment and reject the Old t We cannot do so for 
 several reasons : — First, from the high religious and 
 
4 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 moral tone which, notwithstanding what has been 
 said before, runs through the latter, and which, if in 
 some respects behind that of the New Testament, is 
 yet amazingly superior to that which pervaded all 
 the world at that time, except that one nation to 
 whom the books were given, and not excepting the 
 whole of that nation, or even at times the greater 
 part of it. Second, because it is, to a great extent, 
 written in the same style of simplicity, dignity, and 
 authority which we find to pervade the New Testa-- 
 ment, rising occasionally to the highest flights of 
 poetical sublimity and of moral grandeur. Thirds 
 because it is so entirely free from the childish super- 
 stitions and absurd stories which have always made 
 their way into other books professedly describing 
 events regarded as supernatural. FoiirtJiy because 
 the Old Testament contains many prophecies of 
 events which could not have been foreseen by human 
 sagacity, especially at the time at which they are 
 known to have been written, and which yet were un- 
 doubtedly fulfilled. Th.Q fifth and last reason is, be- 
 cause several of the books of the Gld Testament are 
 referred to and occasionally quoted by our Saviour 
 himself, who at the same time declares that they 
 testify of him, and almost all of them by the 
 apostles, — being so referred to and quoted by them 
 as of divine authority. 
 
 We are therefore bound to return again to the Old 
 
Introduction. 5 
 
 Testament, and to re-examine it ; to subject the 
 * oppositions of science ' to more rigorous investiga- 
 tion, with a view to their removal, if possible, or to re- 
 consider the passages against which such oppositions 
 have been directed, lest by any means we should 
 have misunderstood them ; to examine the numbers 
 on which the received chronology of the Bible rests, 
 lest some error should have crept into them in copy- 
 ing, especially since they differ from those of the 
 Septuagint, of the Samaritan text, and of the history 
 of Josephus ; to make due allowance for similar 
 sources of error in regard to other apparent discre- 
 pancies and difficulties, remembering that we have 
 before us the oldest books known ; and to consider 
 if some matters which seem to us trivial, may not 
 have had an importance which we do not at once 
 perceive, — if our objection to certain modes of expres- 
 sion may not rest upon the standard which varying 
 fashion has introfluced in our own day, — and if we 
 could expect that the same high moral code which 
 our Saviour inculcated could reasonably have been 
 insisted upon before adequate motives could be 
 adduced to support it, motives resting on the love of 
 God as manifested by the life and death of his Son. 
 All this we are bound to do (if we receive the New 
 Testament), not with an eagerness to find fault and 
 condemn, such as is too often exhibited, but with 
 the respect which is due to authors who bear in their 
 
6 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 hands the highest credentials from our Lord and his 
 apostles. 
 
 Then, as to the extermination of the nations of 
 Canaan, all objection is silenced when we are told 
 that it was done by the express order of the Al- 
 mighty, who has an undoubted right to employ 
 either pestilence, famine, or war for the chastisement 
 of guilty nations ; that the Canaanites had reached 
 a degree of iniquity beyond even that of other 
 heathen nations, fearful as that was ; and that, in all 
 probability, their utter extermination had become a 
 necessity. 
 
 It is nowhere, however, asserted in the New Testa- 
 ment that every portion of the books arranged to- 
 gether as the Old Testament must be received as 
 inspired, and incapable of containing errors of any 
 kind ; for we know that some errors in words and 
 in numbers have crept in, in certain places, it may 
 be by the fallibility of copiers, an,d we cannot even 
 be sure that whole books may not have been inserted 
 unwarrantedly ; for we know not on whose authority 
 they were first admitted as canonical, and there are 
 several that have no prophetic announcements to 
 testify to their inspiration, no profession of that in 
 themselves, no attestation from our Saviour or from 
 the New Testament writers, and no peculiarly high 
 moral or religious tone.^ 
 
 ^ I allude particularly to the books of Ecclesiastes and Esther. 
 
Introduction. 7 
 
 Neither can we rest on the often-quoted statement 
 of Paul, asserting/ it is alleged, that all Scripture is 
 given by inspiration of God : for this would be an 
 assertion going far beyond that for which it is ap- 
 pealed to, since all Scripture means simply all the 
 books that have ever been written ; and when Paul 
 himself confines the word to a more limited sense, as 
 he does in the preceding verse, he thinks it neces- 
 sary to prefix the word sacred? Our translators 
 have, in that passage, inserted the word is twice ; 
 but if we omit the first, and render the Greek xa/ 
 into the English also, we probably have the apostle's 
 precise meaning : * All Scripture given by inspiration 
 of God, is also profitable for instruction,' etc. We 
 must not overstrain the testimony of the New Testa- 
 ment in favour of the Old ; and probably we cannot 
 take the latter as a whole, but must allow each book 
 to stand on its own merits and its own authority.^ 
 
 We find, too, that Christ and his apostles do not 
 always quote the Old Testament, as we have it now, 
 with verbal accuracy, as if they regarded the sub- 
 stance as of more importance than the exact words ; 
 and sometimes the apostles bring out a sense from the 
 
 ^ 2 Tim. iii. l6. ^ la. Ufa. yfa.fjLfjLa.ra.. 
 
 ^ In saying this, I regret to differ from many worthy men ; but our 
 fortress is assaulted so strongly on all sides, that, if its defence is to be 
 maintained, it is absolutely necessary to consider how i}iiich we must 
 defend, and to see that, in the attempt to hold unnecessary outposts, 
 we do not weaken our position. 
 
§ Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 original different from that which it outwardly bears, 
 as if they had authority to throw a new light upon 
 it. There are many of the merely historical parts 
 of the Old Testament, in which the writer may 
 simply have been bound down to veracity of narra- 
 tive without further inspiration ; and certain portions 
 are apparently compilations from other documents, 
 or abridgments of these,^ and, whatever the originals 
 may have been, not themselves altogether free from 
 errors. 
 
 Still there are many parts of the Old Testament 
 which must either have been inspired literally through- 
 out, or cannot have been inspired at all ; such, for 
 instance, as the prophecies, and the account of the 
 creation of the universe. 
 
 The prophecies have often been illustrated and 
 defended by writers of ability, whose arguments 
 have never been efficiently assailed ; but, on the 
 other hand, the writings of Moses, and especially his 
 accounts of creation and the deluge, have had to 
 sustain a formidable attack on all sides from the 
 votaries of science, while no complete and adequate 
 defence, as far as I am aware, has ever been made, 
 and multitudes are now beginning to regard the 
 defence as hopeless. On the Continent, in fact, 
 the majority of the educated are not beginning to 
 entertain such sentiments, but maintain that these 
 
 ^ I refer to the books of Chronicles. 
 
Introduction, 9 
 
 narratives, along with the accounts of everything 
 else that is recorded in the Bible as miraculous, 
 are merely exploded myths. 
 
 To show that more may be said in defence of 
 Moses' history than is usually believed, and that in 
 strict accordance with the light derived from the 
 most advanced discoveries of modern research, these 
 pages are written as a first instalment. May the 
 Almighty be pleased to aid the attempt, and to 
 make it useful for clearing away difficulties from the 
 minds of those who are willing to believe, and for 
 establishing the truth, whatever that may be ; for, 
 clearly, whatever is truth cannot be displeasing to 
 our Creator, or in any way counteract his revealed 
 will. In this volume I confine myself to the subject 
 of the Creation, as recorded in the first chapter of 
 Genesis ; but entertain the purpose, if this attempt 
 should be in any degree successful, and if health and 
 ability for the work be given, to proceed next to 
 the consideration of the Unity of the Human Race, 
 of the Antiquity of Man, and perhaps also of tlie 
 Deluge and the Dispersion of the Nations. 
 
 In our childhood we peruse the account of creation 
 given in the Bible, taking the time occupied in it as 
 literally six days, and wonder that so great a work 
 (although at that stage we little dream of its actual 
 greatness) could be begun, carried on, and finished 
 in so very short a period. When we pass from this 
 
lo Moses and Modern Sciejtce. 
 
 stage to the readings of science, and find geologists 
 demonstrating that, so far from the earth being the 
 work of a few days, it must have occupied, in the 
 mere changes which took place on its surface, many 
 millions of years, we at first entertain doubts regard- 
 ing the demonstration, or rather disbelieve it alto- 
 gether, fancying that shells, bones, and other fossils 
 may have been created, unconnected with previous 
 life, in the conditions and situations in which they 
 are now found, being in fact only the resemblances 
 of animal and vegetable productions. When we 
 abandon this idea, since it would have implied that 
 our Creator employed systematic deception, we find 
 ourselves at first confounded and perplexed, and are 
 henceforth separated into two parties. The one 
 party give up the Bible narrative as one of the 
 numerous fables in which antiquity abounded, and, 
 though unobjectionable as an innocent delusion of 
 childhood, yet not worth a moment's thought to a 
 modern philosopher. The other party, having Been 
 previously convinced of the truth of Christianity, 
 and of the divine authority of the many references 
 to the Pentateuch in the New Testament, find that 
 they cannot discard the narrative so lightly, even if 
 they would. They are therefore compelled to search 
 for some mode of interpretation which may show it 
 to be, at all events, not contradictory to the know- 
 ledge derived from scientific discoveries. They 
 
Introduction, 1 1 
 
 know that God has written both books, the book of 
 science and the book of revelation, and that these 
 cannot, unless we erroneously interpret one or both, 
 be contradictory to each other. 
 
 A plausible resolution of the difficulty was that 
 which was primarily propounded by Dr. Chalmers, 
 and afterwards supported by Dr. Buckland and 
 others, — namely, that the long geological periods ' 
 were concluded before the six days of Moses' account 
 began ; that the commencement of the latter period 
 found the earth reduced by some convulsion or series 
 of convulsions to a state of chaos and of darkness, 
 sun and stars being entirely hidden from view ; that 
 these six were our ordinary days of twenty- four hours 
 each, and that during these took place that succes- 
 sion of changes, and the new creation of plants and 
 of animals, described in the first chapter of Genesis ; 
 light, which had been for a time totally obscured, re- 
 appearing in the course of the first day, and the sun 
 once' more shining upon the earth on the fourth. 
 
 But when a better knowledge was attained of the 
 fossil remains buried in our rocks, it was found that 
 many species of animals which have existed on the 
 earth contemporaneously with man, had also pre- 
 ceded him by many ages, so that there could not 
 have been a period immediately preceding his 
 appearance, in which the previously existing races 
 were wholly destroyed. In the words of an author 
 
1 2 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 whom I shall have occasion frequently to quote/ — 
 ' In consequence of that comparatively recent exten- 
 sion of geological fact in the direction of the later 
 systems and formations, through which we are led 
 to know that the present creation was not cut off 
 abruptly from the preceding one, but that, on the 
 contrary, it dovetailed into it at a thousand different 
 points, we are led also to know that any scheme of 
 reconciliation which would separate between the 
 recent and the extinct existences by a chaotic gulf 
 of death and darkness, is a scheme which no longer 
 meets the necessities of the case. Though perfectly 
 adequate forty years ago, it has been greatly out- 
 grown by the progress of geological discovery, and 
 is adequate no longer.' 
 
 To meet this difficulty the scheme of Dr. Pye 
 Smith was devised, which adopts that of Dr. 
 Chalmers in all respects but one. It supposes the 
 destruction of animal and vegetable life which pre- 
 ceded the six days of Moses' account, not to have 
 been universal in its extent, but to have been con- 
 fined to a limited district. * It may have extended,' 
 it is said (returning to the work last quoted^), 'over 
 only a few provinces of Central Asia, in which, when 
 all was life and light in other parts of the globe, 
 
 ^ Hugh Miller, in the Testimony of the Rocks, p. 122 of first 
 edition. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 131. 
 
Introduction, 1 3 
 
 there reigned for a time only death and darkness, 
 amid the welterings of a chaotic sea, which at the 
 divine command was penetrated by light and occu- 
 pied by dry land, and ultimately, ere the end of the 
 creative week, became a centre in which certain 
 plants and animals, and finally man himself, were 
 created. And this scheme, by leaving the geologist 
 in this country and elsewhere (save, mayhap, in 
 some unknown Asiatic district) his unbroken series, 
 certainly does not conflict with the facts educed by 
 geologic discovery. It virtually removes Scripture 
 altogether out of the field. I must confess, however, 
 that on this and on some other accounts it has failed 
 to satisfy me.' The solution, in fact, is so much like 
 patchwork, so artificial, that it would never have been 
 resorted to but from a supposed necessity — a neces- 
 sity which we shall find does not now exist, although, 
 at the time at which Dr. Smith's viev/ was promul- 
 gated, it may have appeared to do so. If we adopt 
 that solution, does not all the dignity, the sublimity, 
 the importance, of Moses' narrative disappear } The 
 theory would probably itself altogether disappear as 
 soon as the geology of Asia came to be thoroughly 
 investigated. 
 
 Mr. Miller, with his usual sagacity, abandons both 
 these theories, and reverts to an older and simpler 
 one, taking it up, and working it out as it had never 
 been before. His view is this : that the six days of 
 
14 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 Moses were six long periods of time, each extend- 
 ing perhaps over millions of years ; so long, indeed, 
 that three, or at most four of them, were alone 
 sufficient to include all the series of events dis- 
 closed by geologists.^ Of the transactions of those 
 three or four days only, his last and greatest work, 
 the Testimony of the Rocks, professes to furnish any 
 account, giving no explanation of the others, unless 
 in the shape of some probably incorrect suggestions 
 regarding the early appearance of light so long 
 before the formation of the sun. To account for 
 these long periods being spoken of as days, each 
 with an evening and a morning, he supposed the 
 revelation of them to Moses to have been made in 
 six visions, each occupying the space of a day and 
 night. 
 
 Even those who reject entirely the narrative of 
 Genesis, are obliged to admit that three of the days 
 of creation mentioned in it agree, to a remarkable 
 extent, with the three corresponding periods of 
 
 ^ In his third lecture, in the Testimony of the Rocks, he says : * I 
 find myself called on as a geologist to account for but three of the 
 six. Of the period during which light was created, — of the period 
 during which a firmament was made, to separate the waters from the 
 waters, — or of the period during which the two great lights of the 
 earth, with the other heavenly bodies, became visible from the earth's 
 surface, we need expect to find no record in the rocks ^ (p. 134). He 
 does afterwards, however, find some geological work for the fourth 
 day, for he says in his fourth lecture (p. 175) : ' For the intervening 
 or fourth day we have that wide space presented by the Permian and 
 the Triassic periods.' 
 
Introduction, 1 5 
 
 geology ; and the coincidence, it will be found as we 
 advance, is closer than they, or even Mr. Miller, 
 were aware of.^ 
 
 This agreement they attribute to some small 
 amount of scientific knowledge on the part of the 
 writer, whoever he was, accompanied by a great 
 sagacity. But the coincidence is beyond anything 
 that could easily be explained in that way. 
 
 Mr. Miller's views I regard as, in general, not 
 only beautifully elucidated, but sound ; and to a 
 certain extent I purpose to avail myself of them, 
 but at the same time to complete his scheme by 
 bringing forward astronomy to the aid of geology, 
 and filling up the details of the omitted days 
 partly from the one science, partly from the other. 
 At the same time, I dismiss the hypothesis of 
 a visionary revelation to Moses, as purely fanciful 
 and altogether unnecessary, — I divide the earlier 
 geological periods, considered as days, somewhat 
 differently, — and I entirely avoid his forced and 
 
 ^ Mr. Goodwin {Essays and Reviews, p. 239) says : ' Now these 
 facts do certainly tally to some extent with the Mosaic account, 
 which represents fish and fowl as having been produced from the 
 waters on the fifth day, reptiles and mammals from the earth on 
 the sixth, and man as made last of all. The argument, however, is 
 far from exact, as, according to geological evidence, reptiles would 
 appear to have existed ages before birds and mammals, whereas the 
 creation of birds is attributed to the fifth day, that of reptiles to 
 the sixth,' The coincidence in the case of the third day he tacitly 
 admits, and his exception regarding the fifth and sixth the reader of 
 this volume will find is unwarranted. 
 
1 6 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 awkward explanation of the creation of light 
 before that of the sun, and of the absence of that 
 luminary, as well as of the moon, until the fourth 
 day. 
 
 To arrive at all this, I have recourse to the 
 Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace ; one which, it is 
 needless to say, was not devised for any such pur- 
 pose as elucidating or supporting the statements 
 of Moses.^ Neither had I any such view in first 
 receiving that hypothesis as admissible ; for I felt 
 myself almost compelled to do that on astronomical 
 grounds alone, before I saw that it had any bearing 
 on the subject before us, unless in apparent opposi- 
 
 ^ This volume Avas already completed, with the exception of a few 
 alterations, principally in the notes, before I was aware that I had 
 been anticipated in the attempt to use the nebular hypothesis in 
 defence of the account of creation given by Moses, I had not then 
 seen or heard of Dr. M 'Caul's pamphlet entitled Some Notes on the 
 First Chapter of Genesis, in which the same view is taken of Laplace's 
 idea. Dr. M'Caul, however, although many of his remarks are 
 excellent, has not been happy in his distribution of the geological 
 periods among the successive days of creation, assigning ' the 
 whole of the primary, secondary, and tertiary foi-mations, with all 
 their products,' to the first two days, and consequently attributing 
 the growth and life of all their varied flora and fauna to a period 
 preceding the formation of the sun, the changes of seasons, and the 
 distribution of climates among the different zones of the earth. In 
 consequence of this, he has thrown himself open to the severe criticism 
 of Dr. M'Causland in the last edition of his Sennons on Stones. 
 That writer's objections on this ground, however, do not in any way 
 militate against the views which I have advanced, as I have other- 
 wise distributed the geological periods ; and his remaining objections 
 also have no weight, I think, against the modes of explanation which 
 I have followed on other points. 
 
Introduction. 1 7 
 
 tlon to the account given in the Bible. Now I go 
 further, and regard Laplace's hypothesis as not 
 merely admissible, but almost unavoidable. It 
 explains all the remarkable coincidences in the 
 motions of the planets, is consistent with geological 
 deductions, and has not a single fact militating de- 
 cidedly against it. Nothing could have prevented 
 its general reception, except its supposed atheistic 
 tendency. If its author had any such view, that 
 can form no objection to us, when we take the 
 weapon out of the hands of unbelievers and turn 
 it against themselves. Those who peruse the 
 following pages carefully, will, I think, admit that, 
 if my positions are found to be tenable, I have 
 established a closer agreement between the record 
 of Moses and the revelations of science than has 
 ever been suggested before ; while all the argu- 
 ments and the sarcasms launched against previous 
 interpretations lose their force, falling on empty 
 air. 
 
 Still I am well aware of the difficulty of the task 
 set before me, and scarcely venture to hope that 
 my scheme will be found in all minor matters 
 faultless ; but I trust that I have at least set up 
 the framework of a sound structure, which the 
 learning and the ingenuity of others may ulti- 
 mately render more perfect in its details. I am, 
 
 no doubt, building on another man's foundations 
 
 B 
 
1 8 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 and even more than that ; for I found Mr. Miller's 
 edifice, with three of its six compartments, not only 
 built, but almost perfect even in their decorations, 
 with the fourth, however, unfinished, and with the 
 remaining two only vaguely marked out. These two 
 last I have attempted to erect from the foundation, 
 disregarding my predecessor's design : the fourth I 
 have endeavoured to complete, and to the other 
 three — the three first mentioned — I have made some 
 additions.^ 
 
 Wherever I have availed myself of his labours, 
 I have made free acknowledgment. If I be blamed 
 for using these too liberally, I at least avoid thereby 
 the reproach that has been thrown out against 
 previous ' theological geologists/ of ' overthrowing 
 one another's theories.' This has, indeed, been 
 too often the case ; and there is some ground for 
 the ridicule that has been cast upon so many in- 
 genious cosmogonies which have never survived 
 their own generation. Not only have they been 
 constructed principally on hypotheses, but these 
 hypotheses have been devised solely for the object 
 in view. Hugh Miller's scheme, on the contrary, 
 involves no hypothesis, but rests wholly on close 
 induction ; and that which is now added to it, 
 
 ^ I had almost continued the metaphor by adding that I have 
 removed the scaffolding and the centres which he had placed under 
 his graceful arches after they were already raised, and have left them 
 to stand by their own equilibrium. 
 
Introductio7i, 19 
 
 although resting on a hypothesis, does not employ 
 one made up for the purpose, but one that was 
 originally suggested with a very different aim, by 
 one of the highest of mathematicians, and regarded 
 with respect by our ablest astronomers, on astro- 
 nomical grounds alone, — a hypothesis, in fact, which 
 can hardly be dispensed with in its own depart- 
 ment. 
 
 The blunders of cosmogonists have arisen from 
 attempting to raise scientific systems on founda- 
 tions merely religious, with little knowledge of 
 material philosophy, just as philosophers have fallen 
 into errors equally great from attempting to dictate 
 to religion from conclusions drawn only from science. 
 It is from scientific materials alone that science can 
 be built up, although, in building, religion must be 
 kept constantly in view, in order that we may con- 
 struct nothing that is in flagrant, or even in probable, 
 opposition to its truths. So also it is from religious 
 materials alone that religious systems can be built 
 up or received, although science must meanwhile 
 be kept before us, lest we raise or adopt a re- 
 ligious system that is in opposition to it; for, as 
 said before, true religion and true science can never 
 conflict. 
 
 As the prophecies, not being intended to gratify 
 curiosity, can rarely be interpreted till they are 
 fulfilled, and many, attempting to lay down future 
 
20 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 history from prophecy, have signally failed, and yet 
 the prophecies of the Scriptures, when fulfilled, have 
 often been shown to be consistent with the events, 
 never to be inconsistent ; so those portions of the 
 sacred writings which encroach on the domain of 
 science, not being intended to gratify mere scientific 
 curiosity, cannot be made the instruments for con- 
 structing philosophical systems, and yet, when true 
 philosophical knowledge is attained, it is often found 
 to be consistent with the statements of revelation, 
 never to be inconsistent. Those who endeavour to 
 prove the harmony of the sacred records with the 
 facts of philosophy ascertained by lawful modes of 
 research, are never, as Mr. Miller remarks, to be 
 confounded with those who, without that knowledge 
 which can be acquired only from philosophical in- 
 vestigation, construct philosophical systems out of 
 revelation. 
 
 Some there are, however, who say that all 
 attempts such as I am now making are lost 
 labour, — that the truth stands firm as a rock which 
 no opposing efforts can shake, — and that all the 
 assaults made upon it are frivolous and futile, and 
 not worth while to oppose. The truth, no doubt, is 
 as firm as a rock ; but what is the truth } Let that 
 be fairly established. Then, if the truth is firm, 
 the minds of those that investigate it, and even of 
 those that receive it, are not so firm ; and it is well 
 
Introduction. 21 
 
 that faith should be strengthened by sound reason- 
 ing.^ It is not the time to treat the assaults of 
 science, even if falsely so called, with contempt. 
 Daily the opponents of revealed religion come out 
 and taunt us,^ setting us at defiance ; and ought we 
 weakly to decline their challenges .'* If we either 
 treat them with disdainful silence, or fail to meet 
 them effectually, the faith of some is weakened, 
 and the minds of many waverers are turned the 
 wrong way. It is our duty assuredly to contend 
 for the truth with every fair weapon of argu- 
 ment. 
 
 1 admit meeting with difficulties. Some of these 
 have been very formidable ; but I have nowhere 
 concealed or evaded them, and have, I trust, met 
 them fairly, without anywhere overstraining my 
 argument or introducing any forced interpreta- 
 tion. How far I have overcome them I leave 
 my readers to judge. If I have sometimes been 
 led to speak too confidently, I have to request 
 that anything so said may be taken simply as 
 the enunciation of a proposition which the reader 
 may accept or not, accordingly as he may be 
 satisfied with the demonstration or otherwise. The 
 
 ^ * Who, when he was come, helped them much who had beheved 
 through grace ' (Acts xviii. 27). 
 
 2 ' The current cosmogony is not only without a single fact to stand 
 ouj but is at variance with all our positive knowledge of nature.' — 
 Essays by Herbert Spencer^ 2d series ; Essay i, p. 55. 
 
21 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 explanations I have advanced are often of so novel 
 a character, that I give them with hesitation. I 
 expect opposition, and I shall welcome a fair dis- 
 cussion of them. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION. 
 
 ' In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the 
 earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of 
 the deep : and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' 
 —Gen. I. I, 2. 
 
 THE Nebular Hypothesis, originated by the 
 genius of Laplace, supported by the nume- 
 rous and excellent observations of Sir William 
 Herschel/ if not primarily suggested by him, was 
 long viewed with suspicion by the religious world, 
 as giving an origin to the heavens and the earth 
 
 ^ * Herschel, en observant les nebuleuses au moyen de ses puissans 
 telescopes, a suivi les progres de leur condensation, non sur une 
 seule, ces progres ne pouvant devenir sensibles pour nous qu' apres 
 des siecles ; mais sur leur ensemble, comme Ton suit dans une vaste 
 foret I'accroissement des arbres, sur les individus de divers ages, 
 qu'elle renferme. II a d'abord observe la matiere nebuleuse repandue 
 en amas divers dans les differentes parties du ciel dont elle occupe une 
 grande etendue. II a vu dans quelques-uns de ces amas, cette 
 matiere faiblement condensee autour d'un ou de plusieurs noyaux peu 
 brillans. Dans d'autres nebuleuses, ces noyaux brillent davantage 
 relativement a la nebulosite qui les environne. Les atmospheres de 
 chaque noyau, venant a se separer par une condensation ulterieure, il 
 en resulte des nebuleuses multiples formees de noyaux brillans tres 
 voisins et environnes, chacun, d'une atmosphere; quelquefois la 
 matiere nebuleuse, en se condensant d'une maniere uniforme, produit 
 
24 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 altogether different from that ascribed to them 
 by Moses, and as, in fact, according to tJieir idea, 
 ahnost or altogether dispensing with a Creator ; 
 and, probably for the same reasons, it received a 
 welcome from sceptical philosophers. Without that 
 hypothesis, however, we can obtain no explana- 
 tion whatever of the origin of certain remarkable 
 coincidences in the motions of the planets. These 
 are : i. The orbits of all the planets, primary and 
 secondary, are nearly circular.-^ 2. The planes of 
 the orbits of all the primary planets (a few of the 
 asteroids excepted), and of almost all the secondary, 
 are coincident nearly with the plane of the ecliptic. 
 3. The sun's equator, and the equators of all the 
 primary planets, as far as we know, are nearly in 
 the same plane with each other, and with the planes 
 
 les nebuleuses que Ton nomine planetah'es. Enfin, un plus gifand. 
 degre de condensation transforme toutes ces nebuleuses en etoiles. 
 Les nebuleuses, classees d'apres cette vue philosophique, indiquent, 
 avec une extreme vraisemblance, leur transformation future en etoiles, 
 et I'etat anterieur de nebulosite des etoiles existantes. Ainsi I'on 
 descend, par le progres de la condensation de la matiere nebuleuse, a 
 la consideration du soleil environne autrefois d'une vaste atmosphere, 
 — consideration a laquelle je suis remonte par I'examen des pheno- 
 menes du systeme solaire. Une rencontre aussi remarquable, en 
 suivant des routes opposees, donne a I'existence de cet etat anterieur 
 du soleil, une grande probabilite. ' — Exposition du Systeme du Mojide, 
 par M. le Marquis de Laplace, liv. v. ch. vi. 
 
 ^ No doubt the laws of gravity and inertia together compel the 
 planets to move in elliptic orbits ; but, in as far as these two laws are 
 concerned, the ellipses might have any extent of eccentricity, and 
 would not necessarily approximate to circles. 
 
The Fii'st Day of Creation. 25 
 
 of the orbits of these planets. 4. All the primary 
 planets, and all the secondary, except two or three 
 on the exterior verge of the system,^ revolve in the 
 same direction round the sun. 5. The sun and all 
 the planets, as far as we know, rotate on their axes 
 in the same direction, and that, too, in the direction 
 of their annual revolutions.^ 
 
 These remarkable coincidences cannot be the 
 result of chance.^- Neither can they be explained 
 
 1 There are two, at least, of the satellites of Uranus, the same 
 which form the exception to the second coincidence ; but these are 
 not necessarily or probably two separate and independent exceptions. 
 For if these satellites originally revolved in the plane of the ecliptic, 
 and in the general direction, any disturbing force which turned their 
 orbits more than ninety degrees from their original plane would also 
 necessarily give them a retrograde motion. 
 
 ^ ' Quoique les elemens du systeme des planetes, soient arbitraires, 
 cependant ils ont entre eux, des rapports qui pouvont nous eclairer 
 sur son origine. En les considerant avec attention, on est etonne 
 de voir toutes les planetes se mouvoir autour du soleil, d'occident en 
 orient, et presque dans un meme plan ; les satellites en mouvement 
 autour de leurs planetes dans le meme sens et a peu pres dans le meme 
 plan que les planetes ; enfin, le soleil, les planetes et les satellites dont 
 on a observe les mouvemens de rotation, tourner sur eux memes dans 
 le sens et a peu pres dans le plan de leurs mouvemens de projection.' 
 — Systeme du Monde, liv. v. ch. vi. To these coincidences Laplace 
 adds in Note vii. : ' Le peu d'excentricite des orbes des planetes et de 
 satellites.' I have not followed him in everything, because he was 
 not aware of the exceptional cases ; and we are not now certain of the 
 nature of the rotation of the satellites, except that of our own moon. 
 
 3 ' Des phenomenes aussi extraordinaires ne sont point dus a des 
 causes irregulieres. En soumettant au calcul leur probabilite, on 
 trouve qu'il y a plus de deux cent mille milliards a parier contre un, 
 qu'ils ne sont point I'effet du hasard ; ce qui forme une probabilite 
 bien superieure a celle de la plupart des evenemens historiques dont 
 
26 Moses and Mode7m Science. 
 
 without the aid of the nebular hypothesis ; whereas, 
 if we receive that hypothesis, they all flow from it 
 as necessary consequences.-^ 
 
 Of course the Creator of the planets could have 
 imparted all their motions to them, and all their 
 peculiar coincidences, on their first formation, by 
 his immediate power, according to his sovereign 
 will ; and that he would have been the more likely 
 to do, if the same ends could not have been 
 attained by intermediate agency, since the greater 
 number of these coincidences are necessary, as 
 those eminent mathematicians, Laplace ^ and La- 
 nous ne doutons point. Nous devous done croire, au moins avec la 
 nieme confiance qu'une cause primitive a dirige les mouvemens 
 planetaires. — Ibid. 
 
 ^ Laplace also deduces from it other coincidences in the solar 
 system, — namely, that of the periods of rotation of our moon and of 
 the other satellites, with their periods of revolution round their 
 primaries ; and the extraordinary harmony presented by the three first 
 satellites of Jupiter, whose motions are so adjusted relatively to each 
 other, that the mean longitude of the first, minus three times that of 
 the second^ plus twice that of the third, is invariably equal to i8o 
 degrees. But his argument on these points is not so conclusive ; nor 
 is it necessary, for there is enough without it ; and the coincidence 
 of the periods of rotation and revolution of the satellites, our moon 
 excepted, is not well established. He also deduces from his hypo- 
 thesis, as its natural result, the spheroidal form of the planets ; and 
 undoubtedly his is the simplest explanation, although there might 
 be some other possible ways in which that form might ultimately be 
 attained even by solid bodies rotating on their axes. 
 
 2 ' Je suis parvenu a demontrer que, quelles-que soient les masses des 
 planetes, par cela seul qu'elles se meuvent toutes dans le meme sens, 
 et dans des orbes peu excentriques et peu inclines les uns aux autres ; 
 leurs inegalites sont periodiques et renfermees dans d'etroites limites. 
 
.The First Day of Creation. 27 
 
 grange,^ have demonstrated, to ensure the stability 
 of the solar system. But, as far as we see of our 
 all-wise Creator's mode of action in the government 
 of the material universe, we perceive that he always 
 prefers the employment of secondary causes for 
 the attainment of his purposes, when they can be 
 effected by means of these, rather than the direct 
 action of his own power ; and we also perceive that 
 coincidences and securities in other instances are 
 brought about not merely by the will of the 
 Almighty, but by means of some law from which 
 they emanate. On the part of man, it is regarded 
 as a higher attainment when he makes a machine to 
 do his work, than when he does it himself ; and it 
 certainly does not detract from the praise which we 
 
 en sorte que le systeme planetaire ne fait qu' osciller autoi;r d'un etat 
 moyen dont il ne s'ecarte jamais que d'une tres petite quantite.' — 
 Systhne du Monde, liv. iv, ch. ii. 
 
 ^ * We have spoken of certain constituent elements of our planetary 
 scheme, — as, for instance, the facts that the earth and its companions 
 move in orbits of but small eccentricity, that the inclinations of the 
 planes of their orbits are small, and that they revolve around our 
 luminary in one uniform direction. Now it appeared to Lagrange 
 that the existence of such primal arrangements impresses upon the 
 effects of perturbation a condition which, in the happy phrase of Sir 
 John Herschel, may well be termed the Magna Charta of our system. 
 Subjecting the entire question, taken in its highest generality, to 
 treatment by his masterly and most penetrating analysis, Lagrange 
 discovered that all changes of the essential elements of any orbit which 
 can arise from perturbations must be periodical.' — Cyclopczdia of the 
 Physical Sciences, by J. P. Nichol, LL.D., art. Perturbations. If 
 any one thinks that the claims of these two great men are conflicting, 
 I leave it to others to reconcile them. 
 
28 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 owe to our Creator's wisdom and power, to main- 
 tain that it is by means of the laws of gravitation 
 and inertia that he causes the planets to revolve 
 round the sun, and the satellites round their 
 primaries, in elliptic orbits, while he could have 
 done so, without either gravitation or inertia, by the 
 mere continued fiat of his will. In fact, it raises 
 far higher our perception of his greatness, when we 
 behold him educing so many harmonious and 
 beneficent results from the employment of these two 
 simple laws alone, than if we saw the same results 
 attained without the agency of any laws at all. In 
 like manner, when we see that the many remarkable 
 coincidences which we have already noticed in the 
 motions of the planets might all have arisen from 
 one simple cause, our conception of the wisdom 
 which could have originated the construction of so 
 glorious a system by means so little complex is 
 greatly exalted. To fancy, however, that the 
 original nebula could have produced itself, or could 
 have arisen by accident, or could have existed from 
 all eternity, would indeed be atheism. 
 
 No doubt, when we speak of secondary causes, 
 we are entirely ignorant of the way in which any 
 particular cause comes to be invariably followed by 
 a particular effect ; and when we say that certain 
 results are the consequences of certain laws of nature, 
 it may be that this in reality has no other meaning 
 
The First Day of Creatioii. 29 
 
 than that the Almighty has thought good to confine 
 himself, in the government of his creation, to certain 
 modes of action to which we give the name of laws, 
 and that these results are not brought about by any 
 powers vested in the things themselves, but do in 
 every case emanate from the direct action of the 
 almighty power. Still, whatever may be the mode of 
 explaining the connection of cause and effect, and 
 the precise meaning of general laws, we know that 
 God does in reality subject all his operations to these 
 laws, unless in the case of miracles ; and if he had 
 not done so, all nature would have been chaos to tcs, 
 and the researches of philosophy would have been 
 forbidden to us from their very commencement, or 
 limited, as in the creed of the Mahometans, to the 
 solitary explanation, * God wills it.' Even in the 
 cases of miracles, as recorded, it appears to be a 
 general principle to employ secondary causes as far 
 as they will go, using miraculous power as it were 
 economically. Thus, when a passage was to be 
 made for the Israelites through the Red Sea, we do 
 not hear that God merely ordered the sea to stand 
 aside to the right hand and to the left, but that ' the 
 Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east 
 wind all that night.' 
 
 Seeing, then, that God conforms in all ordinary 
 cases to the general laws which he has himself 
 imposed upon creation, never deviates from those 
 
30 Moses and Moderii Scie^ice. 
 
 laws unless for some great and important purpose, 
 and even in such deviations uses those laws as far 
 as they will go, it is only reasonable to conclude, 
 that in bringing about that wonderful group of 
 coincidences which has been detailed in the solar 
 system, he has brought them about by the agency of 
 some general law, and not by his mere sov^ereign will 
 independently of law. Otherwise, since they might 
 all have been the results of a general law, and would 
 have been its natural results, he would have assumed 
 an appearance of acting upon general principles when 
 he was not doing so, and would have misled the 
 researches of that very philosophy which his usual 
 mode of action tends to encourage and to assist ; for 
 God is not an enemy to philosophy, but the author 
 of it. 
 
 We can apply these general remarks, of course, to 
 our present subject, only if we can produce a hypo- 
 thesis capable of accounting for those coincidences 
 on ordinary principles ; and if there is nothing un- 
 reasonable or extravagant about that hypothesis, we 
 are entitled to rest upon it as probably the true one. 
 
 The nebular hypothesis, then, is this, — in a form 
 slightly altered in minor points from that in which 
 it was originally propounded, but the same in all 
 essentials. 
 
 The whole solar system, consisting of sun, planets, 
 and satellites, is supposed to have been created in 
 
The First Day of Creation, 3 1 
 
 the state of a cloud, or nebula of dust (as it has been 
 called), made up of the separate atoms of which the 
 various kinds of matter consist ; in the words of a 
 lucid expounder of the hypothesis,^ 'a huge, dark, 
 chaotic, void, and formless mass.' It is further sup- 
 posed that these atoms attracted each other with 
 forces proportional to their own weights, and in- 
 versely proportional to the squares of their distances 
 from each other — unless in so far as that law may 
 have been modified at infinitesimally small distances 
 by specific attractions and repulsions among the 
 different kinds of atoms — and that the whole cloud 
 was not at rest, but with two motions originally 
 given to it, one progressive, the other rotatory, just 
 as it would have had (if we might venture to use 
 such an expression) if it had been thrown carelessly 
 out of the hand of its Creator. Finally, let it be 
 added to our supposition, that the cloud w^as without 
 sensible heat, but with latent heat everywhere dif- 
 fused through it, or, according to the language of 
 more recent science, with the power of having heat 
 excited in it.^ 
 
 ^ Professor Nichol, in the Cyclopccdia of the Physical Sciences, 
 art. Nebular Hypothesis. 
 
 2 The modifications I have made in the original hypothesis rather 
 tend to its simplification than otherwise. Laplace, although he some- 
 times speaks of molecules, seems rather to have regarded the original 
 nebula as existing in a gaseous condition, *a I'etat de vapeurs,' and at 
 a high temperature ; whereas it seems to me a simpler supposition that 
 the original state was that of solid atoms, entirely destitute of sensible 
 
32 Moses ajid Modern Science, 
 
 In this hypothesis, with the law of inertia super- 
 added — which, as well as that of gravitation, is not 
 hypothetical — we have enough not only to account 
 for all the otherwise inexplicable coincidences with 
 which we started, but to explain the origin of every 
 movement and of every existing state of things 
 in the solar system,^ vegetable and animal life 
 excepted. 
 
 Before going further, however, let us ask if any 
 supposition could more clearly elucidate the words : 
 * In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
 earth. And the earth was without form, and void ; 
 and darkness was upon the face of the deep.' The 
 earth was absolutely without form, regular or 
 irregular, for it was not yet cut out from the great 
 cloud of ' dust.' It was truly void, because, from 
 the entire absence of heat, all the atoms were in a 
 solid condition, with no gaseous matter to fill up the 
 interstices, and consequently with every atom sur- 
 rounded by a vacant space, boundless in extent 
 compared with that of the atom within it. If the 
 
 heat, that heat being subsequently developed or produced by condensa- 
 tion of the mass. I have also more distinctly defined the original en- 
 dowment of the nebula with two distinct motions, as neither could 
 have arisen subsequently from mutual attraction among the molecules. 
 In this I agree with the view of Professor Nichol, as he has given it in 
 his latest work already quoted, although he had previously expressed 
 a different opinion. 
 
 ^ In this I do not include comets, which probably do not belong to 
 our system. 
 
The First Day of Creation, 33 
 
 nebula had extended only as far as the orbit of 
 Neptune, its density would have been less than 
 the two hundred millionth part of that of our 
 atmosphere at the level of the sea ; and it must have 
 extended beyond that distance : if twice as far, it 
 would be eight times more diffused. Finally, dark- 
 ness zuas 2Lpon the face of the deep, because in a cold 
 so intense nothing whatever could be luminous, while 
 the sun itself was not yet in existence, but merely 
 the dark central portion of the nebula, from which 
 the sun was afterwards to be formed. 
 
 By the expression ' the deep,' readers of the Bible 
 usually entertain a vague idea that the ocea7i was 
 intended ; and when they call to mind that there 
 was as yet no ocean, their ideas become more vague 
 still. But now they may have some conception of 
 its meaning, the least extent which we can reason- 
 ably attribute to the great nebula being twice the 
 diameter of the orbit of Neptune, or eleven thousand 
 millions of miles. What a depth ! If our hypo- 
 thesis is the true one, it supplies a wonderful com- 
 mentary on the words— fori?iless, void, dark, deep ; 
 darkness absolute, and such a depth, such a vacancy, 
 and such a destitution of form, as it could not have 
 entered into the mind of man to conceive. 
 
 Ovid undoubtedly derived the groundwork of his 
 accounts of creation and the deluge, directly or in- 
 directly, from those of Moses, as well as some other 
 
34 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 portions of his MetamorpJwses} Poetic fancy and 
 sagacious conjecture have supphed the details, 
 sometimes very happily. In his description of the 
 first stage of creation, he comes wonderfully near to 
 depicting that which the previous considerations 
 would lead us to believe to have been the actual 
 state of things : 
 
 ' Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia coelum, 
 Unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, 
 Quem dixere Chaos, rudis indigestaque moles, 
 Nee quicquam nisi pondus iners, congestaque eodem 
 Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum. 
 Nullus adhuc mundo praebebat lumina Titan, 
 Nee nova crescendo reparabat cornua Phoebe, 
 Nee circumfuso pendebat in aere tellus, 
 Ponderibus librata suis, nee brachia longo 
 Margine terrarum porrexerat Amphitrite. 
 Quaque erat et tellus, illic et pontus et aer. 
 Sic erat instabilis tellus, innabilis unda, 
 Lucis egens aer. Nulli sua forma manebat.' 
 
 If it be asked what we suppose to have been the 
 primary form of the nebula (for although the earth 
 was * without form,' we are not told that the general 
 mass was so), we may reply that there is no reason 
 to believe that it had at first any regular form, 
 
 ^ His Metamorphoses, in fact, absurd as many of the stories are, 
 were intended for a universal ancient history, although with the real 
 events usually disguised, and, we may say, for a Bible of his own ; for 
 he even prays, though in heathen fashion, for divine inspiration. 
 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas 
 Corpora. Di coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas) 
 Aspirate meis ; primaque ab origine mundi 
 Ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen. ' 
 
The First Day of Creation, 3 5 
 
 although that is immaterial to the hypothesis ; for 
 any projecting portions would gradually fall in 
 towards the general mass, and it would in the 
 course of time assume a form very nearly spherical. 
 Then, steadily though slowly ^ contracting, from 
 the mutual attraction of its component molecules, 
 all drawing and moving towards the common centre 
 of gravity, but contracting least in its equatorial 
 regions, in consequence of the force of gravity being 
 partly counteracted by the centrifugal force arising 
 from its rotation, it would assume the form of an 
 oblate spheroid, — the same form which our own 
 terraqueous globe has acquired from the same 
 cause, but becoming more and more oblate as the 
 contraction advanced, and the centrifugal force in- 
 creased. 
 
 Resuming the narrative of the Bible ; — as to the 
 subsequent clause, * The Spirit of God moved upon 
 the face of the waters,' there is the same vague idea 
 in the minds of readers generally regarding the 
 last w^ord as there is regarding ' the deep ' in the 
 previous clause. We cannot, however, understand 
 by the word zvaters, seas, oceans, or great lakes ; 
 for, as we see from a subsequent verse, the time was 
 
 1 Slowly indeed ! for if the nebula extended only to twice the width 
 of Neptune's orbit, the force of gravity at the exterior would be little 
 more than the 500,000th part of its force at the surface of the Earth 
 now; so that the exterior zone would contract only the 2500th part 
 of an inch in radius in the first second. 
 
36 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 not yet come for collecting the waters into one 
 place, and separating them from the dry land.^ We 
 are therefore compelled to seek for some other 
 meaning to the word ; and probably there was no 
 word in the Hebrew language which could express 
 more accurately than zvater or zvatcrs, the cloud of 
 floating atoms, already, as we shall see immediately, 
 becoming a gaseous or fluid mass. The deep was 
 probably the immense space, and the ivaters were 
 the light and flowing substance which filled that 
 space. The two words harmonize. 
 
 'The Spirit of God' is usually understood to 
 signify the Holy Spirit, who is thus represented as 
 presiding over the work of creation, and ready after- 
 wards to impart life to the vegetable and animal 
 kingdoms. Some, however, have suggested that the 
 expression ' of God ' may mean merely emanating 
 from God, or created by Him, as it does in some 
 passages of the Bible ; ^ or it may signify great, 
 vzighty, irresistible, as it does in other passages.^ 
 
 ^ The idea of a 'universal ocean,' entertained by many, would no 
 doubt give a different sense to the words deep and waters; but then 
 how could the earth, covered by a uniform ocean, with a perfectly 
 spheroidal surface, be said to be ' without form,' since it would have 
 had a more regular form than it has ever had subsequently ? Or if 
 the Hebrew word tolm mean confusion, as some interpreters have it, 
 where was the confusion in a smooth, ubiquitous ocean? Ovid cer- 
 tainly did not so understand the sense, when he said : 
 
 ' Quaque erat et tellus, illic et pontus et aer. ' 
 
 2 As in Job i. 16, where we read of 'the fire of God.' 
 
 3 Thus the marginal reading of the passage just quoted is a great 
 
The First Day of Creation. 37 
 
 Then, since the word spirit, m Hebrew riiach, 
 Hke the corresponding Greek word i:n\)ij.a, frequently 
 denotes nothing more than breath or wind} the 
 expression ' Spirit of God ' may possibly signify 
 nothing more than the wind of God, or a powerful 
 wind; and if so, it would be no forced interpreta- 
 tion to understand it as the grand rotatory motion 
 originally imparted to the whole nebula, — a motion 
 which would be greatest on the surface, in conse- 
 quence of the falling in of the projecting portions of 
 the nebula, supposing it not to have been of a form 
 truly spheroidal on its first formation, but irregular. 
 That motion would be worthy of especial notice, 
 since from it, as we shall soon see, results so won- 
 derful were to follow in the construction of the solar 
 system. There is some support to this opinion in 
 the fact that the work of the first two days of 
 creation at least was a purely material, and not a 
 spiritual work ; and our Saviour says: 'That which 
 is born of the Spirit is spirit.' ^ It was not even a 
 life-giving work. It may be that the expression is 
 used in a double sense, referring both to the Holy 
 Spirit as directing the great work, and to the 
 material movement employed by him as his grand 
 
 fire; and when we read in Ps. xxxvi. of ' the great mountains, ' we are 
 told that the Hebrew words mean literally the mountains of God; and 
 similarly in other passages. 
 
 ^ See Amos iv. 13. - John iii, 6. 
 
38 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 instrument in carrying it on ; thus standing for both 
 the type and the antitype. 
 
 ' And God said, Let there be light : and there was light. And God 
 saw the light, that it was good : and God divided the light from the 
 darkness.'— Gen. i. 3, 4. 
 
 Our great nebula, which we supposed to be 
 originally dark and cold, would, from the mutual 
 attraction of its component molecules, undergo, as 
 has been said before, slow but advancing condensa- 
 tion ; and that would elicit the latent heat which it 
 contained,^ rendering that heat sensible, and con- 
 tinually raising the temperature of the cloudy mass.^ 
 When that was raised to a little above 700 degrees 
 in any part of the cloud, that part would attain a 
 faint degree of luminosity, increasing as the tem- 
 perature rose, till the whole zone, or rather shell, in 
 which a sufficiently high temperature was attained, 
 would be lighted up with a blaze of splendour. 
 Then truly would be realized that glorious display 
 
 ^ The use of the expression latent hmt commits us to no particular 
 theory regarding its nature. The old idea was, that heat is a sub- 
 stance; but the philosophy of the present day regards it rather as 
 some kind of motion excited among the atoms of the heated matter, 
 or in the ether filling their interstices. On the latter understanding, 
 the latent heat of any svibstance means nothing more than its capa- 
 bility of producing sensible heat from condensation, congelation, 
 liquefaction of vapour, or chemical change. 
 
 "^ For an attempted computation of the extraordinary intensity of 
 heat which would be excited in this way, and for other remarks on 
 the subject, see Note A, at the end of the volume. 
 
The First Day of Creation. 39 
 
 described in so few and simple words : ' God said, 
 Let there be light : and there was light.' 
 
 In that early stage of the world's history in which 
 the book of Genesis was written, when science was 
 yet in its infancy, could any words have been de- 
 vised which could more happily express the first 
 appearance of luminosity in God's creation ? If it 
 had been said that God created the light, it would 
 have been almost ^ a decision that light is a material 
 substance, and so would have cut short our investi- 
 gations on the subject, and would have put a veto 
 upon the opinion now generally held, that light is 
 not a substance at all, but consists in the undula- 
 tions of ether. It is merely said, ' Let there be 
 light;' and if light be a substance, still there is no 
 light, in the ordinary sense of the word, till the sub- 
 stance attain that velocity of emission, and that 
 rapidity of vibratory movement, which render it 
 truly luminous : so that, if light existed previously, 
 it would be in a latent and not in an apparent state ; 
 or if light, in itself immaterial, consist of vibrations 
 of an ethereal medium, then certainly there would 
 be no licrht until the ether vibrated. In either case, 
 the previous state of the nebula would be that of 
 darkness. 
 
 ^ Not altogether ; for it is said in Isa. xlv. 7, ' I form the light, and 
 create darkness ; ' but the first and formal enunciation of the fact is 
 given, in language as it were more guarded. 
 
40 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 Again, could any expression be more majestic in 
 its very simplicity? Considering what light is, as 
 we now know it, — considering its astonishing velocity 
 of 198,000 miles per second, — its diffusion through 
 space in every direction, from all luminous or 
 illuminated bodies, at the same instant, without 
 confusion or collisions, — its power of producing 
 distinct vision in the human eye, although falling 
 on it in an apparent chaos of rays, or waves, from 
 every visible point at once, and giving distinct in- 
 formation regarding the numbers, forms, motions, 
 colours, of multitudes of objects, at all distances and 
 in all directions, — its laws of reflection and refrac- 
 tion, — its separation by refraction into rays of diffe- 
 rent colours, to say nothing of the calorific and 
 actinic rays, and its further separation by the same 
 means into thousands of rays of different and defi- 
 nite degrees of refrangibility, givjng rise to the 
 multitude of dark lines in the solar spectrum, — the 
 change by reflection in its mode of vibration, con- 
 stituting what is called its folarization, attended by 
 all the beautiful phenomena involved in that word, 
 — and, finally, its inconceivably rapid rate of vibra- 
 tion, up to hundreds of millions of milHons ^ of un- 
 dulations every second ; — considering all this, could 
 anything have been more marvellous than its sudden 
 
 ^ The repetition of the word is not a typographical ertor. 
 
The First Day of Creation, 4 1 
 
 appearance in chaos, at the sublimely authoritative 
 command — Let tJiere be light ? 
 
 Considering also its indispensable utility, not 
 only to the human eye, but to the whole vegetable 
 and animal creation which was afterwards to come 
 into existence, well may it be added — God saw the 
 light, that it was good, 
 
 * God divided the light from the darkness.' On 
 our hypothesis, this must have occurred ; for the 
 degree of luminosity would be very different in 
 different parts of the nebula, and the non-luminous 
 portions would be utterly impervious to the light 
 which radiated from the other parts. Theoretical 
 considerations show us that the light could not have 
 broken forth sinmltaneonsly in all 'parts of the nebula, 
 — that the maximum of heat and of light could 
 scarcely be in the centre of the spheroidal cloud, — 
 that it might be on its surface ; but more probably 
 was in some shell intermediate between the two, — 
 and also that both the light and the heat would be 
 greater in the polar than in the equatorial regions.-^ 
 
 From the higher temperature a part of the solid 
 molecules (a small part at first) would become a 
 gaseous atmosphere, in which the remainder would 
 for a time float, rendering it a very bad medium for 
 the transmission of light. The stratum or shell, 
 
 1 For the reasons on which these conclusions are founded, see 
 Note B. 
 
42 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 therefore, which was first lighted up would not illu- 
 minate the others by radiation ; for the thick mist 
 would intercept the rays, and that to such an extent 
 that at a very short distance from any luminous part 
 of the nebula there would be total darkness. No 
 doubt there would be a gradual shading off from a 
 stratum of glowing splendour to others of lower and 
 lower intensity of light ; but as soon as a tempera- 
 ture of seven or eight hundred degrees was reached 
 on either side, all beyond would be darkness, — with 
 no luminosity in itself, and unrelieved by a single 
 ray of radiated light. There would be absolute 
 separation between light and darkness. Truly 
 might it be said — God divided tJie ligJit from the 
 darkness. 
 
 Now, before going further, let us give our atten- 
 tion to the marvellous character of this singular 
 expression. What writer describing anything but a 
 reality such as we have just been contemplating, 
 would ever have thought of using such a form of 
 words .'* Who would have thought it necessary to 
 mention the separation of conditions so opposed to 
 each other as those of light and darkness, or could 
 have imagined any method by which, before the 
 appearance of the solar orb, with its rays intercepted 
 by an opaque earth, light could have been separated 
 from darkness, unless in some way either insignifi- 
 cant or unintelligible "i For if our world had then 
 
The First Day of Creation, 43 
 
 existed as a globe illuminated on its own surface, as 
 seems to be the usual idea, it would only have been 
 natural to suppose that its light would have radiated 
 all around, and lighted up the solar system more or 
 less, so that it could not have been said that the 
 light was divided from the darkness. What unin- 
 spired writer, at all events, could have imagined the 
 peculiar and grand way in which Laplace's wonder- 
 ful hypothesis, when followed out to its necessary 
 consequences, shows us that the separation must 
 have been effected, if that hypothesis is a true one, 
 as it appears to be, — or any such peculiar way as 
 would have rendered the fact of the separation 
 worth mentioning ? Neither, as said before, can 
 any one fancy that Laplace devised his hypothesis 
 with any view of elucidating or defending the in- 
 spired records. Ovid's happy imagination has not 
 dared to venture on this ground. 
 
 In giving attention thus far to the effects of con- 
 densation, nothing has been said regarding those 
 w^hich might have arisen from chemical action ; for 
 if the atoms of matter, as originally created, were 
 simple, then a very large part of them would consist 
 of the inflammable bases of metals, including hydro- 
 gen, then in a solid form, while another part, consti- 
 tuting perhaps all the remainder, would be oxygen, 
 and other supporters of combustion. But when we 
 consider that the nebula must have originally ex- 
 
44 Moses and Modem Science, 
 
 tended beyond the orbit of Neptune, and must con- 
 sequently have been at least two hundred million 
 times less dense than our atmosphere, and that, 
 from the extreme cold, all the atoms were in a 
 solid condition, and consequently so remote from 
 each other as to be entirely out of reach of chemical 
 attraction, we can easily see that it would be a long 
 time before any chemical combination would take 
 place. Even when the temperature rose to such a 
 degree as to permit the combination of the metallic 
 bases with oxygen, that effect would commence first 
 in those strata which were already in the course of 
 being illuminated by condensation, and the light 
 and heat arising from their combustion would no 
 more spread into contiguous strata than the light 
 and heat given out by condensation ; for they would 
 in themselves be unaccompanied by flame, and in- 
 capable of spreading unless by radiation. As to 
 hydrogen, it would require a very high temperature 
 in the contiguous solid matter before it could be 
 ignited from contact with that matter, even if the 
 hydrogen were unmixed, and still more when mixed 
 with uninflammable gases.^ Ultimately, however, 
 the metallic bases would almost all combine with 
 oxygen ; and hydrogen, first passing from the solid 
 to the gaseous state, would kindle into flame, pro- 
 
 1 We know, for instance, that hydrogen gas is not combustible 
 when mixed with muriatic (or hydrochloric) acid. 
 
The First Day of Creation, 45 
 
 bably lighting up the close of the first day with a 
 grand conflagration, resulting in the production of 
 an immense cloud of watery vapour. But that flame 
 would not at once spread through the whole of the 
 nebula/ being limited externally and internally by 
 the extent of the gaseous shell, and being much 
 checked in the rapidity of its progress by the very 
 vapour which it had produced. 
 
 * And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. 
 And the evening and the morning were the first day.' — Gen. i. 5. 
 
 It is evident that the word day, in the latter 
 clause of this verse, has not the same meaning as 
 the same word in the first clause ; for in the first 
 it is distinguished from the night, whereas in the 
 second it includes it. There is the same double use 
 of the word day in ordinary language. It seems 
 
 1 We know, indeed, from recent observations, that it did not do 
 so, and that much of the hydrogen then remained and still remains 
 unconsumed ; for spectrum analysis detects its presence in the flames 
 which still issue from the body of the sun. The centre of the sun 
 becoming, as shown in Note B, the coldest region in the nebula, is 
 probably still cold enough to retain hydrogen in a solid condition ; and 
 that, as the external heat reaches it, becomes aeriform, passes out- 
 ward till it reaches the surface, and there kindles, still continuing the 
 process which, according to our view, proceeded on a more extensive 
 scale at the close of the first day. There are, however, it is unde- 
 niable, some difficulties attending this part of our subject, — that is, in 
 regard to chemical considerations ; but it is not reasonable to expect 
 that a subject so recondite should be cleared altogether of difficulties 
 in our still imperfect state of knowledge. It is not from too much 
 science that our difficulties arise, but from too little. 
 
46 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 also perfectly clear from the text itself, that the 
 day of the latter clause could not be a solar day of 
 twenty-four hours, and could not be intended as such 
 by the author of Genesis, even if he had been unin- 
 spired, since there was then, according to his own 
 words, no ' sun to rule the day,' while, according to 
 our hypothesis, there was not even a rotating earth 
 to measure out the hours. The day, in all pro- 
 bability, meant some very long period of time ; and 
 since an evening and a morning are mentioned in 
 it, it may have meant that period which compre- 
 hended the transition from total darkness to the 
 universal diffusion of light over the whole surface of 
 the great spheroid, and even through its whole sub- 
 stance, — all except, probably, the central mass. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE SECOND DAY. 
 
 * And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, 
 and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the 
 firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament 
 from the waters which were above the firmament : and it was so.' — 
 Gen. I. 6, 7, 
 
 WHILE the darkness of the chaotic mass was 
 gradually giving place to light, it must not 
 be understood that no other change was going on ; 
 for the light itself, we have seen, was mainly the 
 result of condensation, and that condensation would 
 give rise to a more and more oblate form of the 
 spheroidal mass, as said above ; for, as the nebulous 
 matter drew nearer towards the centre, it would 
 bring with it the same absolute velocity which it 
 had previously, — that is, the velocity of rotation ; 
 and that, with a shorter radius, would give a greater 
 angular velocity round the centre, and an increased 
 centrifugal force. 
 
 If ultimately the centrifugal force of the external 
 zone at the equator became so great as to be equal 
 to the centripetal force, the matter of that zone 
 would cease to approach towards the centre, and 
 
48 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 would remain in perpetual revolution at a constant 
 distance from it ; whereas all within that zone, having 
 a smaller centrifugal and a greater centripetal force, 
 would continue to be drawn in, and would leave the 
 outer zone in the form of a ring.-^ 
 
 But if we had no other augmentation of the 
 centrifugal force than that which results from the 
 transference of the rotatory motion from a larger 
 radius to a smaller, that force would increase no 
 faster than in the inverse ratio of the distance, and 
 would consequently never become equal to the 
 centripetal force, which increases in the same pro- 
 portion as the square of the distance diminishes. 
 But, as is well known, in the movements of the 
 planets an additional impetus is given to the mov- 
 ing molecule, as it approaches the centre of attrac- 
 tion, by the centripetal force itself; and this, united 
 
 1 ' Le point oil la force centrifuge balance la pesanteur, est d'autant 
 plus pres du corps, que le mouvement de rotation est plus rapide. 
 En concevant que I'atmosphere s'etende jusqu'a cette limite, et qu'en- 
 suite elle se resserre et se condense par le refroidissement a la surface 
 du corps, le mouvement de rotation deviendra de plus en plus rapide, 
 et la plus grande limite de I'atmosphere se rapprochera sans cesse de 
 son centre. L' atmosphere abandonnera done successivement, dans le 
 plan de son equateur, des zones fluides qui continueront de circuler 
 autour du corps, puisque leur force centrifuge est egale a leur pesan- 
 teur ; mais cette egalite n'ayant point lieu relativement aux molecules 
 de I'atmosphere eloignees de I'equateur, elles ne cesseront point de lui 
 appartenir.' — Systeme dii Monde, liv. iv. ch. x. Laplace's attribut- 
 ing the condensation to cooling, which I have ventured to assign to 
 centripetal force, does not at all affect the mechanical results. The 
 atmosphere he speaks of is, of course, the substance of the nebula. 
 
The Second Day. 49 
 
 with the original movement in rotation, augments 
 so much the centrifugal force, that it ultimately 
 becomes equal to the centripetal, and would exceed 
 it if its movement inward were continued. This 
 will be evident from the consideration that, if there 
 were only one molecule, it would move round the 
 centre of attraction in an elliptic orbit, with its 
 centrifugal force continually increasing as it drew 
 nearer the centre, until at its perihelion ^ that force 
 would become so much greater than the centripetal, 
 as to carry the molecule back to its original distance. 
 Then if, instead of a single molecule, there were a 
 countless number, all drawn in towards the centre, 
 their mutual perturbations would not affect the total 
 motion in rotation or the centrifugal force. But 
 these perturbations, especially when the solid mole- 
 cules came to be surrounded by a gaseous atmo- 
 sphere, would have the effect of uniting them all 
 into one body,^ revolving collectively at the mean 
 distance, — namely, that at which the two forces 
 would be balanced, — instead of continuing in a dance 
 of independent orbits between the extreme dis- 
 tances. 
 
 After the first ring was thrown off, the remainder 
 
 ^ That is, supposing the attracting mass to be wholly within its 
 orbit, and constant ; but in the case before us, if that were not so, 
 the slight difference would not be worth consideration. 
 
 2 Not, of course, a solid body, but one connected system or 
 nebulous mass. 
 
 D 
 
50 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 of the nebula would continue to contract, throwing 
 off another and another ring in succession, with no 
 termination to the process, until the central mass 
 refused to contract further, in consequence of the 
 attainment of a liquid or of a solid condition. 
 
 The formation of one of the inner rings might 
 possibly commence before that of the outermost ring 
 would be completed. As far as our subject is con- 
 cerned, however, that is a point of no consequence, 
 provided that a certain number of rings were ulti- 
 mately formed in this way ; and assuredly they 
 would be so formed if we start with the conditions 
 supposed.^ 
 
 Each ring, its substance having previously been 
 greatly heated by the condensation of the nebula, 
 but being now more freely exposed, would slowly 
 cool by radiation into external space, and the ring 
 would be contracted in its sectional area ; but the 
 distance of the centre of gravity of that section from 
 the centre of the nebula would remain unchanged, 
 and would henceforth become a fixed quantity, the 
 centrifugal force caused by its revolution round the 
 general centre remaining, as at its first separation, 
 
 1 A very pretty mechanical illustration is sometimes exhibited of the 
 formation of rings by centrifugal force, effected by the rapid rotation 
 of a basin of watery liquid, in the centre of which a globe of oil is 
 placed of the same specific gravity. This can be accepted, however, 
 only as a popular illustration, since laws and circumstances entirely 
 diifer in the two cases. 
 
The Second Day. 5 1 
 
 exactly equal to its attraction towards it. The 
 length of the ring/ if we may so. express it, would 
 remain constant, while its sectional area would con- 
 tract more and more, till at last, like any other fluid 
 cylinder when reduced in width below a certain 
 proportion to its length, its internal eqiailibrium 
 would become instable, and it would be ready to 
 break at one or more places as soon as the slightest 
 irregularity arose in any one part ; and. unless the 
 nebula had been a perfect sphere at the outset, 
 irregularities would arise from the falling in of the 
 projecting portions, and these irregularities would 
 never be altogether obliterated so long as the nebula 
 remained in a fluid state. The breaking of a liquid 
 cylinder into separate fragments, when it becomes 
 too much elongated, we may see exemplified by 
 drawing out a thread of half-melted wax, and then 
 exposing it to a greater heat, when it runs at once 
 into drops ; or by sending through a fine iron wire, 
 stretched horizontally over a table, a current of 
 electricity sufficiently strong to melt the wire : when 
 so melted, it does not fall on the table as a con- 
 tinuous thread, but in separate drops. A ring, it 
 will be observed, is only a cylinder bent round. 
 
 If the nebulous ring were not very much elon- 
 gated, relatively to its thickness, it would break at 
 
 ^ That is, the circumference passing through the centres of gravity 
 of the various sections. 
 
52 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 only one point. If otherwise, it might break at 
 more points than one. But however divided, the 
 broken ring, or each portion of it, would rapidly 
 draw in its extremities and collect itself into a 
 globular mass, revolving round the great central 
 nebula with the same velocity with which the ring 
 itself previously revolved. 
 
 Before going further, let us consider what would 
 occur to such a mass, so revolving, at first always 
 keeping the same side towards the general centre, 
 exactly as the ring itself did, and at the same time 
 contracting in volume. Such a globe, although it 
 might be regarded on first thoughts as not rotating, 
 would really have a rotation on its own axis, with its 
 period of rotation exactly equal to that of its revolu- 
 tion, as in the case of our moon ; and that, so far from 
 being merely an imaginary or nominal rotation, 
 would have all the physical effects of any other 
 actual rotation, bringing the globe, still nebulous, 
 into a form oblately spheroidal at first, and, on sub- 
 sequent contraction, causing it to become more and 
 more oblate, for the same reasons as those already 
 given in the case of the great nebula.-^ For similar 
 
 ^ This, to those who have a difficulty in understanding how a 
 motion hke that of the moon can involve rotation as well as revolu- 
 tion, might be explained in another way ; namely, by showing how the 
 matter on the outer side of the newly-formed globe, having a greater 
 velocity, and that on the inner side having a smaller velocity, than the 
 centre of the globe, would both tend, when drawn nearer the said 
 
The Second Day. 53 
 
 reasons, an expansion of the globe would retard the 
 rotation, although it would never wholly destroy it. 
 
 Now when a ring, or any considerable part of a 
 ring, suddenly collapsed into a globe, the first effect 
 would be an expansion of the diameter of the globe 
 as more and more matter fell into it, and conse- 
 quently a retardation of the rotatory movement 
 which it would have had but for such an expansion, 
 giving an appearance, as seen from the centre of the 
 nebula, of a retrograde rotation. But subsequent 
 contraction, from gravitation towards its own centre, 
 and from loss of heat by radiation, would again 
 quicken the rotation; and ultimately that might be 
 so much accelerated, and the oblateness of the sphe- 
 roid so much increased,^ that one or more rings 
 might be thrown off from it, in the same manner as 
 in the case of the principal nebula. 
 
 We have now, then, arrived at that period in 
 which the primary planets — most of them at least — 
 have come into existence, but still merely as sphe- 
 roidal masses of vapour, with solid molecules per- 
 haps floating in the vapour, all the exterior beyond 
 Mars, and also the earth, being encompassed by one 
 
 centre, to produce a direct rotation, and to increase it when already 
 produced. 
 
 1 It would thus appear that the ultimate rapidity of rotation of any 
 planet depends on the extent to which its equatorial diameter is less 
 than the width of the ring from which it was formed,— a considera- 
 tion which might lead to some curious computations. —See Note C. 
 
54 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 or more rings, and some of them perhaps having 
 attained a still more advanced stage. 
 
 As soon as the spheroidal cloud, the material of 
 the future earth, was separated from the nebulous 
 ring which surrounded it, a great expanse began to 
 be interposed, separating by an impassable gulf 
 everything on the earth beneath, or on that which 
 was to be the earth, from everything in the heavens 
 above. That expanse is probably what was meant 
 by the firmament — not limited, however, by the 
 orbit of our satellite, but stretching out into the 
 whole extent of space. 
 
 The English word firmament has been unhappily 
 chosen as the rendering of the word rakiah, im- 
 properly suggesting to the unlearned reader the idea 
 of firmness or solidity. In the original Hebrew, 
 however, the word, we are told, conveys nothing 
 of the idea of firmness, or of a material character of 
 any kind, but simply of expansion or extent,^ and 
 is alike applicable to a vacuum and to a space 
 occupied by aeriform matter. In other parts of the 
 Scriptures it is used sometimes for our own atmo- 
 sphere, sometimes for the great expanse in which the 
 stars are placed. Giving, then, to the word waters 
 the same interpretation which we were compelled to 
 assign to it in the second verse — that is, the mass of 
 the nebula now in a gaseous state, but gradually 
 1 See Note D. 
 
The Second Day. 55 
 
 passing Into that of liquidity — we appear to be in- 
 formed in the seventh verse, interpreting it by means 
 of Laplace's hypothesis, that the Almighty now cut 
 off from the mass of the nebula that portion of it 
 which was afterwards to become our terraqueous 
 globe, and separated it from the remainder by a 
 great vacant or ethereal space. 
 
 There is another view of what might be meant by 
 the ^ waters above the firmament,' and that not at 
 all an improbable one. At the period which we 
 have now reached, in consequence of the high tem- 
 perature of the earth, all the waters of its rivers, 
 lakes, seas, and oceans, could exist only in the state 
 of steam. Considering the enormous space that 
 steam occupies comparatively with water, — the still 
 greater extent to which it expands when more 
 highly heated, and the extreme rarefaction which 
 would exist in the upper regions of such an atmo- 
 sphere, not only from the absence of pressure, but 
 from the extremely low force of gravity at very 
 great distances from the centre, — considering also 
 that room was required for a great variety of other 
 gaseous matter still uncondensed; — considering all 
 this, we should probably not be rash if we assumed 
 that the great cloud of steam then surrounding our 
 globe extended at that period nearly as far as the 
 moon's orbit, and that, in contracting, the upper 
 shell of it acquired sufficient centrifugal forqe to 
 
56 Moses and Moder^i Science. 
 
 retain it at a high elevation, — in the form, in short, 
 of a second or inner ring revolving round the earth. 
 Then, when the cooling process advanced further, 
 it would be a ring of water, or of separate watery 
 drops. These might be the waters above the firma- 
 ment. In fact, it is not easy to see how the forma- 
 tion of such a ring could be avoided at first, although 
 it is easy to see how it might not be permanent. It 
 is not at all improbable, indeed, that besides a ring 
 of water, there were rings of other substances, which, 
 dropping successively to the earth's surface at diffe- 
 rent epochs, gave a distinct mineral character to the 
 geological systems of rodks which were under the 
 course of formation at the different periods.-^ 
 
 Before leaving the subject of rings, for the pre- 
 sent at least, I delay a little to answer a question 
 which is likely to occur to many to whom astrono- 
 mical studies are not familiar. Have we anything, 
 tangible or visible, still existing, on which we can 
 support our hypothesis of nebulae and of rings? 
 Undoubtedly we have. Looking to the starry sky 
 with a good telescope, we observe nebulas, as Sir 
 William Herschel first pointed out, apparently in 
 all stages of their growth — pure nebulae — nebulous 
 rings — nebulous clusters — nebulous stars — and 
 
 ^ How otherwise, for instance, can we explain the fact that no 
 strata but those which consisted almost wholly of lime, or carbonate 
 of lime, were deposited in the latter part of the cretaceous period? 
 
The Second Day, 57 
 
 clearly-defined or fully- formed stars; and although 
 some of those which Sir William and others re- 
 garded as mere clouds of ' star dust ' or vapour, such 
 as we have supposed our system to have com- 
 menced with, have since been resolved by telescopes 
 of higher power into numerous separate stars, yet 
 there are others which never have been so resolved ; 
 and more recent spectrum-observations appear to 
 have established as a fact, that some of them are 
 really gaseous, or partly gaseous, clouds, and have 
 even detected the existence of gaseous matter of 
 various kinds in the atmosphere of our own sun.^ 
 
 Again, around the planet Saturn we have several 
 rings, similar to those described as the natural con- 
 sequences of our hypothesis, still revolving in great 
 beauty, unbroken into satellites, and puzzling our 
 astronomers by the stability of their equilibrium, 
 as if they had been preserved till the period of 
 man's existence, as specimens of the great scheme 
 by which the solar system was formed. Yet more, 
 we have the remains of a nebulous ring, still revolv- 
 ing unabsorbed round our own sun, although never 
 wholly separated from it, and visible to us, as the 
 zodiacal light, when the Earth comes in her annual 
 orbit into such a position that we can see it not across 
 its thin body, but along its greater dimensions, — not 
 
 1 For some further observations on this part of our subject, see 
 Note E. 
 
58 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 sideways, but edgeways, — In the same position, in 
 short, in which a spectator observes the shadow of a 
 steeple become visible in a mist, appearing as a dark 
 column above it, while it is invisible from every 
 other direction. It is a ring m embryo, as it were, 
 like the inner transparent ring of Saturn. And, 
 finally, we have an irregular ring of meteoric bodies 
 revolving round the Sun in a singularly eccentric 
 orbit,^ extending, it is believed, from the orbit of 
 the Earth to that of Neptune, and becoming visible 
 occasionally to us, as the November shower, when the 
 Earth passes through it, kindling up its separate 
 bodies by collision with our atmosphere. 
 
 'And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and 
 the morning were the second day.' — Gen. i. 8. 
 
 The firmament, as we have seen, may have been 
 our atmosphere, but at that time immeasurably 
 greater in volume than it is now, not only from ex- 
 pansion by heat, but from containing, in the form of 
 steam, all the waters of our present seas, lakes, and 
 rivers, and several other more or less volatile ele- 
 ments besides, and from its extreme rarity in the 
 higher regions. It is more probable, however, that 
 the name included, besides our grosser atmosphere, 
 that more ethereal medium which is now generally 
 
 1 Or, as some think, in an orbit nearly circular, at about the same 
 distance as the Earth from the Sun. 
 
The Second Day, 59 
 
 believed to fill all space, as far at least as the utmost 
 bounds of the starry universe. In accordance with 
 this view, the word heave7i or heavens, here identified 
 with firmamenty is used in various passages of the 
 sacred Scriptures, at one time for the lower atmo- 
 sphere in which the birds fly, and at another time 
 for the greater expanse in which the planets revolve 
 and the fixed stars shine. The corresponding words 
 in Greek, Latin, and English, oupavog, coehivi, heaven 
 or heavens, have the same latitude, and are also ex- 
 tended, like the Hebrew word for heaven, beyond 
 the material creation to the abode of God (or 'of 
 the gods ') and of the angels. 
 
 What were the evening and the inor7iing of the 
 second day, it is not easy to see. Apparently they 
 were not a literal evening and morning, even with 
 the extension to a lengthened period of time, for the 
 day did not begin in material darkness and end in 
 material light. But it began with the earth and the 
 heavens in a condition of apparently hopeless con- 
 flagration, evening enough to the limited understand- 
 ings even of angels, and it ends with a morning of 
 hope in the appearance of a round earth at last, or 
 at least its nucleus, already revolving in its annual 
 orbit, and rotating on its axis, and of several of the 
 other planets, if not the whole, in the same condi- 
 tion. It was the morning of a new state of things. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE THIRD DAY. 
 
 * And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered to- 
 gether into one place, and let the dry land appear : and it was so. 
 And God called the dry land Earth ; and the gathering together of 
 the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.' — Gen. i. 
 .9, 10. 
 
 CONSIDERING the extreme brevity of our 
 narrative, compared with the inconceivably 
 long periods over which the events related extend, 
 it is not to be wondered at that the steps of the 
 former are short relatively to the latter, and that a 
 single step passes over vast and numerous changes. 
 This will be peculiarly conspicuous in the events of 
 the third day. 
 
 At the close of the second day we left the Earth 
 a mere nucleus of melted matter surrounded by a 
 deep, dense, and impure atmosphere, and the Moon 
 still a ring of vapour, but also possibly with a 
 liquid nucleus running centrally round within it,^ as 
 a cylindrical axis. 
 
 ^ If we can conceive that the ring, the material of the future Moon, 
 had attained to a great extent the liquid condition before it broke 
 and drew together to form a globe, that would at once, from the prin- 
 ciples established in page 53, account for the very slow rotation of the 
 Moon on its axis, which, although it might not at first be, as it is 
 
The Third Day. 6i 
 
 That ring, however, now on the third day, parts 
 in two, and runs together into a spherical cloud 
 with a liquid centre; while the Earth, after collecting 
 all of its less volatile vapour into its molten orb, 
 cooling still further, begins to form a crust over its 
 surface, like ice over a lake. Now, however, the 
 temperature has sunk so low that the atmosphere 
 is no longer luminous ; but everywhere over the 
 boundless plain volcanic craters rise, lighting up the 
 gloomy expanse with their ghastly fires, and toss- 
 ing out torrents of lava, mud, and ashes, into the 
 already dense atmosphere.^ The watery vapour now 
 begins to be condensed, falling in heavy showers, 
 washing down with it the mud and ashes of the 
 volcanoes, and the grosser ingredients yet floating 
 in the atmosphere, and thus depositing over the 
 solidified crust stratum upon stratum of soft mate- 
 rial, afterwards to be dried and hardened by the 
 
 now, exactly coincident in time with its revolution round the Earth, 
 would ultimately come into perfect agreement with it, provided that 
 it had an approxijjiate coincidence to begin with, and provided that 
 the Moon remained some time in a fluid condition, Laplace, however, 
 proceeds as if such an original approximation were unnecessary ; but 
 it would certainly facilitate the ultimate adjustment; and whatever 
 view we take of that, the ultimate adjustment itself is unexplainable 
 unless on the hypothesis of an originally fluid condition of the Moon. 
 
 1 The description here given is not hypothetical, for the state of 
 things which then prevailed has not yet altogether ended, and a 
 similar scene, on a very reduced scale, may still be seen. For a 
 description of it, see Note F. The present condition of the Silurian 
 and older rocks also testify, to a certain extent, to its reality. 
 
62 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 heat below. No mountain chains of any consider- 
 able height as yet obstruct or turn aside the winds, 
 so that they blow with fury, and for long periods of 
 time, unvaried in direction, ruffling the tenacious 
 surface, driving along volcanic or meteoric sand and 
 ashes, and dashing them with fury on the successive 
 muddy strata.-^ The showers of rain, as they fall, 
 rapidly evaporate, so that we have nowhere any 
 depth of water, and yet the ground is seldom dry. 
 This is proved by the rippled surfaces,^ by the tracks 
 of annelides, if such they were, or if not by the 
 prints of the palceocorda, and of many other fucoid 
 and probably fungous plants, and by the impres- 
 sions made by strong winds, as well as showers of 
 rain and of sand,^ — and all these, where they are seen 
 at all, much the same on the surfaces of the lowest 
 strata as on those of the highest, with at least some 
 thousands of feet of thickness intervening.'* 
 
 1 This picture is not, any more than the preceding, fanciful, but is 
 derived from close observation of the older rocks, especially the Lower 
 Silurian. Numerous specimens might be produced to prove all that 
 has been said. 
 
 ^ We are not sure that these ripples may not be formed under deep 
 water, but the other proofs are clear and decisive. 
 
 ^ The marks made by sand-showers are much more common, in the 
 Lower Silurian rocks which I have examined, than those made by rain, 
 probably from the latter being generally washed away as soon as they 
 were formed. 
 
 * And yet a writer, who professes to be wiser than Moses, speaking 
 of the Silurian rocks, says : ' These strata were deposited at the bottom 
 of the sea, and the remains are exclusively marine. ' — Essays and Re- 
 views, Mosaic Cosmogony, p. 214. 
 
The Third Day. (^'y^ 
 
 Contractions of the earth's bulk from cooling, or 
 expansion of that portion of it which was changing 
 from a liquid to a solid condition, or volcanic dis- 
 turbances, or unequal loading of the crust, or more 
 than one of these causes uniting their effects, at last 
 bend and break the crust, turning up most of its 
 masses on their sides, and forming rugged rocks 
 standing out with their jagged edges from the 
 midst of the ocean of molten rock now again un- 
 covered. This process Is repeated again and again 
 at subsequent periods, and in its repetition are 
 formed successively the rocks of the Laurentian, 
 the Cambrian, and the Silurian systems, — the latter 
 of these in part from the wasted materials of the 
 former. 
 
 At the close of this period the surface is more 
 cooled, rain lies longer upon it unevaporated, and 
 now flows Into the deep hollows made by the broken 
 and uptllted masses of rock. As late as the time of 
 the Lower Silurian formation. It has usually been said 
 that no plants existed except some fucolds ; and along 
 with these, a few zoophytes, small crustaceans, and 
 molluscs.^ And if a greater variety of plants have 
 
 ^ ' The Laurentian rocks of North America, Britain, Bavaria, Bo- 
 hemia, and possibly of Scandinavia, forming the foundations on which 
 all the other strata have been accumulated, were characterized,' in 
 the preceding part of the volume, 'as containing specimens of the lowest 
 grade of animal life, in the shape of a marine foraminifer, the eozoon. 
 It was then pointed out that the next succeeding deposits, or those of 
 
64 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 recently been found in the Lower Silurian strata, 
 they appear to have been either fucoids growing in 
 brackish pools, or fungi, mosses, and other plants 
 hastily springing up on their moist banks, and soon 
 covered over by fresh deluges of mud, while the 
 molluscs and crustaceans could scarcely find pools 
 deep enough to cover them, the latter leaving still 
 visible the scratches made by their feet as they 
 attempted to swim in the shallow water ; ^ but by 
 
 the Cambrian age, though of enormous dimensions, and often but 
 slightly altered mud and sand, contained only the rarest trace of any- 
 thing higher in organization than a zoophyte. Next it was shown 
 that the following or Silurian formations exhibited, even in their very 
 bottom beds, a considerable augmentation of animal life, as shown by 
 the presence of crustaceans, molluscs, and zoophytes, occupying layers 
 at similar horizons in the crust of the earth in very distant regions. 
 Proceeding upwards from the earliest of these zones, we then ascended 
 to other sediments, in which we recognised a more copious distribution 
 of marine creatures, closely resembling each other, though imbedded 
 in rocks separated by wide seas, and now often raised up into the 
 loftiest mountains. Examining all the strata exposed to view that 
 were formed during the first long natural epoch of the life which I 
 termed ' Silurian,' we found that the successive deposits were charged 
 with a great variety of forms, such as the trilobite or primeval 
 crustacean, with a few of the earliest chambered shells, as well as 
 numerous exquisitely formed molluscs, crinoids, and zoophytes — the 
 families of Cystideans and Graptolites being exclusively found in these 
 Silurian rocks.' — Siluria, by Sir Roderick I. Murchison, fourth 
 edition, ch. xx. p. 476. 
 
 Mountains, higher than they are now, probably existed at the close 
 of the Silurian period, but none whatever at the commencement of 
 the Laurentian. 
 
 ^ Sir Roderick Murchison, no doubt, sometimes speaks of extensive 
 and deep seas in the older periods, but as a mere assumption, with no 
 corroborative facts in support of it. 
 
The Third Day. 65 
 
 the time that the Upper Silurian rocks are deposited, 
 the crustaceans become of larger species/ while 
 numbers of floating shells, particularly Orthocerata^ 
 now indicate the presence of water deep enough 
 for them to swim or to float in ; and just before 
 the close of the Silurian period, a few solitary fishes 
 appear for the first time, having at last found seas 
 in which their evolutions and locomotions would be 
 unfettered. The waters begin to be gathered into one 
 place ; and, as if to enable us to finish our sentence 
 in the words of the Bible, at that very epoch, geolo- 
 gists testify,^ for the first time since creation began, 
 traces of true dry-land plants are seen,'* for the dry 
 land had begnn to appear. Could any written record 
 be more clearly established and illustrated than that 
 of our text is by the recently dug up tablets of stone ? 
 It is almost as if it were written at the end of the 
 verse in plain language, — * For this is the close of the 
 
 ^ As the Pterygotiis and the Eurypteriis. 
 
 - Siluria, ch. xx. p. 486. 
 
 ^ ' On the same occasion we observed that the only remains of small 
 land plants (one of which seemed to be a stem, and the others nume- 
 rous seeds, termed " spore-cases of Lycopodiace?e" by Dr. Hooker) 
 occurred in beds above the uppermost fish layer, and therefore at the 
 very top of the Ludlow formation, just beneath the lowest beds of the 
 Old Red.' — Siluria, ch. x. p. 241, footnote. See also the same 
 work, ch, vii. p. 138. 
 
 * If any of the plants whose impressions have more recently been 
 found in the Lower Silurian rocks should prove to be trae dry-land 
 plants, we have merely to transfer the epoch of the separation of land 
 and sea from the close to the beginning of the Silurian age. 
 
 E 
 
66 Moses a7id Modern Science. 
 
 Silurian age ; ' and as if it were inscribed on the 
 Silurian strata — ' These were deposited on the third 
 day of creation.' 
 
 But w^e are not yet come to that which was pro- 
 perly the age of fishes.^ As yet they are few and of 
 only one order, the Ganoid, and these armed with 
 coats of mail, in order probably to enable them to 
 withstand the high temperature^ or its rapid changes, 
 or perhaps to guard them against dangerous com- 
 motions among stormy waters. 
 
 Of the crustaceans of the later Silurian periods, by 
 far the most abundant are of that peculiar class 
 called Trilobites ; *a family,' in the words of Hugh 
 Miller, ' in whose nicely jointed shells the armourer 
 of the middle ages might have found almost all the 
 contrivances of his art anticipated, with not a few 
 besides which he had failed to discover.' 
 
 Of these there is no more remarkable feature than 
 their large and beautifully constructed eyes. Now 
 what would unbelievers have said regarding these if 
 the third verse of our chapter had by any means 
 been omitted 1 They would have exclaimed : ' Your 
 
 ^ ' The three or four peculiar fishes just enumerated may be viewed 
 as the heralds which announced the close of the Silurian era in Britain, 
 and the advent of the numerous other families of this class, which 
 thenceforward are found in all the younger sediments.' — Siluria, ch. 
 X. p. 242. 
 
 2 Fishes similarly clothed are still found in the Red Sea, to the 
 high temperature of which there are now daily many unwilling 
 witnesses. 
 
The Third Day, 67 
 
 whole theory falls to the ground ; for here are crea- 
 tures which had perfectly formed eyes long before 
 there was a sun, according to your own account, to 
 supply them with light.' But Geology and Genesis 
 agree in testifying that there was light even then, 
 and yet (as we shall see subsequently) that there was 
 no sun. 
 
 Following our history, as recorded in the rocks, 
 we now come to the Devonian system, or in other 
 words, the Old Red Sandstone, showing in the clearest 
 manner that the waters have now been gathered into 
 one place, and that the dry land has already appeared ; 
 for they consist of a succession of strata, not formed 
 among shallow pools of rain-water collected over 
 plains of sand and clay, but deposited from muddy 
 water washed down by impetuous rivers, and running 
 into seas worthy of the name, — seas peopled by 
 numerous fishes of various kinds, and these still 
 protected by strong defensive armour.^ At the 
 same time, coniferous trees, calamites, and tree 
 ferns, washed down by the floods into the sea, to 
 be deposited in its bed, testify equally clearly to 
 the existence of dry land. 
 
 Again, we are told that 'God saw that it was good.' 
 No wonder that he did so ! Here was one of his 
 worlds, a world afterwards to be distinguished above 
 
 1 For a full and interesting account of these, see Mr, Miller's Old 
 Red Sandstone, 
 
08 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 all others, formed in such a wondrous manner, out 
 of a mass at first dark, cold, chaotic, ' tolm and boJml 
 confusion and emptiness, and afterwards kindled up 
 Into a fearful conflagration, but now showing land 
 and sea, rivers and mountains, and exhibiting the 
 beginnings of vegetable and of animal life, the first 
 fruits of better things to come, which hc^ and he 
 only, could foresee. 
 
 * And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, th-e herb yielding 
 seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in 
 itself, upon the earth : and it was so. And the earth brought forth 
 grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding 
 fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind : and God saw that it 
 was good.' — Gen. i. ii, 12. 
 
 Next after the Devonian we have the Carboni- 
 ferous system of rocks. These are composed partly 
 of strata of lime and sand, again deposited from the 
 sea, and partly of great stratified accumulations of 
 trees and herbs, which at that period grew In rank 
 •profusion, and afterwards, when prostrated and 
 pressed down by layers of marine deposits heaped 
 upon them, were in the course of time converted 
 into coal for the use of future inhabitants, thus pro- 
 vided for, although as yet known only to the fore- 
 sight of the Almighty. 
 
 There are two theories as to the way in which 
 our coal-fields were prepared, for the discussion of 
 which the reader is referred to any of our treatises 
 
The Third Day. 69 
 
 on the subject ; but in whatever way the grand 
 work was accomplished, one thing is certain, that 
 at that period vegetable life sprung up in teeming 
 profusion, as if the new and warm earth, not now 
 too warm, delighted to pour it forth, — to such an 
 extent, that nearly one thousand different species 
 of plants then grew which the world had never seen 
 before.-^ 
 
 No doubt we have no specimen of grass of that 
 age corresponding to those which now cover our 
 pasture grounds : but it is not said that it was the 
 same as our grass ; and it is not likely to have been 
 so, for there were then no grass-eating quadrupeds 
 to browse upon it. ' The humblest grass in our 
 meadows,' says Hugh Miller, when discussing 
 another subject, ' belongs to the same natural order 
 as the tall bamboo, that, shooting up its panicles 
 amid the jungles of India to the height of sixty 
 feet, looks down upon all the second-class trees of 
 the country.' Probably, however, the word was 
 used in ancient times in a still more general sense 
 than even that. When our Saviour spoke of ' the 
 grass which is to-day in the field, and to-morrow is 
 cast into the oven,' he was not speaking of grass 
 
 ^ ' In the standard work of Bronn, von Meyer, and Goppert, which 
 gives the most complete tabular view of ancient nature hitherto 
 published, Professor Goppert estimates the total number of known 
 species of fossil plants of this great Carboniferous era as 934.' — 
 Siluria, ch. xii. p. 286. 
 
70 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 at all, in our sense of the word, but of lilies. In 
 fact, the one clause of the twelfth verse seems to 
 explain the other; for if, before herb, we omit the 
 word and, which is not in the original, it reads : 
 ' And the earth brought forth grass, herb yielding 
 seed,' etc. Probably all that is meant by grass in 
 this passage is simply green Jierbage. 
 
 Neither are we necessarily to understand by fruit 
 such soft fruits as form luxurious food for man, 
 although such might have been in abundance, with- 
 out leaving any specimens of articles so perishable 
 for our inspection. Among such multitudes of 
 herbs and trees as then grew, and of so many 
 varieties, fruits there m.ust have been, but such 
 fruits as were adapted to the consumption of 
 animals then living, or simply receptacles for con- 
 taining the seed and bringing it to maturity. 
 
 With these provisos, then, we may ask any 
 observer of the rocks, which of all the geological 
 periods he would fix upon as corresponding to the 
 two verses last quoted, and he will say at once, the 
 Carboniferous. * It was emphatically,' says Mr. 
 Miller,^ 'the period of plants — "of herbs yielding 
 seed after their kind." In no other age did the 
 world ever witness such a flora : the youth of the 
 earth was a peculiarly green and umbrageous youth, 
 
 ^ The Testimony of the Rocks, Lecture Third, p. 135 of first 
 edition. 
 
The Third Day, 71 
 
 — a youth of dusk and tangled forests, of huge 
 pines and stately araucarians, of the reed-like cala- 
 mite, the tall tree-fern, the sculptured sigillaria, and 
 the hirsute lepidodendron. Wherever dry land or 
 shallow lake or running stream appeared, from 
 where Melville Island now spreads out its icy 
 wastes under the star of the pole, to where the arid 
 plains of Australia lie solitary beneath the bright 
 cross of the South, a rank and luxuriant herbage 
 cumbered every foot -breadth of the dark and 
 steaming soil. Of this extraordinary age of plants 
 we have our cheerful remembrancers and witnesses, 
 in the flames that roar in our chimneys when we 
 pile up the winter fire ; in the brilliant gas which 
 now casts its light on this great assemblage, and 
 that lightens up the streets and lanes of this vast 
 city (London) ; in the glowing furnaces that smelt 
 our metals, and give moving power to our ponderous 
 engines ; in the long dusky trains that, with shriek 
 and snort, speed dart-like across our landscapes ; 
 and in the great cloud - enveloped vessels that 
 darken the lower reaches of your noble river, and 
 rush in foam over ocean and sea. The geological 
 evidence is so complete as to be patent to all, 
 that the first great period of organized being was, 
 as described by the Mosaic record, peculiarly a 
 period of herbs and trees " yielding fruit after their 
 kind." ' 
 
72 Moses and Modern Scieiice. 
 
 It will be observed, then, that we are now per- 
 using two contemporaneous histories, — one written 
 on papyrus or on parchment by Moses, the other 
 by the finger of God on tablets of rock, — the author 
 of the former knowing nothing whatever of the 
 records contained in the latter ; and on placing 
 the two together, as it were in parallel columns, 
 see how wonderfully they agree, not only now, but 
 in the previous stages, and in all that are to follow ! 
 The reader will testify that not the slightest altera- 
 tion is made here in the order of the verses, and 
 the geologist will also testify that no liberty is 
 taken with the order of sequence of the rocks. 
 Then let both observe how remarkably the two 
 histories correspond from step to step. Doubt- 
 less the one is a mere abstract, requiring to be 
 written in a very narrow column, and with many 
 blank intervals, while the other is copiously filled 
 up in all its details, requiring a very wide column 
 of closely crowded writing ; but the coincidence is 
 not the less striking on that account. 
 
 Seeing the great beauty that the earth has now^ 
 assumed, and the immense utility of the stores 
 which it was this day accumulating for the future 
 use of a higher class of inhabitants, well might it 
 be repeated at the close of the Carboniferous era, 
 and still more manifestly than before : ' God saw 
 that it was good.' 
 
The Third Day. "jt, 
 
 'And the evening and the morning were the third day.' — Gen. i. 13. 
 
 We may take this either literally or figuratively : 
 Literally: there was an outward and visible change 
 corresponding to the transition from night to day ; 
 for the condensation of watery vapour shows us that, 
 from the commencement of this period, the heat had 
 so much diminished that the glowing splendour uni- 
 versally diffused during the previous day, had at the 
 beginning of this wholly disappeared, and the still 
 remaining impurity of the atmosphere confined the 
 lights of the volcanoes to their own immediate 
 centres, so that probably darkness generally pre- 
 vailed ; but as the third day advances, the dense and 
 impure fogs begin to be cleared away, and volcanic 
 fires, gleaming in all directions, throw a light, though 
 ghastly and lurid, over the whole face of the earth ; 
 so that we have again passed from darkness to light. 
 Figuratively : there was again, during this day, 
 the transition from a state of comparative hope- 
 lessness, as far as appearances went, to one of a 
 most cheering kind. No doubt the termination of 
 the previous day was hopeful compared with its 
 commencement ; but it left the earth a mere 
 nucleus of melted rock surrounded by a muddy 
 atmosphere ; and the third day commences with 
 no improvement on that, for even the light has dis- 
 appeared. The slow dawning of brighter prospects, 
 however, came, — in the transition from an outspread 
 
74 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 barren plain to the same plain broken up and 
 diversified with ridges of rugged rocks ; then to 
 a separation of land and sea, — a rough land, no 
 doubt, but showing a few patches of green vegeta- 
 tion at last, and a sea, tempestuous indeed, and 
 lashing the margin of a strangely wild, rocky, and 
 broken shore, yet with shoals of fishes enlivening 
 its waters ; and, finally, to a landscape of lakes, 
 rivers, mountains, and diversified plains — the latter 
 covered with a more luxuriant vegetation than the 
 eye of man has ever beheld, and that not wasted, 
 but economically stored up for the use of some 
 future race, for whom the earth is now manifestly 
 being prepared, the very coals being prophetic. 
 In the beginning of the day there was a state of 
 things so gloomy, that even an angel would see 
 little ground for hope, and would 'walk by faith 
 and not by sight,' and that the more so since a 
 duration of time equivalent to hundreds of thou- 
 sands, not to say millions, of our years probably 
 passed away during that gloomy evening before a 
 morning of brighter hope began to dawn. For 
 the first time, perhaps, the faith of some wavered. 
 But at the close of the day, so bright would be the 
 prospect, that the heavenly hosts would be ready to 
 clap their wings with joy. Order has at last sprung 
 out of chaos : xoV/xo? is xUfj^og indeed. TJie evening 
 and the morning were the third day. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE FOURTH DAY. 
 
 BEFORE entering upon the work of this day, 
 let us inquire if any more direct proof can be 
 given that the earth was really at one time in a 
 condition so hot as I have described, In which the 
 material of the rocks, on its surface at least, w^as 
 actually melted. To answer this we may ask 
 another question, namely : If the earth has at one 
 time been so hot, in what condition would it be 
 now } It would be cooled on the outside, and 
 retain more or less of its original heat within. And 
 that is exactly the state in which we find it in our 
 day. 
 
 As we descend below the surface of the earth in 
 mines, we find that the temperature steadily in- 
 creases. The rate of increase differs considerably 
 in different places, owing to local peculiarities ; but 
 the average, as far as has been ascertained hitherto, 
 is about one degree of Fahrenheit for every fifty 
 feet of descent, and f/iat not falling off as the 
 descent is continued. At a depth of seven or eight 
 miles, therefore, everything must be red-hot, and at 
 
76 Moses and Modern Sciejice. 
 
 fifty miles down, the temperature must be more 
 than five thousand degrees, — suf^cient, probably, to 
 melt every metal and every kind of rock ^ under 
 ordinary circumstances, — that is, if they were relieved 
 from the superincumbent pressure.^ That pressure 
 probabty keeps them from fusion, and thus removes 
 all the objections that have been raised against the 
 theory of a high central heat ; but whatever effect 
 the pressure may have in altering the melting point, 
 it can have none whatever in keeping down the 
 temperature. Suppose, then, the whole outer cover- 
 ing of the earth to be suddenly thrown off to the 
 depth of fifty miles, we should find all within in the 
 condition of a glowing molten mass, far hotter than 
 any furnace which man has ever heated. It is in 
 vain that any one sneers at the idea of the earth 
 having formerly been in a state of intense heat, for 
 it is so even nowf — all except a mere superficial 
 coating, which could not but have cooled down to 
 
 1 That I am not going beyond the usual estimate in this, will be 
 seen from the following extract from Sir Charles Lyell's Principles of 
 Geology, book ii. ch. xviii. : ' If we adopt M. Cordier's estimate, of 
 1° Fahr. for every 45 feet of depth, as the mean result, and assume, 
 with the advocates of central fluidity, that the increasing temperature 
 is continued downwards, we should reach the ordinary boiling point 
 of water at about two miles below the surface, and at the depth of 
 about twenty-four miles should arrive at the melting point of iron, — a 
 heat sufficient to fuse almost every known substance.' 
 
 2 For an explanation of this, and for some further remarks on the 
 subject, see Note G. 
 
 ^ The case is exactly as if a visitor, walking through the outskirts 
 
The Fourth Day. 77 
 
 the state in which it now is, if it were allowed the 
 time which geologists concur in demanding for the 
 formation of their successive rock systems ; and that 
 time is freely conceded to them.i 
 
 * And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, 
 to divide the day from the night ; and let them be for signs, and for 
 seasons, and for days, and for years : and let them be for lights in the 
 firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth : and it was 
 so. And God made two great lights ; the greater light to rule the 
 day, and the lesser light to rule the night : the stars also. And God 
 set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, 
 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light 
 from the darkness : and God saw that it was good.' — Gen. i. 14-18. 
 
 During the third day, or even previously, all the 
 nine primary rings of vapour had been formed, and 
 probably also all the secondary ; all of the former 
 and most of the latter having been broken up and 
 consolidated into planets and satellites, and one of 
 the primary rings having been divided, in conse- 
 quence probably of its thinness, into more than a 
 hundred separate parts. But there still remained 
 
 of an iron foundry, guided by one of the workmen, were to place his 
 foot upon a heap of slag, and ask his conductor if he really means to 
 assert that that cool heap was a short while before at a Avhite heat, 
 while the conductor replies by knocking off the top of it with his 
 spade, and showing him that it is at a white heat still. 
 
 1 ' Baron Fourier, after making a curious series of experiments on " 
 the cooling of incandescent bodies, has endeavoured, by profound 
 mathematical calculations, to prove that the actual distribution of heat 
 in the earth's envelope is precisely that which would have taken place 
 if the globe had been formed in a medium of veiy high temperature, 
 and had afterwards been constantly cooled.' — Lyell's PrinciJ>ks of 
 Geology, book i. ch. \iii. 
 
78 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 the great central cloud, now also cooling and con- 
 densing, but without acquiring sufficient centrifugal 
 force to throw off any additional rings. Great com- 
 pressive force would reduce it to a liquid, or, near 
 its centre, even to a solid condition, long before that 
 result could have been attained by the mere lower- 
 ing of its temperature. The purification of its 
 atmosphere would also be quickened by the great 
 force of gravity acting upon its grosser elements, 
 till at last, in the course of the fourth day, its 
 struggling rays make their way for the first time 
 into unlimited space, — it takes its place as a bright 
 star in the galaxy of the heavens, and it shines on 
 its attendant planets as a glorious orb, governing 
 their revolutions, and shedding down upon them 
 light and heat. Its beams for the first time fall on 
 the moon, and her waxing and waning crescents 
 throw them back to the earth, in testimony that 
 now the great Creator has no longer left the 
 terrestrial globe to be illuminated only by volcanic 
 fires, and to be warmed by an unvarying and 
 equally diffused central heat, with no alternation of 
 day and night, of summer and winter, but has at 
 \2iSt placed lights in the heavens to divide the day from 
 the night, and to be for signs (bi-monthly periods 
 perhaps) and for seasojis, and for days aiid for years , 
 — two great lights, the greater light to ride the day, 
 and the lesser light to rule the night. 
 
The Fourth Day, 79 
 
 And the stars also; for they were likewise pro- 
 bably at first, similarly to our own solar system, 
 mere nebulae, created at the same time with it ; and 
 like it, they have, during the three preceding days, 
 been gradually emerging into order, and at last shine 
 forth, like our own sun, each probably attended by 
 its own system of planets.-^ 
 
 No doubt the sun and the moon have been in the 
 course of preparation in former days; but it is not 
 until the fourth day that the work is completed. 
 That which on the fourth day became the grand 
 luminary of our system, was at first merely the 
 dark centre of the great nebula, gradually becoming 
 luminous, in one of its outer shells at least, and 
 afterwards a solid or a liquid mass, surrounded by 
 an atmosphere so dense that no ray could pass 
 through it. But now on the fourth day its forma- 
 tion is completed, and it really appears as a lumi- 
 nary in the heavens; and therefore its formation is 
 described as a part of that day's work, or, more 
 correctly speaking perhaps, is described under the 
 head of that day, just as we have already observed 
 
 ^ It is not meant to imply here that all the stars changed from 
 nebulee into liquid or solid spheres at the same time with our sun ; 
 nor does our record say so. Some would sooner attain to maturity, 
 and some would require a longer time, while others may not have 
 reached that stage even yet. As they are mentioned in the fourth 
 day, however, that was probably the time at which most of them 
 came to maturity. 
 
8o Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 that the creation of the vegetable world is described . 
 on that day in which vegetable life was most fully- 
 displayed, although there was a new creation of 
 plants on each of the three subsequent days; and, 
 as we shall afterwards have occasion to notice, just 
 as the creations of the different classes of animals 
 are described on those days in which they severally 
 appeared in the greatest numbers and in the highest 
 perfection. There was, in fact, no sun, properly so 
 called, until the fourth day, nor any light -giving 
 moon.-^ 
 
 Returning from the heavens to the earth : on the 
 commencement of the fourth day (co-extensive with 
 the period of the New Red Sandstone) great con- 
 vulsions had arisen on its. surface,^ from what cause 
 we know not, breaking and disturbing its now com- 
 
 1 In this, it will been seen, I dififer essentially from previous defen- 
 ders and expounders of Moses' account, as they believe the sun to 
 have been created on the first day, but not to have shone upon the 
 earth till the fourth; whereas the doctrine here maintained is, that 
 there was no sun at all on the first and second days, and no finished 
 luminary even on the third or the beginning of the fourth. 
 
 2 ' During the Devonian and the Carboniferous eras, volcanic erup- 
 tions were by no means so abundant as when the Lower Silurian rocks 
 
 were accumulated The close, however, of that period was 
 
 specially marked by ruptures of the crust of the earth, which, from 
 the physical evidences placed before us, must have extended over very 
 distant regions. Whatever may have been the previous changes, it 
 was then that the coal strata and their antecedent formations were 
 very generally broken up by upheavals into separate troughs and 
 
 basins, distorted by numberless powerful dislocations Yet, 
 
 notwithstanding these physical changes, the animals and plants of the 
 
The Fourth Day, 8 1 
 
 paratively thick crust to an extent never again to be 
 experienced/ and turning up the horizontal strata, 
 which seemed to be laid as immovably as the 
 
 * everlasting hills.' This disturbance immediately 
 preceded the deposition of the Permian strata, 
 which form the lower half of the New Red Sand- 
 stone system. These strata were deposited in the 
 bed of the sea, in the same manner as those of the 
 Old Red Sandstone, and with a similar appearance, 
 although with a great difference in their fossil re- 
 mains. From the one to the other, certain species 
 of plants and of animals have been gradually dis- 
 appearing, and others taking their place; but now, 
 in the Permian formation, we have, we are informed, 
 
 * a comparative paucity of vegetable and of animal 
 life.' ' The mass of the organic remains of the Per- 
 mian group,' says Sir Roderick Murchison,^ 'con- 
 stitute a remnant only of the earlier animals. They 
 exhibit the last of the successive changes which 
 these creatures underwent before their final disap- 
 pearance. The dwindling away and extinction of 
 many of the types which were produced and multi- 
 
 Peiinian era, though chiefly of new species, are generically connected 
 with those of the preceding or Carboniferous epoch, whilst they are 
 almost wholly dissimilar to those of the next succeeding period, the 
 Trias.' — Siluria, ch. xiii. p. 308. 
 
 ^ That is, of course, as far as the earth's history has advanced in 
 our o^vn times. There is no intention here even to guess at the future. 
 
 2 Siluria^ ch. xiii. p. 344. 
 
 F 
 
8:^ Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 plied during the anterior epochs, already announce 
 the end of the long Palaeozoic period. In ascending 
 above the highest of the Permian deposits, the 
 geologist takes indeed a sudden and final leave of 
 nearly everything in nature to which the words 
 Primary, Primeval, or Palceozoic have been applied.' 
 Then what has now become of those grand forests 
 and jungles which covered the earth in so rich pro- 
 fusion during the Carboniferous period.'' They are 
 almost entirely gone, and fields of coal have ceased 
 to be deposited. Geologists have failed to inform 
 us what was the cause of so wonderful a change; 
 but the remarkable passage of Scripture which is 
 now under our consideration, along with the hypo- 
 thesis on which we have hitherto built, may throw 
 some light on the subject. 
 
 The surface of the earth, with its dense atmo- 
 sphere now cleared, was rapidly cooling ; and to 
 such an extent had this reached, that some of our 
 latest geological observers have detected, on the 
 boulders found imbedded among the Permian rocks, 
 the first marks of glacial action recorded in the 
 earth's history.^ There was no longer that great 
 terrestrial heat and that dense warm atmosphere 
 which made the plants rush up as if in a hothouse ; 
 but the climate was assuming more and more of a 
 
 1 For particulars regarding the grounds on which this statement is 
 supported, see Note H. 
 
The Fotcrth Day. 8 j 
 
 wintery character.^ Vegetation languished, and al- 
 most disappeared; the seas also cooled, and animal 
 life was everywhere diminishing in number and in 
 vigour. What was the key to all this ? While the 
 warmth supplied from the earth's interior was dis- 
 appearing, although greater than it is now, there 
 was as yet no sun to keep up the temperature of 
 the surface. Animal and vegetable life would soon 
 have wholly disappeared,^ but for the next wonder- 
 ful display of creative power, — that which we have 
 already described. The remedy was provided ages 
 before the need of it appeared, but is now fully 
 ready. At the close of the Permian period the sun 
 shone forth to restore perishing nature, — at first 
 feebly, but, before the termination of the fourth 
 day, in all its splendour. 
 
 If the sun shone upon earth for the first time, as 
 Moses asserts that it did, on the fourth day, it ought 
 to have left some record in nature sufficient to show 
 to succeeding ages the all-important change which 
 then took place. The plants and animals best 
 adapted to flourish in a steaming atmosphere of an 
 invariably high temperature would not be equally 
 well adapted to the new state of things, — namely, 
 a comparatively dry atmosphere, and great vicissi- 
 tudes of temperature, in transitions from day to 
 
 * For further remarks on this, see Note K. 
 
 ^ As it would disappear now, if the solar heat were withdrawn. 
 
84 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 night, and from summer to winter. The probabiHty 
 is, that they could not survive the change. The 
 supporters of the theory of unHmited development 
 would say, that the old races of plants and of 
 animals would gradually accommodate themselves 
 to the altered state of circnmstances, if such an 
 altered state there was, and would change with 
 them: 
 
 * Tempora mutantur et -nos mutamur in illis.' 
 
 But they did no such thing. The rocks show us 
 no traces whatever of ary such gradual transition at 
 that period. A totally new creation was required. 
 Accordingly we find that, in the transition from the 
 Permian to the Triassic system, which comes next 
 in order, although the change was attended by no 
 excessive volcanic activity, and by no unusual com- 
 motions, not even by any decided change in the 
 position or character vof the strata, organic life 
 underwent a complete and a sudden renovation. 
 Previous to that transition there was little change 
 in either the ,anmi: 1 or the vegetable world except 
 gradual decay; but immediately that we enter on 
 the Trias, the transition is already complete. ^ The 
 fauna and flora of the Permian rocks,' says Murchi- 
 son,-^ ' are essentially Palaeozoic ; for, whilst in a 
 great measure they are specifically distinct ^*'om 
 those of the Carboniferous system, the amount of 
 
The Fo2irth Day, 85 
 
 agreement in the two groups is surprising, when 
 we reflect upon the phenomena adverted to in the 
 opening of this chapter, of great physical revolutions 
 which pretty generally affected the known surface 
 of the earth at or before the close of the preceding 
 or Carboniferous era. These disruptions, therefore, 
 however violent and extensive, were not universal, 
 but were, we may suppose, so accompanied by new 
 physical conditions^ as to occasion the destruction 
 of many plants and animals;' whereas the change 
 from the Permian to the Triassic period was alto- 
 gether different : for, as the same eminent author 
 adds, in another part of his work,^ ^At the close 
 of the Permian or Supra- carboniferous era an in- 
 finitely greater change took place in organic life 
 than that which marked the ascent from the Silu- 
 rian system to the overlying Palaeozoic groups. 
 Nearly, if not quite, all the species of the earlier 
 races then disappeared, and were replaced in the 
 Trias by a new series, the types of which were 
 continued through those long epochs which geolo- 
 gists term Secondary or Mesozoic.'^ 
 
 No doubt the creations of animals to re-people 
 the earth did not take place on a great scale till the 
 
 ^ The new physical condition, as we have ah-eady seen, appears to 
 have been the advent of a period of great cold. 
 
 2 Siluria, ch. xx. p. 481. 
 
 ^ Hugh Miller, speaking of the Cycadacece, an order of plants un- 
 known in the coal-measures, says : * One of the first known genera 
 
86 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 fifth and sixth days; but the change was begun sud- 
 denly, In the middle of the fourth day, and by that 
 time all, or almost all, the older species had dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 In the next place, we know that, in our own 
 times, vegetation is very different in the different 
 zones of the earth. The trees and plants of the 
 torrid zone are entirely different from those of the 
 temperate zones, and these again from the few 
 dwarjEish specimens found in the Arctic regions. 
 But in the Carboniferous period the most luxuriant 
 vegetation flourished probably to the very poles, — 
 and that consisting of the same kinds of plants and 
 trees as those which are now found only in the 
 warmest regions of the earth, while no marked 
 difference has ever been observed in the character of 
 the plants of which the coal strata have been formed 
 in different latitudes. 'This earliest luxuriant tree 
 vegetation,' says Murchison, 'the pabulum of our 
 coal-fields. Is also remarkable for Its spread over 
 many latitudes; and together with It occur the same 
 common species of marine shells, all Indicating a 
 more or less equable climate fromx polar to Inter- 
 
 of this curious order — the genus Pterophyllu^n — appears in the Trias. 
 It distinctively marks the commencement of the Secondary flora, and 
 intimates that the once great Palaeozoic flora, after gradually waning 
 throughout the Permian ages, and becoming extinct at their close, had 
 been succeeded by a vegetation altogether new.' — Testimony of the 
 Rocks, Lecture Twelfth, p. 475. 
 
The Fourth Day, Sf 
 
 tropical regions, — a phenomenon wholly at variance 
 with the present distribution of animal and vege- 
 table life over the surface of the planet.'^ Coals 
 are as abundant in the coldest regions of the earth 
 as in the hottest. 
 
 Since we know, then, that the unequal incidence 
 of the solar rays is the great cause of the extreme 
 inequality which now exists in the temperatures of 
 the different latitudes, and since we cannot even 
 imagine any way in which the climates of the polar 
 and equatorial regions could be brought into agree- 
 ment unless by the entire exclusion of the sun's rays, 
 it follows that the sun either did not exist, or did not 
 shine on the earth, during the Carboniferous era. 
 And if we can determine the time at which the 
 inequality of climates first arose, we also determine 
 the period of the sun's first appearance in the 
 heavens ; and since we have no evidence whatever of 
 the existence of an equable temperature after the 
 Permian era — and we know that the close of that era 
 was coincident with the great change which then 
 arose in the animal and vegetable world — we may 
 naturally infer that that was the very epoch of the 
 sun's first appearance. 
 
 Then, again, since we know that if the sun were 
 
 ^ Silnria, ch. xx. p, 479. Sir Roderick repeats this statement in 
 many places, applying it to all the Palaeozoic ages. (See pp. 488, 
 501, 502, etc.) Sir Charles Lyell also coincides with the above; but 
 for his remarks, and son^e comments upon them, see Note L. 
 
88 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 to disappear now, the cold would be so great that 
 everything that grows or lives would perish, there 
 must have been some other source of the great 
 warmth which prevailed in the previous ages ; and 
 we know of no other such source than the heat of 
 the ground. Even that would not have preserved 
 vegetation with a dry air and a clear sky. But 
 the humidity to which it would give rise, and to 
 which the peculiar vegetation of the coal period 
 testifies, would be the means of retaining that heat 
 in our atmosphere. But if the only source of 
 warmth was the ground, that, however dense the 
 atmosphere, must have been from age to age con- 
 tinually cooling ; and if so, we have a strong 
 corroboration of the generally received theory of 
 the existence of a still higher terrestrial tempera- 
 ture in times still more remote.^ 
 
 To sum up, then, in a few words, what I have 
 already said in regard to the remarkable epoch at 
 which we have arrived. At that epoch, without any 
 convulsions among the strata which might suggest a 
 terrestrial origin of the revolution which took place, 
 we find a sudden transition from one kind of plants 
 to another entirely different — so much so, that not a 
 single species remains the same ; and we find also a 
 change from a tropical vegetation, extending from 
 pole to pole, to one diversified with plants suited to 
 
 ^ See Notes M and N, 
 
The Fourth Day, 89 
 
 every different latitude — some adapted to the exces- 
 sive heat of the tropics, and capable of growing in 
 that alone, others suited to the milder temperature 
 of the middle latitudes, and to that alone ; and then, 
 as we approach the poles, a vegetation becoming 
 more and more scanty, till we arrive at nothing more 
 than a few mosses and stunted willows, instead of the 
 palms, araucarias, and tree-ferns which in the pre- 
 vious age grew luxuriantly, probably to the very 
 highest latitudes. If this wonderful revolution is 
 not to be explained by the introduction of solar 
 heat and light, with the diversified climates which 
 would be the necessary result, geologists, after much 
 hard labour, have failed to assign any other ade- 
 quate cause ; whereas, if the introduction of a solar 
 orb into our firmament^ was really the key to the 
 solution of the mystery, here is certainly again a 
 marvellous coincidence in our two records. Such 
 coincidences could hardly be by chance, and still 
 less can we fancy that they arose from Moses' 
 geological knowledge, although he Svas learned in 
 all the wisdom of the Egyptians.' We can hardly 
 conceive how they could occur at all, unless from 
 the fact that the true author of the first chapter of 
 Genesis was also the creator of the rocks, and the 
 
 * Ic may be observed en passant, that we can hardly avoid the use 
 of this word, even now that we have so copious a scientific language, 
 although we have no belief in '\\.% firmness. 
 
90 Aloses and Modem Science, 
 
 writer, on their own durable material, of their wonder- 
 ful history. 
 
 Again it is said, *God saw that it was good.' Who 
 can doubt it ? A glorious sun at last illuminates 
 and cheers his fair creation, giving rise to all the 
 pleasing vicissitudes of day and night, of summer 
 and winter, of sunshine and shade, and also of calms 
 and of storms ; and itself the emblem of a greater 
 sun, the ' Sun of Righteousness,' which was after- 
 wards to shine still more gloriously in the spiritual 
 firmament, rescuing the moral nature of man from a 
 condition as hopeless as that from which the material 
 sun now rescued the material creation. At the same 
 time, an ever-changing moon for the first time 
 throws its silvery rays over sea and land, over stream 
 and lake, over mountain and valley, over pasture 
 and forest. 
 
 'And the evening and the mommg were the fourth day,' — Gen. 
 I. 19. 
 
 The evening was gloomy indeed. The warmth of 
 the earth, which had hitherto been the sole source of 
 its teeming vegetation, was slowly but steadily dis- 
 appearing. Winter came on colder and colder, and 
 with no reviving spring. The snows, which at first 
 had only whitened the tops of the highest mountains, 
 steadily descended, driven back only in insulated 
 spots by scattered volcanic fires. Glaciers fill the 
 
The Fourth Day. 9 1 
 
 upland valleys, from the equator to the poles. The 
 animal races are fast diminishing in numbers, many 
 species going entirely out of existence, never to 
 reappear ; and the grand luxuriant forests, with 
 their gorgeous flora, droop and die. Even the 
 angels are all but dismayed, and exclaim, 'What 
 next V Some perhaps lose their faith for ever, and 
 some look on in solemn awe, waiting to see by what 
 unimaginable means our all-wise Creator can restore 
 his now ruined world. But now comes the first 
 dawn of morning. A red ball seems to move across 
 the sky, but so faint in its light, and so hazy, that 
 the eyes even of angels can hardly say whether it 
 is a reality or an optical delusion. After doing so 
 many thousands of times, it is clearly perceptible 
 that it is an actual luminous orb. At last its rays 
 perceptibly illuminate the mountain-tops, and finally 
 dispel the mists, and throw a genial warmth on the 
 plains below. The snow melts. The glaciers retire 
 to the mountain-tops, and to the distant poles. 
 Vegetation anew begins, but only begins, to gladden 
 the valleys,^ though with a foliage never seen before. 
 A few large reptiles stalk along the shores, some 
 unknown birds leave their footprints there also, and 
 
 ^ From whatever cause it may have arisen, there can be no doubt 
 of the fact, that the Triassic flora is one extremely limited both in 
 numerical amount and variety of species. — Page's Advanced Textbook 
 of Geology^ art. 232. 
 
92 Moses and Modem Science, 
 
 a very few marsupial quadrupeds for the first time 
 appear, and that only at the close of the fourth 
 day. 
 
 But, altogether, the land animals (reptiles perhaps 
 excepted) are almost as few as the trees and plants.^ 
 The seas, however, are more abundant In life ; for 
 while nearly all the bone-encased fishes have disap- 
 peared, and the heterocercal families have given 
 place to the homocercal, and these In considerable 
 variety, there are also shell-fishes In something 
 like abundance, and a few crustaceans. But even In 
 these there Is an almost universal change. 
 
 In hasty review we have passed from darkness 
 faintly broken oy volcanic fires, from a cold and 
 convulsed earth to the bright sunshine of a peaceful 
 day, and from a cheerless, misty atmosphere, to a 
 serene sky, with sun, moon, and stars. We have 
 also passed figuratively from the gloom of a world 
 In which life and vegetation were steadily dying out, 
 to one In which there was a creation of new races to 
 supply their place. For the evening and the morning 
 were the fourth day. 
 
 ^ ' In the animal world, though the era (the Triassic) is marked by 
 the introduction of new and higher forms, it by no means exhibits 
 either extensive distribution, numerical amount, or variety of species. 
 How and why this paucity of life, geology is yc'c unable to determine.' 
 — Ibid. art. 231. 
 
 Perhaps the reader may think that the nebular hypothesis and its 
 necessary consequences have now resolved the difficulty which hitherto 
 has baffled geology. 
 
The Fourth Day, 93 
 
 It may be thought that less work has been done 
 on earth on the fourth than on previous days ; and 
 the appearance is probably in accordance with the 
 truth. But here again our records are harmonious. 
 Geology speaks of little, and Moses has not thought 
 it necessary even to take notice of a7iy. His atten- 
 tion is altogether drawn away from it, to the wonder- 
 ful metamorphosis going on in the heavens. The 
 crust of the earth had become solidified ; its rough- 
 nesses had been to a certain extent obliterated ; 
 never-melting ice for a while preserved the earth 
 from any action but its own ; the streams flowed 
 perhaps less muddy than before, and the strata were 
 more slowly accumulated. Still, in the Permian and 
 Triassic formations together, a considerable thick- 
 ness was added to the stratified crust of the earth. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FIFTH DAY. 
 
 ' And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving 
 creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the 
 open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and 
 every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth 
 abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind : 
 and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be 
 fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl 
 multiply in the earth.' — Gen. I. 20-22. 
 
 ^ I ^HE moving creature is translated, in the mar- 
 ■*- gin of the Bible, the creeping creature, which 
 seems to be generally acknowledged to be the true 
 rendering of the word, and is likely to be so, for the 
 creation of quadrupeds is yet to come. This, then, 
 as the rocks assuredly bear witness, was truly the 
 age of creeping things ; for we are now come to the 
 time of the Jurassic system, including the Oolitic 
 and Liassic formations, — a system which, above all 
 others, abounds in reptiles, and in these perhaps 
 above all other living creatures, — so much so, that 
 it has been named peculiarly t/ie age of reptiles. 
 
 No doubt there were a few in previous systems ; 
 but as astronomers, when they want to determine 
 the exact periodic time of a meteoric shower, do 
 
The Fifth Day. 95 
 
 not talce, as the period of its appearance, either the 
 beginning of the shower or the end of it, but observe 
 carefully the time of the greatest frequency of the 
 meteors, — the hour in which the greatest number 
 are seen, — the very same appears to be Moses' 
 method in this and in other instances. He assigns 
 to any class of creatures the day in which they 
 appear in the greatest numbers and in the highest 
 perfection. * The oldest known reptiles,' Mr. Miller 
 remarks,^ ^ appear just a little before the close of 
 the Old Red Sandstone. . . . What seems to be 
 the upper Old Red of our own country, has fur- 
 nished the remains of a small reptile, equally akin 
 to the lizards and the batrachians ; and what seems 
 to be the upper Old Red of the United States has 
 exhibited the foot-tracks of a larger animal of the 
 
 same class In the coal-measures the reptiles 
 
 hitherto found are all allied, though not without a 
 cross of the higher crocodilian or lacertian nature, 
 to the batrachian order, — that lowest order of the 
 reptiles to which the frogs, newts, and salamanders 
 belong It was not, however, until the Per- 
 mian and Triassic systems had come to a close, and 
 even the earlier ages of the Oolitic system had 
 passed away, that the class received its fullest 
 development in creation. And certainly very won- 
 derful was the development which it did then 
 1 The Testimony of the Rocks, Lecture Second. 
 
96 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 receive. Reptiles became everywhere the lords and 
 masters of this lower world. When any class of the 
 air-breathing vertebrates is very largely developed, 
 we find it taking possession of all the three old 
 
 terrestrial elements, — earth, air, and water 
 
 Now, in the times of the Oolite, it was the reptilian 
 class that possessed itself of all the elements. Its 
 gigantic enaliosatirSy huge reptilian whales mounted 
 on paddles, were the tyrants of the ocean, and must 
 have reigned supreme over the already reduced 
 class of fishes ; its pterodactyles, dragons as strange 
 as were ever feigned by the romance of the middle 
 ages, and that, to the jaws and teeth of the croco- 
 dile, added the wings of a bat and the body and 
 tail of an ordinary mammal, had the " power of the 
 air," and pursuing the fleetest insects in their flight, 
 captured and bore them down ; its lakes and rivers 
 abounded in crocodiles and fresh-water tortoises of 
 ancient type and fashion ; and its woods and plains 
 were the haunts of a strange reptilian fauna of what 
 has been termed " fearfully great lizards," — some of 
 which, such as the iguanodon, rivalled the largest 
 elephant in height, and greatly more than rivalled 
 him in length and bulk. Judging from what re- 
 mains, it seems not impossible that the reptiles of 
 this Oolitic period were quite as numerous individu- 
 ally, and consisted of well-nigh as many genera and 
 species, as all the mammals of the present time. In 
 
The Fifth Day. 97 
 
 the cretaceous ages, this class, though still the 
 dominant one, is visibly reduced in standing ; it had 
 reached its culminating point in the Oolite, and then 
 began to decline ; and with the first dawn of the 
 Tertiary division, we find it occupying, as now, a 
 very subordinate place in creation.' 
 
 It seems strange to every reader that the waters 
 should bring forth fowls ; but it has been suggested 
 of late years, that the word fwls in this verse 
 should rather be translated winged reptiles ; and if 
 so, the statement is quite in accordance, as we have 
 just seen, with the evidence of geological records.^ 
 
 For the statement that the waters produced rep- 
 tiles of any kind, we can, of course, have no positive 
 confirmation from Geology ; but from the facts that 
 their skeletons are found in such numbers in strata 
 deposited from water, and that some of them were 
 provided with fins or paddles, we learn that their 
 haunts were among the waters, or on the muddy 
 shores, and probably also among the reedy swamps. 
 
 If, however, such was the true meaning of the 
 word translated fowl in the twentieth verse, I have 
 not heard it suggested that the word rendered fowl 
 in the twenty-second verse should be similarly al- 
 tered, and there is no reason from the context that 
 
 ^ I confess myself utterly ignorant of Hebrew, and I cannot now 
 remember the authority for this suggested correction of our transla- 
 tion. But if it rests on no sufficient ground, the point is immaterial 
 to the general scope of the argument. 
 
 G 
 
98 Moses and Moder^i Science. 
 
 it should be so. In the latter verse fowls are men- 
 tioned in no connection with the sea, and we may 
 naturally understand that birds are meant. We do 
 not, indeed, find many remains of birds in the strata 
 of this period ; but assuredly they are not found 
 at any earlier ; and I am not aware that they are 
 found more abundantly in the rock-formations of 
 any subsequent age, unless perhaps the Tertiary. 
 In fact, they appear, in general, to be very scarce. 
 Their thin and light bones would not sink in water, 
 if by any chance they fell into it, and could not 
 therefore be imbedded in the subjacent mud ; nor, if 
 thrown on a moist shore, would they be the kind of 
 bones most capable of preservation, while land-birds 
 would not even leave the impressions of their feet 
 on the shores. The footprints of birds, however, 
 are found in strata not older than the upper Lias, 
 but only those of the GrallcB, or stilt order of birds ; 
 and their bones in the cretaceous system, which 
 also, according to our chronology, belongs to the 
 fifth day. 
 
 As to the great whales of the twenty-first verse, 
 ,ve cannot depend upon the translation. In fact, it 
 is not easy to understand why our translators so 
 rendered it, as the Hebrews could have no know- 
 ledge of the whale, and therefore no word for it. 
 In the margin it is great sea-monsters ; and these 
 assuredly there were in the Oolitic age, such as 
 
The Fifth Day. 99 
 
 those to which alkislon has been made in our last 
 quotation. 
 
 *'And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.' — Gen. i. 23. 
 
 It will be understood, from what has been said 
 above, that the fifth day, according to the views 
 here set forth, comprehended the geological periods 
 of the Oolitic and the Cretaceous systems. What 
 the evening and the morning of this day were, does 
 not clearly appear. It may be meant that, at its 
 commencement, the solar atmosphere was but im- 
 perfectly cleared, and only a dim twilight fell upon 
 the earth ; but at its close the sun shone out in all 
 its brightness, and restored once more a high tem- 
 perature to the earth, — not so high as it was in the 
 Carboniferous and preceding ages, but still a tropi- 
 cal heat even in the middle latitudes.-^ Or it may 
 signify that the earth, thinly clothed with vegeta- 
 tion, and peopled with few living creatures at the 
 commencement of the day, as we know that it was at 
 the close of the previous, presented, before the ter- 
 mination of this day, all the cheerfulness of revived 
 vegetation and of active animal life : for the forma- 
 tion of coal-fields, interrupted on the previous day, 
 is again renewed, and testifies to the revival of 
 vegetation ; while the numerous remains of animals 
 still preserved in the rocks of the period declare 
 
 ^ For the authorities on which this statement rests, see Note O. 
 
lOO Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 that God's command in the twenty-second verse, 
 * Be fruitful and multiply,' was well obeyed. 
 
 If our readers are dissatisfied with both of these 
 explanations of 'the evening and the morning of 
 the fifth day,' I can only reply that there is much 
 that is unknown to us yet. Geological research has 
 not filled up all the details of the earth's history. 
 We are not therefore called upon to explain every 
 statement in the first chapter of Genesis. All that 
 is demanded of us is to show that there is nothing 
 in that chapter contradictory to the discoveries of 
 science, but that all its announcements are in har- 
 mony with those discoveries as far as they have as 
 yet advanced. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SIXTH DAY. 
 
 ' And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after 
 his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his 
 kind : and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after 
 his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that 
 creepeth upon the earth after his kind : and God saw that it was 
 good.' — Gen. i. 24, 25. 
 
 THE fifth day seems to have ended at the close 
 of the Cretaceous system, leaving the Tertiary 
 period for the sixth day; and accordingly Genesis 
 and Geology both inform us that, at the commence- 
 ment of that day, there was a new creation of animal 
 life. 'Between the uppermost member of the 
 Secondary series, and the oldest of the newer class 
 of formations called Tertiary,' says Sir Charles 
 Lyell, 'there is a remarkable discordance, as to 
 species, of organic remains ; none having yet been 
 found common to both.'^ 
 
 1 Principles of Geology^ book i. ch. viii. After this statement, Sir 
 Charles proceeds to describe the change of climate which has pre- 
 viously been spoken of, and then goes on to say, that * alteration of 
 climate must have been accompanied by geographical changes, the 
 channels of seas being raised into tracts of dry land, and even high 
 mountain chains, such as the Pyrenees, being thrown up, although 
 
102 Moses and Modern Scie7ice. 
 
 For this we may also take the evidence of the 
 author we have so often quoted : ^ — ^ The curtain 
 drops over this ancient flora of the Oolite in Scot- 
 land ; and when, long after, there is a corner of the 
 thick enveloping screen withdrawn, and we catch a 
 partial glimpse of one of the old Tertiary forests of 
 our country, all is new. Trees of the high dicotyle- 
 donous class, allied to the plane and the buckthorn, 
 prevail in the landscape, intermingled, however, with 
 dingy, funereal yews ; and the ferns and equisetae 
 that rise in the darker openings of the wood ap- 
 proach to the existing type.' 
 
 Both Genesis and Geology also inform us that, 
 during the sixth or Tertiary period, * God made the 
 beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after 
 their kind ;' for no rocks older than the Tertiary 
 contain the remains of any mammalia except a few 
 marsupials, which, as Mr. Miller shows,^ are not 
 
 not to their entire present elevation. ' Then, at p. 212 : * The remark- 
 able break above alluded to, between the most modern of the known 
 Secondary rocks and the oldest Tertiary, may be in some measure 
 apparent only, and ascribable to the deficiency of our information. . . . 
 Nevertheless it is far from impossible that the interval between the 
 Chalk and Tertiary formations constituted an era in the earth's his- 
 tory, when the transition from one class of organic beings to another 
 was, comparatively speaking, rapid.' This is a wonderful admission 
 from a geologist whose leading principle is the absence of catastrophes, 
 and the continuance of events now as they have always been. 
 
 i Hugh Miller, Tesiimony of the Rocks, Lecture Twelfth. 
 
 ^ For his ingenious and original remarks on this point, see the 
 Testi??iony of the Rocks, Lecture Second, p. 91. 
 
The Sixth Day. 103 
 
 true mammalia, but, as it were, an intermediate 
 class between them and birds, and these so very- 
 insignificant in number, that, even regarding them 
 as ' beasts of the earth,' it would have been utterly 
 below the dignity of the Scripture narrative to de- 
 scribe them as characteristic of the day/ Geology 
 assuredly bears witness that never before this period 
 did the earth behold any of the carnivorous wild 
 beasts which now roam through our forests, or of 
 those herbivorous mammalia which feed wild upon 
 the pastures of our grassy mountains and plains, 
 such as deer, antelopes, buffaloes, hares, and rabbits, 
 or of those domestic animals which are so familiar 
 and so useful to us now. The cow which brings us 
 milk, the sheep which gives us clothing, the horse 
 which ploughs our fields and draws our carriages, 
 the dog which watches our houses, keeps our sheep, 
 and is our faithful attendant, and the cat, the play- 
 mate of our children, were unknown before this era. 
 Such animals had no existence before the sixth day, 
 says or implies our written record ; and such animals 
 had no existence before the Tertiary period, the 
 
 ^ * In the Stonesfield slate the remains of reptiles have been found 
 associated with marine shells, and with them the jaws of at least two 
 species of small mammiferous quadrupeds of a genus allied to the 
 Didelphys or Opossum. It is very remarkable that these fossils affox'd 
 the only exception yet known to the apparent absence of all terrestrial 
 mammalia from the islands and continents which existed anteriorly to 
 the Eocene period.' — Principles of Geolo-^)\ book iv. ch. xxiii. 
 
I04 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 record of the rocks replies. Let any impartial 
 reader say if the coincidence is not again remark- 
 able, or if it could be by chance. 
 
 As to the clause which follows, regarding ' every- 
 thing that creepeth upon the earth,' we are not told 
 that such reptiles were now created for the first 
 time ; for the twentieth verse informed us that 
 many of them appeared on the fifth day, and that 
 statement we found amply confirmed by Geology. 
 But now new kinds of reptiles come into existence. 
 The huge and monstrous species which seem to 
 have revelled on the earth on the fifth day, as its 
 principal occupants, have disappeared, and have 
 been succeeded by other races less formidable in 
 their aspect, and claiming only a share — in fact, now 
 only a subordinate share — with multitudes of other 
 animals, in the occupation of the soil. Now, also, they 
 are no longer ' free of the three elements,' as on the 
 previous day ; for although. some are amphibious as 
 far as regards land and water, yet no reptiles in our 
 time wing their way through our atmosphere, and I 
 believe none such are found in the Tertiary strata.-^ 
 
 ' And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our like- 
 ness ; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over 
 
 1 Herodotus, no doubt, asserts the existence of winged serpents in 
 ancient times, but he never saw them ; and their skeletons, which he 
 describes as still visible in Ethiopia, may really have been fossil 
 specimens, if they existed at all. 
 
The Sixth Day. 105 
 
 the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and 
 over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God 
 created man in his owii image : in the image of God created he him ; 
 male and female created he them. And God blessed them : and God 
 said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, 
 and subdue it ; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over 
 the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the 
 earth.'— Gen. r. 26-28. 
 
 Here was, at last, the completion of God's great 
 work of creation, the hewing out and the placing of 
 the keystone of the arch. Here was now the reward 
 given to the angels who had looked on in patience, 
 and for so many millions of years waited with sted- 
 fast faith for the final development of the grand 
 scheme. Now * the morning stars sang together, and 
 the sons of God shouted for joy.' Now, it may be, 
 those whose faith had failed were deeply mortified, 
 and conspired to destroy God's glorious work. Now 
 had appeared on earth a creature — not with his eyes 
 turned earthward, but with his visage erect, — not 
 with instincts limited to the supply of daily food and 
 shelter, but with an understanding capable of search- 
 ing into all science, and recording all history, investi- 
 gating all the wonders of the sublunary creation, in 
 its mineral, its vegetable, and its animal kingdoms, 
 and in its aerial heights and its oceanic depths, 
 leaving no dark corner unexplored, — not satisfied 
 with the things of earth, but aspiring to a knowledge 
 of the heavens above, fathoming their depths, mea- 
 suring and weighing their great orbs, tracing their 
 
io6 Moses mid Modern Science. 
 
 complicated movements, and not limited to the ob- 
 servation of facts, but attempting to reach their 
 causes. Here was formed at last the only one of 
 the earth's inhabitants conscious of the existence of 
 a Creator, and capable of adoring and serving him. 
 Now was attained the perfection of that pattern 
 which the great Creator of ail things seems to have 
 had in view from the first formation of living things, 
 and to which he more and more nearly approached 
 as creation advanced.^ 
 
 If the words, * Let us make man in our own image, 
 after our own likeness,' are correctly rendered, then, 
 in as far as finity could resemble infinity, in as far 
 as the fallible could be an image of the infallible, 
 here was man, in all his intellectual powers and in 
 all his moral sentiments resembling his Creator, 
 following his modes of reasoning, imitating him, 
 though unintentionally, in the application of his own 
 laws,^ and conforming to his moral restraints. But 
 this is probably not all that is meant by the expres- 
 sion * in our image.' It has been said that the more 
 correct translation would be 'for our image,' meaning, 
 for a model of the form in which the Son of God 
 was afterwards to appear on earth. But whether 
 
 ^ For this idea I am again indebted to Mr. Miller ; but the passage 
 I cannot bring to my recollection, nor even the volume in which it 
 appears. 
 
 2 For some beautiful illustrations of this, see the Testimojty of the 
 Rocks, Lecture Sixth. 
 
The Sixth Day. 107 
 
 this be a more correct interpretation or not, it seems 
 clear that man was formed in the likeness, not of God 
 the Father, but of God the Son — in that form which 
 he was at a later period to assume visibly to men. 
 Then the Hkeness was completed not in intellect 
 and moral sentiments merely, but even in corporeal 
 frame. 
 
 It was, not improbably, in the assumption of the 
 intellectual form of the man who was to be, that the 
 Deity carried on the whole work of creation,^ and 
 thereby it appeared so much like the work of a 
 human architect, only of infinitely higher wisdom 
 and power, that the contrivances of creation, if they 
 may be so called, resembled the contrivances of man, 
 and that the whole scheme of science is so arranged 
 as to be adapted in every respect to the peculiar 
 faculties of man and to his modes of investigation, 
 as if courting, assisting, and sanctioning his inquiry. 
 If such a view is correct, it amounts to this : that 
 God created the universe with the intellect of a man, 
 and therefore his work is intelligible to man. 
 
 In the expression, '■ male and female created he 
 them/ some critics have professed to find a contra- 
 diction of the subsequent account of the creation of 
 woman in the second chapter. Even if, however, 
 her separate formation was not completed till after 
 the sixth day, yet the germ of her form, and even of 
 
 ^ See John i, 3, 4. 
 
io8 Moses and Modem Science, 
 
 her life, might have been latent in the side of Adam. 
 But if any think this incredible, they are at liberty 
 to do so, for I rest nothing upon it except as a mere 
 suggestion of a possibility. A more probable expla- 
 nation is this, — that, although the particulars of Eve's 
 formation are not given till after the account of the 
 seventh day, it does not follow that it did not take 
 place before that day ; for all that follows the third 
 verse in the second chapter has every appearance of 
 being a resume of the narrative of the first chapter, 
 which was cut short in order to introduce the notice 
 of the seventh day's rest. Otherwise we should 
 have a second creation of the beasts of the earth 
 and of the fowls of the air, as mentioned in the 
 nineteenth verse of the second chapter, and that 
 in the very midst of the account of the origin of 
 Eve. 
 
 The Bible narrative is here again wonderfully 
 supported by geological records ; for we have no 
 fossil relics of man found in any even of the Tertiary 
 strata,^ which contain numerous specimens of the 
 somewhat older mammalia, much less in any of the 
 previous formations. The only fossil remains of the 
 human species that have been found, were in recent 
 travertine, in gravel of a late date, in caves of an 
 
 ^ The exact time of man's appearance on earth, in geological history, 
 is now generally admitted to have been at the close of the glacial 
 period. 
 
The Sixth Day, 109 
 
 equally modern origin, or in still more recent peat 
 mosses.-^ 
 
 * And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, 
 which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is 
 the fruit of a tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be for meat. And to 
 every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every 
 thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given 
 every green herb for meat : and it was so.' — Gen. i. 29, 30. 
 
 Now, when Genesis and Geology no longer con- 
 cur in testifying to the same fact, they do that 
 which is equivalent : they bear witness to the diffe- 
 rent parts of the same fact, their respective testi- 
 monies dovetailing into each other. Genesis says 
 that now God gave to man, for food, every tree in 
 which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed. Now, 
 what are the fruits which man finds good for food, 
 and in which he peculiarly delights ? Without going 
 beyond the bounds of our own island, we know that 
 they are apples, pears, plums, cherries, berries, and 
 nuts of various kinds, peaches, apricots, and grapes. 
 Then, turning to ask what Geology says, we read 
 
 ' I need not dwell,' says Sir Charles Lyell, ' on the proofs of the 
 low antiquity of our species, for it is not controverted by any expe- 
 rienced geologist ; indeed, the great difficulty consists in tracing back 
 the signs of man's existence on the earth to that comparatively modern 
 period when species now his contemporaries began to predominate. 
 If there be a difference of opinion respecting the occurrence in certain 
 deposits of the remains of man and his works, it is always in reference 
 to strata confessedly of the most modern order ; and it is never pre- 
 tended that our race co-existed with assemblages of animals and plants 
 of which all, or even a great part, of the species are extinct.' — Prin- 
 ciples of Geology^ book i. ch. ix. 
 
I lo Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 these words, or intimations to the same effect : 
 ' These fruits may be given to man now, for the 
 earth produces them all abundantly ; but before the 
 Tertiary period, that is, the sixth day, they could 
 not even have been offered to man : for, as far as 
 the evidence of the rocks goes, they had before that 
 day no existence, nor do they appear to have come 
 into existence till about the close of that day, just 
 before man himself was made to cultivate and to 
 enjoy them.' The garden which Adam was to 
 ' dress and to keep ' appears, from both records 
 alike, to have been planted almost contempora- 
 neously with Adam's own appearance on the stage. 
 The same thing may be said of the different kinds 
 of grain, if they are included under the general 
 terms of the twenty-sixth verse, and also, I believe, 
 of all our garden vegetables. Immediately after 
 the residence was well stored with all kinds of food 
 for sustenance and enjoyment, the arrival of its 
 occupant was announced. Then, as to the lower 
 animals, they also now have nutriment on which 
 they can live and thrive, while that was probably 
 not the case until the last day of creation. There is 
 no probability, for instance, that our mammalia 
 could have lived on the vegetation of the Carboni- 
 ferous era, luxuriant though it was. *We know 
 generally,' says the author on whose statements 
 and opinions we have so often rested with satis- 
 
The Sixth Day. 1 1 1 
 
 faction/ ' that with each successive period there 
 appeared a more extensively useful and various 
 vegetation than that which had gone before. I 
 have already referred to the sombre and unproduc- 
 tive character of the earliest terrestrial flora with 
 which we are acquainted. It was a flora unfitted, 
 apparently, for the support of either graminivorous 
 bird or herbivorous quadruped. The singularly 
 profuse vegetation of the coal-measures was, with 
 all its wild luxuriance, of a resembling cast So far 
 as appears, neither flock nor herd could have lived 
 on its greenest and richest plains. Nor does even 
 che flora of the Oolite seem to have been in the 
 least suited for the purposes of the shepherd or 
 herdsman. Not until we enter on the Tertiary 
 periods do we find floras amid which man might 
 have profitably laboured as a dresser of gardens, a 
 tiller of the fields, or a keeper of flocks and herds. 
 Nay, there are whole orders and families of plants, 
 of the very first importance to man, which do not 
 appear till late in even the Tertiary ages. Some 
 degree of doubt must always attach to merely 
 negative evidence ; but Agassiz, a geologist whose 
 opinions must be received with respect by every 
 student of the science, finds reason to conclude that 
 the order of the Rosaceae — an order more import- 
 ant to the gardener than almost any other, and to 
 
 ^ Mr. Miller, in The Testimony of the Rocks, Lecture First, p. 44. 
 
112 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 which the apple, the pear, the quince, the cherry, 
 the plum, the peach, the apricot, the victorine, the 
 almond, the raspberry, the strawberry, and the 
 various brambleberries belong, together with all the 
 roses and the potehtillas — was introduced only a 
 short time previous to the appearance of man. And 
 the true grasses — a still more important order, 
 which, as the corn-bearing plants of the agricul- 
 turist, feed at the present time at least two-thirds of 
 the human species, and in their humbler varieties 
 form the staple food of the grazing animals — scarce 
 appear in the fossil state at all. They are peculiarly 
 plants of the human period.' 
 
 Mr. Miller then speaks of another family, the 
 Labiate, of which no trace has been found even in 
 the Tertiary deposits, — a family producing neither 
 luscious fruit nor very beautiful flowers, but yield- 
 ing rich perfumes. It must have been introduced 
 at the close of the Tertiary period, immediately 
 before man's appearance. No wonder, then, all 
 things considered, that the verse which follows in 
 our written record commences as it does. 
 
 ' And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was 
 very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. ' — 
 Gen. I. 31. 
 
 Previously to this, it was said of each successive 
 
 stage in creation, merely that it was good ; but 
 
 now it is pronounced more emphatically, when God 
 
The Sixth Day, 1 1 3 
 
 saw everything that he had made, that It was very 
 •good. 
 
 When the earth was fully prepared, — when the 
 chaotic nebulae had become solid globes, — when 
 land and ocean had been assigned their separate 
 localities, and thus become residences appropriate 
 to their respective inhabitants, — when an atmo- 
 sphere, with its ingredients mixed in due proportion 
 for the sustenance of vegetable and of animal life, 
 breathed refreshing breezes over both, and floated 
 upon it fleecy clouds dropping genial showers, — 
 when the intense heat of the earth had been cooled 
 down till it became a rich nursery for a rank vegeta- 
 tion for future use, — when that heat had further 
 subsided, and left the earth dependent for its main 
 source of warmth on the great central orb, — when 
 sun and moon brought round yearly, monthly, and 
 daily, the interesting vicissitudes of summer and 
 winter, of spring and autumn, and of days and 
 nights, the latter alternating between darkness and 
 moonshine, — when the strata which form the earth's 
 crust were all built up, teeming with abundant 
 stores as yet unexplored and unappropriated, — 
 when the seas were peopled with fishes of genera 
 and species more numerous and more varied than 
 they had ever been before, — when the hills were 
 covered with grass, pastured by flocks and herds, 
 
 — when the vernal meadows were gay and fragrant 
 
 H 
 
1 1 4 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 with flowers, — when the plains waved with the 
 yellow corn of summer, and the luscious fruits of 
 autumn were dropping from the trees in wasteful 
 profusion, — then at last appeared the head of God's 
 sublunary creation — he whom the Creator had ap- 
 pointed from the first to govern the earth and to 
 preside over all its inhabitants, not in the debase- 
 ment of savage life to which he was afterwards to 
 sink, not in the refined covetousness and duplicity 
 of a more civilised stage, not with the horrible 
 aspect of the warrior slaughtering the myriads of 
 his fellow-men in pursuit of that which Satan told 
 him was glory, but in his original innocence, and 
 with all his bodily powers and all his mental 
 faculties in full perfection, — those powers and 
 faculties with which he was ultimately to subdue 
 all nature, and to mould it in a great measure to his 
 will. No wonder that the Almighty Creator now, 
 when he saw everything that he had made, pro- 
 nounced it VERY GOOD. 
 
 Rationalists tell us, according to the measure of 
 their wisdom, that prophecy and miracles were 
 alike impossible. Creation, however, was not only 
 a stupendous miracle, but, in all except the final 
 stage (if we even except that), it was a grand pro- 
 phecy. I have previously spoken of the very coal- 
 fields being prophetic ; but so also in one sense was 
 all creation. For ages it wanted a head, and yet 
 
The Sixth Day. 1 1 5 
 
 without that head it was evidently incomplete. 
 There were stores of all kinds laid up for some 
 intellectual creature who did not as yet exist. 
 Here were all the materials for his lodging, his 
 clothing, his food, his enjoyment. Here was granite 
 for his docks and bridges, sandstone for the walls 
 of his houses, and marble for their inner adorn- 
 ments. Here was earth that could be made into 
 bricks for his humbler abodes, timber for his ships 
 and for his buildings, and lime for cement scattered 
 everywhere. Even salt to give relish to his victuals 
 was not forgotten, but deposited in basins here and 
 there among the Triassic strata. In the crevices of 
 the rocks were laid up gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, 
 and other metals ; and not confined to crevices, but 
 in profuse abundance in certain kinds of rock, was 
 iron, because it would be required for the use of 
 man more than any other metal. It was not by 
 chance that sand lay scattered upon the shores, 
 capable of easy conversion into transparent glass, 
 — capable of being melted, blown, drawn out, 
 moulded, cut, and adapted to such a variety of 
 useful and refined purposes. Not only were car- 
 boniferous stores dormant in the bowels of the 
 earth, which were after the lapse of ages to pro- 
 vide for him light, warmth, and motive power ; 
 but magnetism lay dormant, which was to guide 
 his ships, — galvanic electricity lay dormant, which 
 
1 1 6 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 was in the latter days to carry his messages with 
 lightning speed. Science itself lay dormant, with 
 boundless fields for its display, and inexhaustible 
 stores for its use. It lay dormant because there 
 was not yet an intellectual being to arouse it, 
 with his magic wand, from its long sleep. Its 
 stores of treasures were all accumulated, but no 
 creature had as yet a key which could unlock the 
 store-rooms. The very existence, however, of these 
 stores was prophetic of one to whom that key was 
 afterwards to be committed ; and if we are to apply 
 to this Jeremiah's test of true prophecy,^ it well 
 stands the test ; for its fulfilment is now proclaimed 
 by the theoretical investigations and the experi- 
 mental researches of our men of science, by the 
 variety and grandeur of their discoveries, and by 
 the vast utility of the practical results of these. 
 The transactions of our Philosophical Societies 
 convey their united contributions towards the 
 attestation of that fulfilment. 
 
 As the earth, the abode of man, has the best 
 position among the planets for obtaining a view of 
 all the members of the solar system, so in regard to 
 time, the close of the sixth day of God's creation,- 
 the period which follows the laying down of the last 
 
 1 * When the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall 
 the prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him.' — ^Jer. 
 xxviii. 9. 
 
The Sixth Day. 1 1 7 
 
 of the Post-tertiary deposits is the commencement 
 of the best age in which man could have been 
 placed on his earthly abode, to obtain a view of 
 God's entire plan in the structure of the earth, — the 
 only age in which man could have studied the whole 
 science of astronomy and of geology. 
 
 There is another matter, not yet noticed, in which 
 the Book and the Rocks are in perfect harmony. 
 The theory of development is not in itself absurd. 
 On the contrary, it wears an outward aspect of 
 nature and of truth. It is sufficiently plausible, and, 
 if tried by our reasoning faculties alone, they could 
 not have condemned it. But, in the first place, it 
 labours under the unhappy disadvantage of being 
 opposed to fact ; for, as Mr. Miller has so clearly 
 demonstrated in the Footprints of the Creator, every 
 order of plants and of animals, as their petrified 
 remains attest, appeared, in its first entrance on the 
 world's stage, as perfect in its formation as any of 
 the subsequent species of the same order ; and no 
 species underwent any material change during the 
 whole time of its existence, but left the world as it 
 entered into it. And again, in the rocky strata we 
 nowhere find any plants or animals in a state of 
 transition from one genus or from one species to 
 another. Then it also labours under the additional 
 disadvantage of being entirely opposed to the ac- 
 count which God himself has given us of his own 
 
1 1 8 Moses a7td Modern Science. 
 
 work. In denying the development theory, the 
 record written on the parchment of the Bible is in 
 perfect harmony with the record written on the 
 geologist's tables of stone. 
 
 'The evening and the morning were the sixth 
 day.' We are not able to say very precisely in 
 what form the evening and the morning of this day 
 showed themselves ; but we are informed by geolo- 
 gists that the period had an evening in which some 
 unaccountable revolution again took place, all the 
 previously existing species of animals and of plants 
 dying away, and a morning in which a new race 
 succeeded them. This change may have been ac- 
 companied by a transition from actual darkness to 
 visible light unknown to us, for darkness can leave 
 no impression on the rocks ; but It is not neces- 
 sary to the interpretation of the passage that it 
 should have been so. As we render a day by a long 
 period, just as freely may we understand a transi- 
 tion from evening to morning to signify one from 
 commotion to tranquillity, — from destruction to 
 construction, — from death to llfe.^ 'In reviewing 
 the facts above enumerated,' says Sir Charles 
 
 ^ In prophetic language, trouble is often represented by darkness, and 
 tranquillity by light. Thus in Joel ii. 1,2:' For the day of the Lord 
 Cometh, a day of clouds and of thick darkness. ' In Isa, viii. 22 : 
 * And they shall look upon the earth, and behold trouble and dark- 
 ness, dimness of anguish.' In Isa. xxx. 26 : 'The light of the moon 
 shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven- 
 
The Sixth Day. 119 
 
 Lyell/ ' I may call attention to the important cir- 
 cumstance, that no species of fossil shell has yet been 
 found common to the Secondary and Tertiary forma- 
 tions.' And ' this marked discordance in the organic 
 remains of the two series is not confined to the 
 testacea, but extends, so far as a careful comparison 
 has yet been instituted, to all the other departments 
 of the animal kingdom, and to the fossil plants.' 
 The mere change from a world occupied by nothing 
 higher than ' the brutes that perish,' to one inhabited 
 by human beings with high mental faculties and 
 immortal souls, might alone be called a transition 
 from evening to morning. 
 
 I cannot conclude without asking the reader to 
 take notice of an objection to the Bible narrative, 
 made by no less acute a writer than Bishop Colenso, 
 and to observe how ridiculous it appears when read 
 in the light which I have, I trust successfully, at- 
 tempted to throw upon that narrative. He wishes 
 to show that the first and second chapters of 
 Genesis are not harmonious, and, as the first in- 
 stance of their disagreement, takes the following '} 
 * In the first, the earth emerges from the waters, 
 and is therefore saturated with moisture, ch. i. 9, 
 
 fold, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people. ' 
 And again, in Isa. Iviii. lo : ' Tlien shall thy light rise in obscurity, 
 and thy darkness be as the noonday,' 
 
 • Principles of Geology^ book iv. ch. xxiii. 
 
 2 The Pentateuch, ^c, critically examined, Part ii. p. 171. 
 
1 20 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 10. In the second, the whole face of the ground 
 requires to be moistened, ch. ii. 6.' According to 
 the vieAv I have taken, many millions of years inter- 
 vened between the two events. 
 
 It is also objected that, since the seventh day could 
 not have been a long period of time, but must have 
 been a day of twenty-four hours, it would be an 
 awkward mode of expression, altogether beneath 
 the dignity of inspired language, to take six of the 
 seven days as ages of immensely long duration, and 
 the seventh as only a common day. Whatever the 
 term day may stand for in the one case, it must 
 evidently have its counterpart in the other. This is 
 admitted ; and our reply is, that the seventh day 
 itself, as mentioned in the second chapter, is not a 
 day of twenty-four hours, but is also a long period 
 of time. Some light seems to be thrown upon this 
 by our Saviour's expression, ' My Father worketh 
 hitherto, and I work,'^ implying that God's day of 
 rest was beginning when the Christian dispensation 
 commenced. This idea seems to be further illus- 
 trated in the Epistle to the Hebrews,^ in which it 
 is said : * There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the 
 people of God.' That day was probably begun 
 when our Saviour's work of redemption began,^ 
 
 ^ John V. 1 7. 2 Heb. iv. 9. 
 
 2 'God's Sabbath of rest,' says Hugh Miller, 'may still exist; the 
 work of Redemption may be the work of his Sabbath-day.' — Foot- 
 prints of the Creator, Twelfth edition, p. 295. 
 
The Sixth Day. 121 
 
 that is, immediately after the creation of man, — its 
 evening extending over the antediluvian ages, the 
 patriarchal times, and the period of the Jewish dis- 
 pensation ; its morning dawning at our Saviour's 
 resurrection ; and its fuller light being destined to 
 blaze forth in noonday splendour, when 'the king- 
 doms of the world are become the kingdoms of our 
 Lord and of his Christ,' ^ — when * they shall not 
 hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain,' ^ — when 
 'the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the 
 Lord, as the waters cover the sea,'^ — when Satan, 
 bound and imprisoned for a thousand years, shall 
 * deceive the nations no more till the thousand years 
 shall be fulfilled.'^ 
 
 1 Rev. xi. 15. 2 jg^^ xi. 9. 3 //,/^ 
 
 * Rev. XX. 2, 3. For further remarks on the subject, see Note P. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Note A, Page 38. 
 
 There are some questions to be answered, and some diffi- 
 culties to be surmounted, before we can remove every objec- 
 tion to the Nebular Hypothesis, or fairly appreciate its 
 consequences. 
 
 A question which meets us at the outset is this : What was 
 the original constitution of the nebula in regard to the rela- 
 tive density of its different regions ? Was it nearly alike, in 
 that respect, from centre to circumference, or was it more 
 dense towards the centre, and gradually shaded off towards 
 the exterior ? 
 
 Before we can answer this question, we must have replies 
 to two others. 
 
 First. — Supposmg a spherical ncbiila to exist, of luiifonn 
 dejtsity, what wotcld be the law of attraction of its componejit 
 molecules towards the common centre of gravity? 
 
 Any molecule placed at the exterior would be attracted by 
 the entire mass of the nebula, as if the whole were accumulated 
 in the centre of gravity; but any molecule nearer the centre 
 would be attracted only by the spherical mass within the 
 range of its distance from the centre, the exterior shell having 
 no influence whatever upon it. 
 
 Every molecule would therefore be attracted towards the 
 centre with a force directly as the mass of the sphere Avithin 
 its own distance from the centre, or directly as the cube of 
 that distance (since the density is uniform), and (in conse- 
 
124 Moses and Modern Science . 
 
 of the same distance, — that is, taking the two ratios together, 
 directly as the first power of its distance from the centre. 
 
 Second. — Supposing a spherical nebula ^ to exist, of tmiforin 
 density, would it remain ofimiforin density, or would it become 
 7nore dense in its interior tha?i in its exterior regions? 
 
 To answer this, — let R and r represent the radii of two con- 
 centric spheres of the supposed nebula, and consequently 
 R^ X ^t: and r^ x ^tt their contents. Then, sincfe the attractive 
 forces acting upon any two molecules at different distances 
 from the centre would, as just proved, be directly as their dis- 
 tances from the centre, the spaces through which they moved 
 under the influences of those forces in a given time, would also 
 be directly as the same distances ; and, in the same time in 
 which all the molecules at the distance R were drawn nearer 
 
 the centre by -R {ii being any number whatever), all those at 
 
 the distance r would be drawn nearer by -r. In that time the 
 
 ^ n 
 
 radii of the two supposed spheres would be contracted by 
 these proportionate parts of their lengths, and would become 
 
 ji J fi J 
 
 respectively R X and r x , while their contents 
 
 (n — I \ 3 
 j X ^TT and r^ x 
 
 f \ X |t. The contents of the two spherical shells by 
 
 which the two spheres were reduced, would be R^ x 
 
 quantities which are to each other as the cubes of the radii. 
 Next, — to estimate the relative magnitudes of the two spaces 
 
 ^ This, with all that precedes it, is proved in the Principia, and is 
 familiar to mathematicians. 
 
 2 If iiTcgular in fonn, the first change it would undergo would be 
 to become spherical, unless in so far as its rotation might give it more 
 or less of the spheroidal form. 
 
Notes. 125 
 
 into which the contents of these two shells have been com- 
 pressed . By the time the outermost molecules of the outer shell 
 
 11 — I 
 have fallen in from the distance Rto R Y, , — that is, by one 
 
 «th part of the whole radius, — the innermost molecules of the 
 same shell have also, as proved before, fallen through a space 
 
 equal to one ;/th of their distance from the centre, or - of 
 
 n — I 
 R X —7; — In like manner, the innermost molecules of the 
 
 inner shell have approached the centre by the distance - of 
 
 ji J 
 
 r X . The thicknesses of the two shells, into which the 
 
 materials of the two original shells have been compressed, 
 are therefore to each other as R to r, and consequently have 
 their contents in the ratio to each other of R^ to r^, since 
 they are similar solids. But the contents of the two original 
 shells, it has been shown, are to each other in the same ratio. 
 Therefore the contents of the two original shells are com- 
 pressed in the same proportion. 
 
 It follows from this, that if the supposed sphere was homo- 
 geneous in density at first, it would always continue to be so. 
 But if the material of our planets were now distributed over 
 the adjacent spherical (or spheroidal) shells next without 
 them,^ or over spherical (or spheroidal) shells of any extent, 
 with widths proportional to the respective distances of the 
 planets from the sun, the density of the nebula so made up 
 would have no approximation to uniformity. The great 
 nebula, therefore, could not at any time have been uniform 
 in its density, and, a fortiori, it could not have been more 
 dense in its exterior than in its interior regions, since it is now 
 less so. 
 
 We may also perhaps be permitted to regard it as a corol- 
 
 ^ That is, supposing the material of each planet to have been col- 
 lected from the shell between its own orbit and that of the next 
 without it. 
 
126 Moses and Modeini Science. 
 
 lary to the preceding demonstration, that if the matter of the 
 nebula were originally greater in density towards the centre 
 than in its exterior regions, as it must have been, the in- 
 equality would continually increase, until the materials of the 
 different planets became separated. 
 
 But the proposition itself, and consequently any inference 
 drawn from it, is demonstrated only in the case of a spherical 
 nebula, while that we have seen would become more and 
 more spheroidal, finally changing into separate rings. Our 
 conclusions, however, will hold good for its earlier stage at 
 all events ; and it is only at that stage that we shall have 
 occasion to apply them as far as regards light, while as far 
 as regards heat it matters little whether they are true or not. 
 
 We may pause a moment here to point out that, on examin- 
 ing the results of the supposed distribution of the material of 
 our present planets, there appear to have been originally two 
 great I'ings in incipient formation, or formed, round the central 
 nebulous mass, to be afterwards subdivided, — one of these 
 containing the substance of the planets Mercury, Venus, the 
 Earth, and Mars, and the other Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and 
 Neptune ; Venus, or rather its material, being in the densest 
 part of the former, and Jupiter in that of the latter, — the ma- 
 terial of the Asteroids occupying the intermediate space in a 
 state of extreme rarity, even comparatively with the rest of 
 the nebula. 
 
 The next point which claims our attention is this : The con- 
 densation of a gaseous medium would, of course, at once excite 
 sensible heat ; but as we have excluded such a medium from 
 our hypothesis, a httle difficulty arises : for, since we commence 
 with a temperature of absolute zero, how are we to get our 
 first dawn of heat, and the consequent production of a resisting 
 medium ? For it is conceded that heat could not arise from 
 the mere descent of solid molecules, until their fall came to 
 be impeded by some means. 
 
 Now the first change which would arise in the nebula as 
 a whole, would be that of condensation, the molecules all 
 approaching the centre, and drawing closer together ; and 
 
Notes. 1 2 7 
 
 unless we could suppose them to revolve in complete orbits 
 round their common centre of gravity, returning to the same 
 elevation from which they had fallen, the process of condensa- 
 tion would continue until colhsions among them ensued. But 
 all the conditions are wanting which in the solar system en- 
 sure the indefinite continuance of the movements without per- 
 manent disturbance, except revolution of all in one direction, — 
 a condition which also, under the mutual perturbations of the 
 molecules, would soon cease. Their orbits would not be circles, 
 or make any approach to them : they would be in different 
 planes, and there would be no grand controlling mass in the 
 centre. The result would probably be a perfect dance in mazy 
 orbits, and innumerable collisions. Collisions would excite 
 heat, and heat would convert a portion of the molecules from 
 a solid to a gaseous condition. 
 
 Let us hear the judgment of one of our highest authorities 
 in astronomy on this subject. ' Among a crowd of solid bodies, 
 of whatever size,' says Sir John Herschel, 'animated by inde- 
 pendent and partially opposing impulses, motions opposite to 
 each other must produce colhsion, destruction of velocity, and 
 subsidence, or nearer approach towards the centre of pre- 
 ponderant attraction ; while those which conspire or remain 
 outstanding after such conflicts, must ultimately give rise to 
 circulation of a permanent character.' That is, of course, if 
 there was a preponderance of rotatory motion in one direction 
 at the outset. 'Whatever we may think of such collisions 
 as events, there is nothing in their conception contrary to 
 sound mathematical principles.' — Outlines of Astronomy^ third 
 edition, art. 872. 
 
 But if any one should still object that Sir John, notwith- 
 standing his own words ' of whatever size,' has here in view 
 bodies of some considerable bulk as the constituents of the 
 supposed nebula, and that collisions among those that had no 
 size greater than that of the ultimate atoms of matter would 
 be all but impossible, I am not disposed to dispute the point ; 
 for if there were not collisions, there would at least be ap- 
 proaches to within indefinitely small distances, accompanied 
 
128 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 by mutual revolutions of extreme rapidity ; and in the present 
 state of our knowledge, who will say that such a condition of 
 motion among the molecules is not itself the very essence of 
 heat ? It has at least been maintained to be so by one school 
 of philosophy. But whether or not, the atoms, approaching 
 to so close a contiguity, will stop, or to a certain extent retard, 
 each other's motions, and so produce heat. 
 
 However the difficulty may be resolved, its existence does 
 not arise from any opposition that the present state of our 
 knowledge presents to the hypothesis, but from the limited 
 extent of that knowledge. It is not necessary that we should 
 be able to clear away every difficulty, provided that we show 
 that such difficulties do not militate directly or decidedly 
 against our theory. 
 
 Assuming, then, that heat might originate from the condensa- 
 tion of a nebula of solid atoms of matter, would that heat be 
 great ? Would it be sufficient to bring the whole nebula from 
 a temperature of absolute zero into a gaseous or even a liquid 
 condition ? This, happily, is not a matter for conjecture, but, 
 on certain conditions, for calculation. 
 
 From Mr. Joule's well-known experiments on heat, it 
 appears that the number of foot-pounds of mechanical work 
 which must be expended in order to raise the temperature of 
 one pound of water one degree of Fahrenheit, is 772. If a 
 quantity of water fell from a height of 772 feet, and then were 
 stopped, it would excite as much heat as would be sufficient to 
 raise its own temperature one degree, and the same for every 
 772 feet that it fell ; so that, in falling a mile, it would acquire 
 a heating-power of about seven degrees. It matters not what 
 may be the quantity of water that falls, as the result will be 
 the same with an atom, a drop, or an ocean. But for any 
 other substance than water, we must multiply the number of 
 degrees by the number of times that the specific heat of that 
 substance is contained in the specific heat of water. 
 
 All this, however, is applicable only to the case of bodies 
 falling near the earth's surface, or under an attractive force 
 equal to that which acts there. For any other force, the heat 
 
Notes. 129 
 
 excited, or excitable, will be directly proportional to that force 
 for the same distance fallen. Or, if we choose, we may esti- 
 mate by velocity ; the heat being always the same for the same 
 velocity, whatever may be the accelerating force, but varying 
 directly as the square of the velocity, where that varies. Our 
 unit of velocity is found from the usual formula, "j/ - = 2_/y, to 
 be 223 feet per second. 
 
 A fall of any extent, or any velocity attained, does not itself 
 excite heat, but it gives the power of exciting the heat when 
 the fall, or the velocity, is stopped by any mechanical means. 
 
 If we put Flo represent the accelerating force of the attrac- 
 tion towards the centre of the nebula at the earth's present 
 distance from it — say 92 millions of miles — and take the earth's 
 diameter, in round numbers, as 8000 miles, and the mass of 
 the nebula within the earth's distance as 400,000 times the 
 mass of the earth itself, since it would be almost identical 
 with the mass of the sun, we have i^ = 32 • 2 x 400,000 x 
 / 4,000 \" 
 
 02435. 
 
 N 92,000,000/ 
 
 Next putting / to represent the accelerating force of the 
 same attraction at any other point within the nebular shell, of 
 whose materials the earth is to be formed, at the distance d 
 from the centre, and disregarding any trifling difference which 
 might be made by the attraction of the thin nebulous matter 
 of that shell, we may take the force of gravitation as inversely 
 proportional to the distance from the centre of the nebula, and 
 consequently / - ( 92,ooo,ooo ^j ^ j. 
 
 Allowing H to denote the heating power in degrees, s the 
 distance fallen in feet, and ^S" the same in miles, v the velocity 
 attained in feet per second, and V the same in miles per 
 
 hour \v being = F x ^Y then, from what was said before, 
 
 /^ = ( JL y = ( z. X M y, 0, /, = ^ X ^ = £iii^° 
 
 V223/ ^223 30/ 772 32*2 772 
 
 X ~J— = S X •212/; 
 32*2 
 
130 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 To ascertain, then, the heating power acquired by any mole- 
 cule, or aggregation of molecules, in falling through a great dis- 
 tance, we may divide the distance into a number of equal parts, 
 severally so small that the accelerating force may be taken as 
 constant over any one part, and find, by the formula for /, the 
 accelerating forces due to the several distances. Then, by the 
 last formula for //, we may compute the heating power acquired 
 in falling through the respective distances. Finally, we may 
 take the sum of these, and divide it by the specific heat of the 
 substance, that of water being expressed as unity. 
 
 Supposing, then, the earth to have been collected from the 
 material of a nebulous shell, the innermost surface of which 
 was at double the distance which the earth is at present from 
 the centre, and the outermost at three times the same distance, 
 so that, in falling in to the present distance of the earth, the 
 nearest part would descend 92 millions of miles, and the 
 farthest part twice as far, or 184 millions,^ and dividing the 
 latter distance into 46 equal stages, of 4 millions each, and the 
 nebula itself into 23 shells of equal thickness, we then compute 
 the heating power acquired by the material of each of these 
 shells in falling through its own number of stages to the earth's 
 present position, and that on the hypothesis that the several 
 shells would contain equal quantities of matter, the greater 
 bulk of the more distant compensating for their greater rarity. 
 For the accelerating force acting upon the falling material 
 during its passage through each of these shells, we may take, 
 as near enough for our purpose, the average between the forces 
 acting upon its inner and upon its outer surface. 
 
 By this mode of calculation, and on the various suppositions 
 laid down, we find that the average gain of heat-producing 
 power by the whole nebula, in consequence of its descent, is 
 281,690 degrees. But from this we have to deduct the heat- 
 
 1 Of course these dimensions are merely hypothetical, but they are 
 by no means improbable if the nebular hypothesis has any sound 
 foundation ; and my object is to show that, sufficient dimensions being 
 allowed to the nebula, we obtain a heating power as great as can be 
 desired. 
 
Notes. 1 3 1 
 
 producing power still retained by the earth, in the form of 
 velocity in its revolution round the sun. Now, without de- 
 ducting anything from its present velocity to allow for its 
 original velocity in rotation as a part of the nebula, since 
 that velocity must have been very small,^ we may take it, in 
 round numbers, at iioo miles per minute, or 66,000 miles per 
 hour, or 96,800 feet per second; and that, from the formula 
 
 ^ = (^_^y gives H = (^1^)' = 188,426 degrees. Sub- 
 tracting this from 281,690, we have 93,264 degrees for the heat 
 which must actually have been acquired by the nebula, on the 
 supposition that it consisted of water alone. But I think we 
 shall be clear of every appearance of an over-estimate if we 
 take the specific heat of the earth's actual material as only one- 
 half that of water, and that will raise our actual temperature to 
 186,528 degrees of Fahrenheit, counted from zero absolute. 
 
 A still further increase would take place when the nebulous 
 ring itself was broken and drawn together into a globular form. 
 It may therefore safely be maintained that there is room 
 enough, under our hypothesis, for as high a temperature as 
 either astronomer or geologist can demand. 
 
 Note B, Page 41. 
 
 I have said, on page 41, that theoretical considerations show 
 that light could not have broken forth simultaneously in all 
 parts of the nebula, — that the maximum of heat and of light 
 could scarcely be in the centre of it, — that it might be on its 
 surface, but much more probably was in some spheroidal shell 
 intermediate between the two, — and also that both the light 
 and the heat would be greater in the polar than in the equa- 
 torial regions. The reasons on which these conclusions rest 
 are the following : — 
 
 ^ Almost all the allowances that have been made are, it will be 
 observed, unfavourable to any exaggeration of the amount of heat 
 produced. 
 
1 3 2 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 From the dynamical theory of heat, it appears that the in- 
 crease of heating power acquired by any given molecule in 
 any given time in its descent, would be directly proportional 
 to the attractive force acting upon it, multiplied into the dis- 
 tance through which it descended in that time in obedience 
 to that force. But the distance itself would be directly pro- 
 portional to the force, and therefore the increase of heating 
 power would be directly proportional to the square of the 
 accelerating force. 
 
 It has been proved, in the preceding Note, that, in the case 
 of a spherical nebula at all events, if it were of uniform den- 
 sity, the greatest attractive force would be at the exterior ; and 
 there also, consequently, would be the highest temperature 
 and the first dawn of light.^ But it has also been shown that 
 the great nebula of the solar system could not have been of 
 uniform density, nor of greater density in its exterior than in 
 its interior regions, and consequently must originally have had 
 a higher degree of condensation towards the centre than at 
 greater distances. But there is only one law of distribution 
 of density which could cause an equal augmentation of tem- 
 perature throughout the whole mass in the same time, and 
 consequently a simultaneous breaking forth of light in every 
 part — that is, when the attractive force towards the centre is 
 the same at all distances; and that could only be when the 
 mass of every concentric sphere of the nebula was propor- 
 tional to the square of the radius, and therefore the density 
 at every point inversely proportional to the distance of that 
 point from the centre. But if such had been the arrangement 
 at first, it could not have continued so, since the density in 
 the parts nearer to the centre would have increased so much 
 more rapidly than in those more distant from it, that the pro- 
 portion would have been altered immediately. Neither could 
 that law have extended at any time as far as the centre, unless 
 
 ^ It may be objected that our expressions have changed from heat- 
 ing pcnuei' to temperature ; but probably that will make no serious 
 difference. The subject is complicated, and much yet remains for 
 the mathematician to work out. 
 
Notes. 133 
 
 the density at the centre was infinite. Such, therefore, could 
 not have been the law of distribution throughout the whole 
 mass. Even with a density diminishing towards the exterior, 
 there might have been such a law of that diminution as would 
 have made the light appear first on the exterior surface ; but the 
 following considerations will show that to be highly improbable. 
 
 However much the nebula may have become compressed as 
 a whole, and however much it may have increased more in 
 density in its interior than in its exterior regions as time 
 advanced, yet we can scarcely conceive that any part of the 
 matter contained in the shells from which the planets were to 
 be aggregated, could pass through and from these into the 
 interior mass which was afterwards to become the sun. Then, 
 so very small is the whole mass of the planets compared with 
 that of the sun, that we may regard the attractive force of the 
 former, when in its nebulous condition, as so insignificant 
 compared with that of the latter, that we may say that then, 
 as now, in the planetary regions, the force of attraction towards 
 the centre was inversely as the square of the distance, very 
 nearly, — a proportion, however, which could not possibly be 
 maintained in the interior and denser part of the nebula. 
 Then, in fact, supposing our view to pass over it towards the 
 centre, after increasing so far it would then diminish, approach- 
 ing nothing as its limit, — so that the greatest attractive force 
 would neither be at the outside nor yet at the centre, but dis- 
 tributed over some shell intermediate between the two, and 
 contained within the central mass ; and in that shell would be 
 the greatest heat, and there light would first appear. 
 
 It may be said that pressure at the centre would compen- 
 sate for absence of attractive force; but, as will afterwards 
 appear, it is doubtful if there could be any pressure there, in 
 consequence of the centrifugal force of the surrounding mass ; 
 and if there was, it would probably excite very little heat in a 
 mass of solid molecules, and they could not become gaseous 
 until they were heated, nor even then under great pressure. 
 We may therefore conclude that the centre would be the 
 coldest part of the nebula. 
 
T 34 Moses and Modemi Science. 
 
 I have said, also, that the heat would be greater in the polar 
 than in the equatorial regions. The reason is obvious, — 
 namely, because, since the centrifugal force would cause the 
 nebula to change its form from that of a sphere to that of a 
 spheroid, becoming more and more oblate as its contraction 
 advanced, there would in the course of the change be a 
 greater contraction in its polar than in its equatorial diameter ; 
 and when once the spheroidal form was acquired, the force of 
 gravity also would be greatest near the poles. 
 
 Note C, Page 53. 
 
 Since the footnote on page 53 was written, I find that a sys- 
 tematic attempt has been made to deduce the lengths of the 
 days of all the planets from the nebular hypothesis; and if 
 that can be done fairly^ it affords the strongest possible confir- 
 mation of the truth of that hypothesis. I have not seen the 
 original communication on the subject ; and all that I know of 
 it being from Professor Nichol's Cyclopcedia of the Physical 
 Sciences, article Solar Syste77z^ I have extracted the passage 
 relating to it from that work : — 
 
 ' As to the motion of rotation,' in the planets, ' one con- 
 sideration alone remains worthy of notice. Whence the 
 variety of the periods of this motion ? Why is it that Jupiter 
 performs his rotation in nine hours fifty-six minutes, while 
 the Earth occupies nearly twenty-four hours.'* Doubtless there 
 is a law at the root of these varieties also ; but as yet it has 
 not been clearly discerned. A very ingenious American, how- 
 ever, has recently started an idea meriting all consideration, 
 and by which he attempts to attach these specific periods to 
 the nebular hypothesis. For clearer illustration, imagine the 
 planets all ranged in a straight line from the sun; and let us 
 confine our thoughts to the three bodies, Mars, the Earth, and 
 Venus. It is evident that a point must exist between Venus 
 and the Earth, such that any atom of matter placed in it 
 would be equally attracted towards either of these two orbs ; 
 and in the same way, a similar point of indifference could be 
 
Notes. T35 
 
 found between the Earth and Mars. Now the space between 
 these two points may correctly enough be said to be the space 
 which is controlled by the attractive power of the Earth ; in 
 other words, an atom, placed anywhere within that space, 
 would — all other conditions being suitable — be drawn from a 
 state of rest towards the Earth, and not either to Venus or 
 Mars. Advancing a step further, a ring, whose breadth is 
 determined by the distance between the foregoing two points, 
 may be supposed to environ the Sun, the Earth's orbit being 
 within it ; and this ring may, for manifest reasons, be termed 
 the sphere of the attraction of the Eat'th. Finally, arising in 
 precisely the same manner, every planet may be conceived 
 accompanied by its ring . . . ; and these rings may be termed, 
 as in the former case, the spheres of attraction of the several 
 globes. ..." The partition of the original nebula into a 
 number of rings, with such breadths, or nearly such, is per- 
 fectly consistent with the fact that the said rings have ulti- 
 mately resolved themselves into planets of the relative order 
 and magnitude distinguishing those now existing." Not only 
 is this new supposition not hostile to the general tenor of the 
 nebular hypothesis ; but, on the contrary, it is altogether con- 
 sistent and congruous with it. — We reach the remarkable and 
 conclusive result. Mr. Kirkham, of Pennsylvania, who first 
 started the idea of these spheres of attraction, has found in 
 them the periods of the rotations of the several planets. The 
 law announced by him is this : " The square of the number of 
 times that each planet rotates during one revolution in its 
 orbit, is proportional to the cube of the breadth, or diameter, 
 of its sphere of attraction." ' 
 
 I will not stop to inquire how far the above is consistent 
 with other views which I have attempted to give of the con- 
 traction of the nebula. The subject is complicated and diffi- 
 cult. The fact is, that the development of the nebular 
 hypothesis throws open an extensive field for computations of 
 all kinds. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer, in one of his Essays, has brought 
 forward several new arguments in support of Laplace's hypo- 
 
1 36 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 thesis; but they require further examination than they have 
 yet received before their testimony can be rehed upon. 
 
 Note D, Page 54. 
 
 One of the authors of the well-known Essays and Reviews ^ 
 says : ' That the Hebrews understood the sky, firmament, or 
 heaven to be a permanent solid vault, is evident enough from 
 various expressions made use of concerning it. It is said to 
 have pillars (Job xxvi. 11), foundations (2 Sam. xxii. 8), doors 
 (Ps. Ixxviii. 23), and windows (Gen. vii. 11).' 
 
 As to the first three of these quotations, they are all from 
 the midst of descriptions highly poetical ; and if we are to take 
 one expression literally, we must take others also contiguous 
 to it. In the case of the passage first quoted, two verses 
 almost immediately preceding it — namely, the seventh and 
 eighth — demolish the Essayist's notion : ' He stretcheth out 
 the north over an empty place, and hangeth the earth upon 
 nothing. He bindeth up the water in his thick clouds ; and 
 the cloud is not rent under them.' The north would not be 
 stretched over an empty place if it rested on solid pillars 
 standing on firm foundations ; and in the latter verse, instead 
 of the water of the clouds being conceived to rest on a glassy 
 vault, it is spoken of as enclosed in a skin bottle which is 
 strong enough to hold it without bursting. Would any 
 reader in his senses take that literally? In the case of Gen. 
 vii. 1 1, the word windows is rendered in the -maxgir). Jloodgates, 
 and what reason have we for taking either the one or the other 
 of these as anything more than a figurative expression.^ 
 
 No doubt the Hebrew \Yord for firmament, namely rakiak, 
 is derived, as we are told, from the verb rakah, which means 
 to spread metal thin with the hammer; but this conveys the 
 idea of extent rather than of solidity. Any *one in quest of a 
 material figure to represent solidity would be more likely to 
 
 1 Mr, Goodwin, in Mosaic Cosmogony, p. 220. 
 
Notes, 137 
 
 select a mass of iron than a sheet of gold leaf. But admitting 
 both meanings to be possible, judging from the etymology 
 alone, it is surely allowable to select that which appears the 
 more reasonable, or the more likely to be the sense in which it 
 was understood by the writer. Now, had our Essayist read 
 the whole of the chapter carefully (for it is the first chapter of 
 Genesis on which he is commenting), he would have come to 
 the twentieth verse, in which we read of ' fowl that may fly 
 abroad in the open firmament of heaven.' Birds certainly 
 could not fly in a solid vault. The writer might say, perhaps 
 (although he does not say so), that we have in the margin 
 another translation of this clause, namely, ' fowl that may fly 
 above the earth, in the face of the firmament of heaven ; ' but 
 assuredly, if Moses believed the firmament to be a solid 
 vault, he knew that it was elevated far above all the mountain- 
 tops on which he had fed his flocks in Arabia ; and it certainly 
 would not have been natural on the part of one having that 
 knowledge, to say that the birds were flying in the face of such 
 a vault, when they were almost all thousands of feet below it. 
 
 Again, in very many passages of the Bible we read of ' the 
 fowls of heaven;'^ and in others again, exactly similar, of the 
 fowls or birds of the air,^ clearly identifying the words air and 
 heaven^ or at least taking them as synonymous as far as the 
 air extended. And as if to make the matter still more clear, 
 we have in the Apocalypse (xix. 17), ^ All the fowls that fly 
 in the midst of heaven.' 
 
 Even if we were to assign to the word rakiah the idea of a 
 solid expanse, in as far as the etymology of the word is con- 
 cerned — for undoubtedly the idea of ' crystalline spheres ' did 
 appear at one time among the ancients ; and if we were to 
 admit that such might have been the sense originally attached 
 to the word, it would by no means follow that Moses used the 
 word in that sense, any more than that Addison used the 
 corresponding English word in that sense, when he spoke of 
 
 ^ Gen. vii. 23 and ix. 2 ; Job xxviii. 2 1 and xxxv. 1 1 ; Ps. Ixxix. .2 
 and civ. 12; Jer. vii. 33, xvi. 4 ; etc. 
 
 ^ Gen. ii. 9 and vii. 3 ; Ps. viii. 8 ; and Deut. xxviii. 26. 
 
138 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 ' the spacious_/?r;;zrtw^;// on high/ or that modern astronomers 
 use it in that sense when they speak of ' our owvi firmament 
 of stars,' as distinguished from other stellar systems. The 
 etymology of the English word certainly conveys the idea of 
 solidity as decidedly as any Hebrew word can do, and yet 
 writers of our own day use it when there can be no suspicion 
 of such a belief, and. when we certainly have a greater abun- 
 dance of scientific words to choose from than Moses could 
 possibly have had. If Macaulay's hypothetical New Zealander 
 should dig an old poem of the nineteenth century out of the 
 ruins of the British Museum, and read in it of a certain lady's 
 ' bewitching smile,' and then, returning to his own island, 
 should attempt to hold that up to his fellow-countrymen as a 
 proof that at the date of the poem the English believed in 
 witchcraft, he would, I apprehend, make a blunder of the 
 same kind as that which Mr. Goodwin has fallen into. There 
 is no reason why Moses should not have used old words in a 
 new sense, just as we use them. 
 
 Note E, Page 57. 
 
 In a memoir of Hugh Miller, prefixed to the last edition of 
 his Footprints of the Creator., and written partly by Professor 
 Agassiz, partly by Sir David Brewster, we have the following 
 remark, probably from the pen of the latter. Speaking of the 
 development hypothesis., he says : ' Driven by the discoveries 
 of Lord Rosse from the domain of astronomy, where it once 
 seemed to hold a plausible position, it might have lingered 
 with the appearance of life among the ambiguities of the 
 palaeozoic formations ; but Mr. Miller has stripped it even of 
 its semblance of truth.' Probably Sir David viewed the 
 nebular hypothesis only in the light of its fancied opposition 
 to revelation, and was therefore prejudiced against it ; but 
 something more, perhaps, might have been expected of him 
 than to confound it with the development hypothesis of 
 Lamarck, with which it has in reality no connection. The 
 
Notes. 139 
 
 latter holds out, not that every individual animal has been 
 developed through the successive stages of foetal life, infancy, 
 youth, and age, but that lower species are developed through a 
 succession of individuals into higher. The latter is a fancy, 
 which has been thoroughly smashed by the skilfully wielded 
 hammer of Hugh Miller, while the former is an undoubted 
 fact. Now it is with the former, the fact, that the nebular 
 hypothesis claims kindred, not with the latter, the fancy. Its 
 subject is the growth of the solar system through the successive 
 stages of nebula and rings, to planets and a solar orb ; but the 
 same individual system all the while. Neither does it follow, 
 as Sir David seems to have thought, that although the telescope 
 should succeed in resolving all the nebulae into separate stars, 
 the nebular hypothesis would therefore fall to the ground. Sir 
 John Herschel has given a more correct view of the subject. 
 He says : ^ ' The more or less advanced state of a nebula towards 
 its segregation into discrete stars, and of these stars them- 
 selves towards a denser state of aggregation round a central 
 nucleus, would thus be, in some sort, an indication of age. 
 Neither is there any variety of aspect which nebulas offer, 
 which stands at all in contradiction to this view. Even 
 though we should feel ourselves compelled to reject the idea 
 of a gaseous or vaporous " nebulous matter," it loses none of 
 its force. Subsidence, and the central aggregation consequent 
 on subsidence, may go on quite as well among a multitude of 
 discrete bodies under the influence of attraction, and feeble or 
 partially opposing projectile motions, as among the particles 
 of a gaseous fluid.' 
 
 If, however, it were a point of any consequence, the tables 
 are again turned against those who held Brewster's view of 
 Lord Rosse's observations, by the discovery of actually gaseous 
 nebulae, and even of the existence of hydrogen gas, in our own 
 sun, by means of the spectroscope. 
 
 ^ Outlines of Astrono77iy, third edition, art. 871. 
 
140 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 Note F, Page 61. 
 
 The scene alluded to in the footnote to page 61, is that pre- 
 sented by the great volcano of Kirauea, in Hawaii, the largest 
 of the Sandwich Islands. Its appearance is thus described by 
 Mr. Ellis (who was the first European to visit it) in his inte- 
 resting Polynesian Researches, vol. iv. ch. x. : — 
 
 'After walking some distance over the sunken plain, which 
 in several places sounded hollow under our feet, we at length 
 came to the edge of the great crater, where a spectacle sublime, 
 and even appalling, presented itself before us. We stopped 
 and trembled. Astonishment and awe for some moments 
 rendered us mute; and, like statues, we stood fixed to the 
 spot, with our eyes riveted on the abyss below. Immediately 
 before us yawned an immense gulf, in the form of a crescent, 
 about two miles in length from north-east to south-west, 
 nearly a mile in width, and apparently eight hundred feet 
 deep. The bottom was covered with lava, and the south, 
 west, and northern parts of it were one vast flood of burning 
 matter, in a state of terrific ebullition, rolling to and fro its 
 fiery surge and flaming billows. Fifty-one conical islands of 
 varied form and size, containing as many craters, rose either 
 round the edge or from the surface of the burning lake. 
 Twenty-two constantly emitted columns of grey smoke, or 
 pyramids of brilliant flame ; and several of these at the same 
 time vomited from their ignited mouths streams of lava, which 
 rolled in blazing torrents down their black indented sides into 
 the boiling mass below.' 
 
 Mr. Ellis afterwards describes the same scene by night : — 
 
 ' Between nine and ten, the dark clouds and heavy fog that, 
 since the setting of the sun, had hung over the volcano, 
 gradually cleared away ; and the fires of Kirauea, darting their 
 fierce light across the midnight gloom, unfolded a sight ter- 
 rible and sublime beyond all we had yet seen. 
 
 ' The agitated mass of liquid lava, like a flood of melted 
 metal, raged with tumultuous whirl. The lively flame that 
 
Notes. 141 
 
 danced over its undulating surface, tinged with sulphureous 
 blue or glowing with mineral red, cast a broad glare of dazzling 
 light on the indented sides of the insulated craters, whose 
 roaring mouths, amidst rising flames and eddying streams of 
 fire, shot up at frequent intervals, with very loud detonations, 
 spherical masses of fusing lava or bright ignited stones.' 
 
 He then proceeds to quote from the narrative of Mr. Stewart, 
 who afterwards visited the volcano along with Lord Byron and 
 a party from the Blonde frigate. After a description of the 
 volcano, and an account of a dangerous attempt which they 
 made to cross one corner of the molten lake by walking on 
 the crust which had then hardened over it, the account pro- 
 ceeds : — 
 
 ' The volcano again began roaring and labouring with re- 
 doubled activity. The confusion of noises was prodigiously 
 great. . . . The whole air was filled with the tumult, and those 
 most soundly asleep were quickly roused by it to thorough 
 wakefulness. Lord Byron sprang up in his cot, exclaiming, 
 "We shall certainly have an eruption ; such power must burst 
 through everything!" He had barely ceased speaking when a 
 dense column of heavy black smoke was seen rising from the 
 crater directly in front of us : the subterranean struggle ceased, 
 and immediately after flames burst from a large cone, near 
 which we had been in the morning, and which then appeared 
 to have been long inactive. Red-hot stones, cinders, and 
 ashes were also propelled to a great height with immense 
 violence ; and shortly after the molten lava came boiling up, 
 and flowed down the sides of the cone, and over the surround- 
 ing scoriae, in two beautiful curved streams, glittering with 
 indescribable brilliance. 
 
 ' At the same time a whole lake of fire opened in a more 
 distant part. This could not have been less than two miles 
 in circumference, and its action was more horribly sublime 
 than anything I ever imagined to exist, even in the ideal 
 visions of unearthly things. Its surface had all the agitation 
 of an ocean : billow after billow tossed its monstrous bosom in 
 the air, and occasionally those from different directions burst 
 
142 Moses and Modern Scieitce. 
 
 with such violence as, in the concussion, to dash the fiery 
 spray thirty and forty feet high. It was at once the most 
 splendidly beautiful and dreadfully fearful of spectacles, and 
 irresistibly turned the thoughts to that lake of fire from 
 whence the smoke of torment ascendeth for ever and ever.' 
 
 Note G, Page 76. 
 
 It has been thought by many, including Fourier and Hum- 
 boldt, that the central mass of the earth is really in a state of 
 fusion, and that volcanic eruptions are nothing else than the 
 escape of a portion of that liquid mass when partially relieved, 
 at a particular spot, from the superincumbent pressure. It 
 has been shown, however, that the phenomena of precession 
 are not in accordance with the existence of such a bottomless 
 ocean of liquid. It has also been said that, if there were such 
 a melted mass below an outer crust, it would be subject to 
 tides in the same way as the ocean, and these would render 
 the said crust but a crazy and unsteady foundation for our 
 buildings. That objection would be easily answered ; but 
 there remains one of a thousand times more weight, and un- 
 answerable. That is, — if the lava of our highest volcanic 
 peaks has been thrown out by the central force, that force, by 
 a law of hydrostatic pressure, could not be exerted on one 
 point of the outer shell without telling equally on every part of 
 it ; and such force would be far more than sufficient to lift up 
 the whole superincumbent crust, and break it everywhere, if 
 not blow it into fragments. If, then, the interior is at a tem- 
 perature sufficient to melt it, and yet is not melted, how can 
 we explain the paradox? Simply thus, — because the enormous 
 pressure retains it in a solid state, although its temperature 
 is such that, if the pressure were removed, it would instantly 
 melt. I think it is Mr. Nasmyth who has shown by experi- 
 ment what others have inferred from theoretical considera- 
 tions, — that the temperature of the melting-point of all sub- 
 stances depends on the pressure. 
 
Notes, 143 
 
 As soon as we make out intense heat to be consistent with 
 soHdity, all the objections to a central heat urged by Sir 
 Charles Lyell and others, arising from the fluidity supposed 
 necessarily to accompany it, fall to the ground. 
 
 Note H, Page 82. 
 
 ' Recently the transport by ice, and the internal condi- 
 tions of an Arctic climate, have been suggested by Professor 
 Ramsay as connected with the accumulation of the Permian 
 breccia-conglomerates of Salop and Worcester. Professor 
 Ramsay, who was the first to advocate in a decided manner 
 the glacial origin of these breccias, founds his belief on the 
 following evidences : — i. The great size of many of the frag- 
 ments — the largest observed weighing (by a rough estimate) 
 from a half to three-quarters of a ton. 2. Their forms. 
 Rounded pebbles are exceedingly rare. They are angular or 
 subangular, and have those flattened sides so peculiarly 
 characteristic of many glacier fragments in existing moraines, 
 and also of many of the stones in the Pleistocene drifts, and 
 the moraine matter of the Welsh, Highland, Irish, and Vosges 
 glaciers. 3. Many of them are highly polished, and others 
 are grooved and finely striated like the stones of existing 
 Alpine glaciers, and like those of the ancient glaciers of the 
 Vosges, Wales, Ireland, and the Highlands of Scotland, or 
 like many stones in the Pleistocene drifts. 4. A hardened 
 cementing mass of red marl, in which the stones are very 
 thickly scattered, and which in some respects may be com- 
 pared to a red boulder clay, in so far that both contain 
 angular, flat-sided, and striated stones, such as form the 
 breccias wherever they occur.' — Advanced Text-book of Geo- 
 logy, by David Page, F.G.S., third edition, art. 222. Dr. 
 Page refers, for his information, to the Journal of the Geolo- 
 gical Society, vol. xi. 
 
 Murchison, no doubt, objects to the idea of glaciers in any 
 but recent times ; but his arguments apply only to the Silurian 
 
144 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 and older periods, in regard to which, it is unnecessary to say, 
 I cordially agree with him. 
 
 Note K, Page 83. 
 
 In the remarks on page 83, it is not meant to assert or 
 imply that, in the Permian age, the earth became, in as far 
 as its internal temperature is concerned, colder than it is at 
 present. Far from it ! According to our theory it must have 
 been much hotter ; and when the sun's heat came to be added 
 to that of the earth, we find, according to the testimony of 
 geologists, that the temperature rose higher in the Secondary 
 and Tertiary periods than it does in our own day. 'The 
 Maestricht beds,' says Sir Charles Lyell,^ ' are classed as the 
 newest of the Secondary series ; and the fossils of that group, 
 including the remains of gigantic reptiles, indicate the preva- 
 lence of a very hot climate.' And again : ^ ' In the deposits of 
 that period,' the older Tertiary, ' we find the remains of many 
 animals analogous to those of hot climates, together with 
 many large shells of the genus nautilus, and plants indicating 
 such a temperature as is found along the southern borders of 
 the Mediterranean.' All this is exactly what we might expect 
 as the result of our theory, — a Mediterranean climate in this 
 latitude in the Tertiary period, — a very hot climate in the 
 Secondary, — one still more sultry, according to evidence after- 
 wards to be adduced,^ in the Carboniferous era, and even 
 hotter than that in the previous ages, but with an icy period 
 coming between the Carboniferous and the Secondary. The 
 palaeozoic earth slowly but steadily cooled, till, by the time the 
 Permian system was completed, the vital powers of nature 
 were all but destroyed. Then the sun shone forth and 
 gradually restored the temperature, till by the end of the 
 Secondary it had become not very much lower than it was in 
 
 ^ Pj'iiiciples of Geology, book i. ch. viii. 
 ^ The same, book i. ch. vi. 
 ^ See page 86 and Note L. 
 
Notes. 
 
 145 
 
 the Carboniferous era, although with no evidence now of the 
 universal diffusion of an equable temperature. Then it con- 
 tinued to cool till the Tertiary system was completed, exactly 
 as we might expect. 
 
 But, it ma5^ be said, if the earth itself was very much 
 warmer at the end of the Permian age than it is now, as all 
 that I have said would lead us to infer, would the non-existence 
 of a sun be a sufficient cause for bringing on an icy tempera- 
 ture? When we reflect upon the effect of a single winter's 
 night with a north wind blowing, we may easily imagine what 
 temperature our atmosphere would attain to if we had a per- 
 petual night, perpetual winter, and no warmer winds than 
 those which blow from the north. Even with the ground a 
 little below the surface much warmer than it is now, probably 
 all vegetable and animal life would perish. Even a very high 
 temperature of the earth could not, without a sun, have nursed 
 the luxuriant Carboniferous flora, if radiation had not been 
 prevented by a very humid atmosphere, which we have no 
 reason to believe would continue when the solar rays began to 
 tell upon it. 
 
 Not only do the successive changes, which I have here 
 pointed out, in the temperature of the earth harmonize with 
 our hypothesis and its natural results ; but the present condi- 
 tions of the sun, the moon, and the earth, all add their testi- 
 mony to the same effect. They are all exactly as we should 
 expect them to be if our theory is correct. The smallest of 
 these, the moon, is so much cooled down, that even its vol- 
 canoes, once very numerous, are extinct ; the earth, consider- 
 ably larger, is cool on the surface, but hot beneath ; while 
 the sun, incomparably the largest, is also incomparably the 
 hottest, not having as yet made an approach to coolness even 
 on the surface. Notwithstanding its great bulk, the sun 
 could not have remained so hot on the exterior if it had 
 been solid ; but undoubtedly its outer shell at all events is 
 in a melted condition, lower strata rising successively to the 
 surface as the upper are cooled, but none of them attaining a 
 soHd condition on the surface. 
 
146 Moses and Modern Sciejice. 
 
 ■ • Note L, Page 87. 
 
 Sir Charles Lyell confirms the authority of Sir Roderick 
 Murchison in regard to the prevalence, during the formation 
 of the Carboniferous and previous systems, of a very warm 
 temperature in the higher latitudes. After some remarks 
 (partly quoted in Note K) on the high, temperature of the 
 Secondary and Tertiary ages, he says : ^ ' But it is from the 
 more ancient coal deposits that the most extraordinary evi- 
 dence has been supplied in proof of the former existence of an 
 extremely hot climate in those latitudes which are now the 
 temperate and colder regions of the globe. It appears from 
 the fossils of the Carboniferous period, that the flora consisted 
 almost exclusively of large vascular cryptogamic plants. We 
 learn from the labours of M. Ad. Brogniart, that there existed 
 at that epoch Equiseta upwards of ten feet high and from five 
 to six inches in diameter ; tree ferns, or plants allied to them, 
 from forty to fifty feet in height ; and arborescent Lycopodiacea 
 from sixty to seventy feet high. Of the above classes of vege- 
 tables the species are all small at present in cold climates, 
 while in tropical regions there occur, together with small 
 species, many of a much greater size ; but their development, 
 even in the hottest parts of the globe, is now inferior to that 
 indicated by the petrified forms of the coal formation. An 
 elevated and uniform temperature, and great humidity of the 
 air, are the causes most favourable to the numerical predomi- 
 nance and the great size of these plants within the torrid zone 
 at present.' Sir Charles adds in another place : ^ ' The unin- 
 jured corals and chambered univalves of Igloolik, Melville 
 Island, and other high latitudes, sufficiently prove that during 
 the Carboniferous period there was an elevated temperature 
 even in northern regions bordering on the Arctic Circle. The 
 heat and hiunidity of the air and the nniformity of climate 
 
 1 Principles of Geology, book i. ch. vi. 
 
 2 Ibid, book i. ch. vi. 
 
Notes. 147 
 
 appear to have been most remarkable when the oldest strata 
 hitherto discovered ivere formed.^ The italics are my own, as 
 I wish to draw attention to the remarkable confirmation it 
 gives to our hypothesis, and that, I may say, unintentionally ; 
 for Sir Charles has another theory of his own, by which he 
 endeavours to explain the great heat of certain periods, and the 
 equally great cold of others. His theory is this : that the heat 
 and cold not only of particular regions, but of the whole globe, 
 depend materially upon the distribution of land and sea. The 
 first part of this proposition is at once conceded, but the other 
 part I deny altogether. We may set it down as an established 
 truth, that no change of any probable or even possible kind, in 
 the extent, shape, or position of the continents and islands of 
 the earth, would affect its average tempe7'atm'e in the slightest 
 degree. No doubt the air and the ocean, between them, are 
 the great means provided for the equalization of the earth's 
 temperature, or, more correctly speaking, for moderating the 
 extremes of heat and cold which would be the result of the 
 sun's influence if it were not counterbalanced by some means. 
 But for these, the tropical and the arctic regions would be 
 alike uninhabitable. By far the greater part of that useful 
 work of equalization is undoubtedly performed by the air, as 
 we see from the winds that are constantly blowing everywhere, 
 over both land and sea, unrestrained by limits, and conse- 
 quently attaining to high velocities. Their temperature also 
 is sometimes very much above that of the regions towards 
 which they are blowing. The currents of the ocean, on the 
 other hand, are constantly turned asid'e and checked by the 
 interfering lands, so that they rarely attain a velocity of more 
 than two or three miles per hour : they extend over only a 
 part of the earth's surface, not only the land being excluded, 
 but all the smaller seas and confined bays ; and their tempera- 
 ture is, I think, never more than a few degrees ahead of that 
 of the region through which they are travelling, the only com- 
 pensation to this arising from the high specific heat of water. 
 But granting the utmost capability that any one chooses to 
 claim for the cooling and heating power of the ocean currents, 
 
148 Moses and Modern Scie7ice, 
 
 still it must always be remembered that they are only equalizers 
 of heat : they produce none, and destroy none ; ^ they add to 
 the warmth of the polar regions only by robbing the equatorial, 
 and they cannot affect the avei-age temperature of the earth 
 to the extent of a single degree. Now all testimony concurs 
 in establishing the fact that, in the Carboniferous era, there 
 was a tropical climate from the equator to at least the latitude 
 of Melville Island, and probably therefore from pole to pole ; 
 and, according to Sir Charles' own admission already quoted, 
 the heat and the humidity of the air appear to have been still 
 more remarkable in the previous periods. 
 
 Sir Charles decries hypothesis ; but is it not a pure hypo- 
 thesis that the land and water of the globe were ever distributed 
 in either of the two ways he exhibits in his diagram? No 
 doubt it is possible that they were so ; but is it probable that 
 they would continue in any such peculiar condition during the 
 immensely long palaeozoic period, including, without going 
 further back, the Silurian, the Devonian, and the Carbonifer- 
 ous systems, and that, too, notwithstanding the terrible over- 
 turnings which we know took place during the time ? 
 
 He is not satisfied, however, with the hypothetical adjust- 
 ment of the ocean to serve the purpose required, but calls to 
 its aid the mountains, the clouds, and the snow. 
 
 First, as to the mountains. He says : - ' The elevated land 
 rising to the colder regions of the atmosphere becomes a great 
 reservoir of ice and snow, — arrests, condenses, and congeals 
 vapour, and communicates its cold to the adjoining country.' 
 Consequently, if our highest mountains were reduced in eleva- 
 tion, he infers, the temperature of the globe would be increased ; 
 for he continues in another passage i^ ' If we suppose that, at 
 certain periods, no chain of hills in the world rose beyond the 
 height of 10,000 feet, a greater heat might then have prevailed 
 than is consistent with the existence of mountains of thrice 
 
 1 That which appears to be lost in evaporation or in liquefaction is 
 only rendered latent ; and that which is converted into motive power 
 is no exception, since it is at any time reconvertible into heat. 
 
 2 Principles of Geology, book i. ch. vii. ^ /^/^^ book i. ch. vii. 
 
Notes. 149 
 
 that elevation.' In reply to this, we may say that it has now 
 been proved^ that the mountains, even the highest, do not cool 
 the subjacent land, but warm it : for, as to their ' condensing 
 and congealing vapour,' that produces heat, not cold; as to 
 radiation, however cold they may be themselves, they are 
 warmer than the clouds or sky above them ; and as to their 
 cooling the winds which pass over them, as is commonly fan- 
 cied, it is the winds that cool them, and not they that cool the 
 winds. The wind, as it rises towards their summits, is cooled 
 by expanding, but regains all its warmth as it descends, with 
 that derived from condensation and congelation of vapour 
 added to it. The effect of elevations on the avej-age tempera- 
 ture of the globe is simply nothing. 
 
 Clouds are in exactly the same position. If they prevent 
 the earth beneath from being directly heated by the sun's rays, 
 they receive the heat themselves, and ultimately impart it to 
 the earth. Nothing more can be said for snow. If it reflects 
 almost all the rays of the sun which fall on it, so we may say 
 it equally reflects the cold of the sky. If it absorbs little of 
 the sun's radiated heat, so it in its turn radiates equally little 
 to the atmosphere. All that snow effects is to preserve the 
 temperature of the underlying surface of the ground in statu 
 quo, preventing heat from passing either in or out. 
 
 The sum of all this is, that, setting aside the warmth supplied 
 from within, so long as the heat of the sun is constant, the 
 average temperature of the earth's surface is constant, how- 
 ever the balance may be disturbed in its different parts. No 
 solar ray enters our atmosphere in vain. 
 
 Sir Charles Lyell certainly never professes to show that any 
 distribution of land and sea could do anything more than pro- 
 duce a temperature throughout the greater part of the earth's 
 surface approaching to the present heat of our tropical regions. 
 He nowhere suggests that it could be higher than that, unless 
 in some peculiar localities. It could not generally be so high, 
 
 1 See a communication in the Transactions of the Literary and 
 Philosophical Society of Liverpool for 1 859, ' On the Causes of Local 
 Peculiarities of Temperature.' 
 
150 Moses a7id Modern Science. 
 
 even on his own hypothesis, as to be unfavourable to vegeta- 
 tion. Then how can we account for the almost perfect steri- 
 lity of the earth during the earlier palaeozoic periods, with no 
 vegetation whatever known in the Laurentian and Cambrian 
 eras, and no animal life in the former except that one little 
 creature the Eozoon Canadense, and in the latter nothing 
 higher than a few zoophytes? If vegetable and animal life 
 were the results of a happy concourse of atoms afterwards 
 improved by adaptation to circumstances, here was time enough 
 for every chance to come into operation, and yet life remained 
 undeveloped. But if, as we believe, plants and animals re- 
 quired creative power for their production, is it likely that an 
 all-wise Creator would leave the earth so long a desert if it 
 had been in a fit state for being clothed with vegetation and 
 peopled with animals? We hear a kind of explanation in the 
 hypothesis that the older strata were all deposited in deep 
 seas ; but as no geologist, I think, now holds the old doctrine 
 of a ' primeval universal ocean,' the seas, however deep, must 
 have had shores and shallow bays, and it is only near the 
 shores that deposits of sand and clay are made. Besides that, 
 the Lower Silurian rocks, as far as my own observation goes, 
 show no traces of any deep sea whatever, but many of shallow 
 pools and muddy plains. If, however, the earth was, as we 
 have supposed, during the earlier palaeozoic ages, at a tem- 
 perature closely approaching to boiling heat, all things are 
 consistent. 
 
 'There are no proofs,' says the great geologist so often 
 quoted in this note,^ ' of a secular decrease of heat accom- 
 panied by contraction. On the contrary, Laplace has shown, 
 by reference to astronomical observations made in the time of 
 Hipparchus, that in the last two thousand years there has 
 been no sensible contraction of the globe by cooling; for had 
 this been the case, even to an extremely small amount, the 
 day would have been shortened, whereas its length has cer- 
 tainly not diminished during that period.' This is granted ; 
 
 1 Principles of Geology, book i. ch. viii. 
 
Notes. 151 
 
 but Sir Charles has fallen into a mistake common to geolo- 
 gists, in fancying that cooling necessarily involves contrac- 
 tion. It does so certainly when the cooling is unaccompanied 
 by change of condition ; but when any melted matter, in cool- 
 ing, changes from the liquid to the solid state, it almost always 
 expands. One stratum of the globe would therefore expand 
 in cooling, while others would contract; and the result of the 
 two effects united might be no perceptible change in the 
 diameter of the earth, or in the length of the day, if two 
 thousand years is not too short a period to render the result 
 perceptible according to any way of taking it. 
 
 If the earth must now be in the same condition in which it 
 has always been, Avhy not apply the same principle to the 
 moon ? But, unfortunately for the argument of the uniformi- 
 tarians, we have the moon's history written in its face so 
 clearly, that ' he that runs may read.' It has at one time been 
 covered wath active volcanoes, and these are now either en- 
 tirely at rest, or so nearly so, that, if some have thought they 
 saw a speck of conflagration still lingering, it is never very 
 clear whether it was a fact or a fancied appearance. 
 
 Note M, Page 88. 
 
 In the fourth chapter I have said that, if the sun made its 
 appearance in our world for the first time during the fourth 
 day, it might have been expected that some vestiges of the 
 great change would be found in the fossil remains of that 
 period ; and accordingly such vestiges are found very clearly, 
 — first, in a complete renovation of the whole animal and 
 vegetable creation at that period ; and secondly, in a change 
 from a flora and fauna which showed no distinction of climates, 
 to one in w'hich the productions of the tropical regions were 
 altogether distinct from those of the higher latitudes. To 
 these evidences of the important change in the source from 
 which the heat of the earth's surface was mainly supplied, a 
 third has been added, still more decided, if possible, than 
 
152 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 these, provided that it could be clearly established. It has 
 been said that season-rings, such as are seen in the timber of 
 all the forest trees of our own country, showing the alterna- 
 tions of summer and winter, are not to be found in the fossil 
 remains of any trees which grew previously to the Triassic 
 formations. Other writers, however, inform us that exogenous 
 trees, showing similar rings, did exist previously to that era ; 
 and if it could be fairly established that the rings seen in 
 these were truly annual, their formation must have been de- 
 pendent upon the sun, and would go far towards proving that 
 the sun's first appearance must have been at an earlier period 
 than has been assigned to it in this volume. It is a point of 
 very great importance, which has not yet been sufficiently 
 investigated. The probable solution of the difficulty seems to 
 be, that although, in some few fossil trees of the Carboniferous 
 era, rings may be seen, yet they are not really annual rings. 
 Rings may appear in plants resembling those in our timber, 
 and yet not formed in the same way. A hard fungus may be 
 seen, growing out of the decaying trunks of trees, with rings 
 exactly resembling those of a tree, and equally perfect ; but 
 these are not annual rings. Some fossil plants, supposed to 
 be fucoid, but with thick stems, are found in the unaltered 
 Silurian rocks of the south of Scotland, and these stems 
 sometimes show one or two rings, but with no appearance or 
 probability of their being season-rings. Professor Balfour, in 
 his Class-book of Botaiiy (p. 85), says : ' Various peculiarities 
 occur, especially among exogenous trees of warm climates, 
 which often obscure the arrangement. Thus, in some trees of 
 great age, only one marked zone or circle of woody matter is 
 seen, consisting of a series of separate wedges ; in other trees 
 there are several such zones, each of which is the produce of 
 more than one year's growth.' And again, more to the pur- 
 pose (on p. 81): 'It is said that, in some of the trees of 
 Tropical America, monthly circles are formed, while in species 
 of Cactus and Cicas more than one year is required to form 
 a single zone.' Mr. Miller somewhere informs us that all the 
 exogenous trees found in the strata antecedent to the Trias 
 
Notes. 
 
 153 
 
 are of species more nearly allied to the Araucaria than to any 
 other modern tree. Now there is something peculiar about 
 the growth of the Araucaria ; for to this day it asserts, to a 
 certain extent, its independence of the sun. In Scotland, 
 at all events, if not in warmer climates, its main stem, as well 
 as each branch, puts out a shoot only once in two years, the 
 shoot growing to half its full length the first year, and com- 
 pleting its growth in the second. Now we can scarcely 
 conceive that the formation of the successive rings does not 
 accord with that of the new shoots ; and if so, they cannot be 
 annual rings, and consequently cannot be grown in summer 
 and hardened in winter, like those of our common trees. 
 There is therefore some way of forming rings independently 
 of the sun and the seasons, and that, we may suspect, was 
 the mode in which the rings were formed in the pre-triassic 
 timber, judging more especially from their probable relation- 
 ship. Although, therefore, we cannot, in the present state of 
 our knowledge, use the argument derived from season-rings 
 as decidedly in our favour, yet I think I have said enough to 
 show that it cannot be adduced as decidedly against us. The 
 subject requires further investigation. 
 
 Note N, Page 88. 
 
 There is a difficulty in this part of our subject connected 
 with light. If there was no sun to shed its rays on the earth, 
 can we suppose that the mere light of volcanic fires would be 
 sufficient for the growth of the luxuriant vegetation of the 
 Carboniferous ages? The answer to that will depend upon 
 two things, — the nature of the plants, and the intensity of the 
 volcanic heat. Even with our present vegetation, we are 
 uncertain what amount of light is necessary to its growth. 
 Sir Charles Lyell, in combating the same difficulty, in regard 
 not to volcanic but to solar light, remarks : ^ ' We must bear 
 
 1 Principles of Geology^ book i. ch. vi. 
 
154 Moses and Modern Science. 
 
 in mind, in the first place, that, so far as experiments have 
 been made, there is every reason to conclude that the range 
 of intensity of light to which living plants can accommodate 
 themselves is far wider than that of heat. No palms or tree- 
 ferns could live in our temperate latitudes without protection 
 from the cold ; but when placed in hothouses, they grow 
 luxuriantly, even under a cloudy sky, and when much light 
 is intercepted by the glass and framework. At St. Peters- 
 burg, in latitude 60° N., these plants have been successfully 
 cultivated in hothouses, although there they must exchange 
 the perpetual equinox of their native regions for days and 
 nights which are alternately protracted to nineteen hours and 
 shortened to five. How much farther towards the pole they 
 might continue to live, provided a due quantity of heat and 
 moisture were supplied, has not yet been determined ; but St. 
 Petersburg is probably not the utmost limit. 
 
 ' Nor must we forget that we are here speaking of living 
 species formed to inhabit within or near the tropics. But the 
 coal-plants were of perfectly distinct species, and may have 
 been endowed with a different constitution, enabling them to 
 bear a greater variation of circumstances in regard to light. 
 We find that particular species of palms and tree-ferns require 
 at present different degrees of heat, and that some species can 
 thrive only in the immediate neighbourhood of the equator, 
 others only at a distance from it. In the same manner, the 
 minimum of light sufficient for the now existing species 
 cannot be taken as the standard for all analogous tribes that 
 may ever have flourished on the globe.' 
 
 Sir Charles adds, in another place (book iii. ch. v.) : 
 ' While some plants are covered and uncovered daily by the 
 tide, others live in the abysses of the ocean, at the extraordinary 
 depth of one thousand feet ; and although in such situations 
 there must reign darkness more profound than night, at least 
 to our organs, many of these vegetables are highly coloured.' 
 If, then, aquatic plants can be made to flourish in all but total 
 darkness, there is no reason why land-plants should not have 
 been created adapted to a degree of light far inferior to that of 
 
Notes, 1 5 5 
 
 the sun. If eyeless fishes have been created to inhabit dark 
 subteranneous pools, why might not species of plants be pro- 
 duced adapted to lower degrees of light ? 
 
 If it be objected that plants can grow with no light but that 
 of the sun, the fact remains to be proved. The difference 
 between solar and artificial light arises mainly from the differ- 
 ence of temperature of the sources from which they emanate. 
 Then volcanic heat is not artificial heat, but is probably of a 
 kindred character to that of the sun, and may in the earlier 
 ages have glowed with sufficient intensity to support vegetation, 
 especially that of plants adapted to it. 
 
 Neither is it certain that the only light of those primeval 
 ages was that which emanated from volcanoes. Auroral light 
 may then have been peculiarly vivid, or light from sources of 
 which we are ignorant. 
 
 But should we be in a better position if we gave up vol- 
 canic and other auxiliary lights, and resorted to that of the sun 
 for the growth of our coal-plants ? The latitude of Melville 
 Island, where coals are found, is 75 degrees, and in winter the 
 sun does not make its appearance there for somewhere about 
 three months. Now, if we could believe that the temperature 
 there, with only the solar heat, would ever be sufficient to grow 
 plants of tropical character, they would remain about three 
 months every winter in nocturnal darkness ; and, to quote again 
 the same work : ' Plants, it is affirmed, cannot remain in dark- 
 ness even for a week without serious injury, unless in a torpid 
 state ; and if exposed to heat and moisture, they cannot remain 
 torpid, but will grow, and must therefore perish. If, then, in 
 the latitude of Melville Island a high temperature and conse- 
 quent humidity prevailed at that period, when we know the 
 Arctic seas were filled with corals and large multilocular 
 shells, how could plants of tropical forms have flourished, 
 and how could they annually endure a night prolonged for 
 three months?' (Book i. ch. vi.) 
 
 No doubt Sir Charles has his own way of endeavouring to 
 extricate himself from this apparently hopeless position ; but 
 throughout his whole work he is evidently labouring against 
 
156 Moses and Modern Science, 
 
 difficulties which he never fairly overcomes, but which are far 
 more easily surmounted by proceeding on the hypothesis of an 
 originally very high temperature of the earth. 
 
 Note O, Page 99. 
 
 ' In the great series of Secondaiy rocks, many distinct 
 assemblies of organized fossils are entombed, all of unknown 
 species, and many of them referable to genera and families 
 now most abundant between the tropics. Among the most 
 remarkable are many gigantic reptiles, some of them herbi- 
 vorous, others carnivorous, and far exceeding in size any now 
 known in the torrid zone. The genera are for the most part 
 extinct ; but some of them, as the crocodile and monitor, have 
 still representatives in the warmer parts of the earth. Coral 
 reefs also were evidently numerous in the seas of the same 
 periods, and composed of species belonging to genera now 
 characteristic of a tropical climate. The number of large 
 chambered shells also leads us to infer an elevated temperature ; 
 and the associated fossil plants, although imperfectly known, 
 tend to the same conclusion, the Cycadea constituting the most 
 numerous family.' — Pi'inciples of Geology^ book i. ch. vi. 
 
 Note P, Page 120. 
 
 When this volume was all but completed, I heard for the 
 first time of an objection, advanced by a French writer, M. 
 Babinet, to the nebular hypothesis which seems at first sight 
 formidable. It is this, — that if the rotation of the sun on its 
 axis is due to the same cause as the revolution of the planets 
 about the sun, it ought to have been much more rapid than 
 it is. 
 
 It would be very strange, however, if a solitary difficulty like 
 this were to upset a hypothesis so well supported in' such a 
 variety of ways. It is far more likely that it has some solution 
 
Notes. 157 
 
 which, although it may not have occurred to the proposer of 
 the objection, and might even entirely evade discovery for the 
 present, may be simple enough. It requires the careful consi- 
 deration of astronomers ; but in the meantime I venture to 
 make some suggestions which may at least serve to show that 
 the difficulty is probably not insuperable. 
 
 In the first place, the actual rotatory velocity, even in the 
 outer portions of the nebula, must at first have been very small ; 
 and consequently, supposing all parts of the nebula to have 
 rotated in unison, or, in other words, with the same angular 
 velocity, the actual velocity of the matter nearer the centre 
 must have been slower still, in proportion to its distance from 
 the centre. Then, of all the matter which was originally near 
 the centre, the ultimate rotatory velocity would be little more 
 than what was due to the mere shortening of the radius, since 
 it would be very little accelerated by the centripetal force, 
 which, with so little matter between it and the centre, would 
 be very feeble. 
 
 In the next place, the same reasoning will be equally appli- 
 cable to all the matter originally near the axis of rotation, 
 however far it might be from the centre ; and all the matter 
 from the polar regions, as Laplace seems to suggest, would 
 necessarily go towards the formation of the sun, that from 
 the outermost of the equatorial zones alone falling into the 
 planets. 
 
 Again, we are by no means assured that the molecules, be- 
 coming crowded together in the central mass, would not so 
 interfere with each other's movements as to prevent that ac- 
 celeration of the rotation which would arise from the impetus 
 derived from their fall being turned into the direction of rota- 
 tion, as was undoubtedly the case with the material of the 
 planets. Such disturbance, as Laplace has proved, could in 
 no way diminish the original rotatory motion ; but it might, it 
 seems to me, prevent or diminish its increase from the cause 
 mentioned. 
 
 In the fourth place, we have no assurance that all the regions 
 of the nebula did originally rotate in unison. If the angular 
 
158 Moses and Modej^n Science. 
 
 velocity of rotation was not from the first the same throughout 
 the mass of the nebula, but less and less towards the centre, 
 or even with a reverse motion in the central regions, it would 
 remove the difficulty. 
 
 There is another solution of which I cannot see the impossi- 
 bility, although at first sight it may appear almost fantastical. 
 It involves some considerations of great difficulty, though, if 
 it were once admitted, it would be a key to the explanation 
 of some peculiarities and apparent irregularities in the solar 
 system, which have not yet been explained either by the 
 nebular hypothesis or by any other means. I present it with 
 all diffidence for further consideration. 
 
 It is with the revolutions of the planets, not with their rota- 
 tions, that the rotation of the sun is compared when its slow- 
 ness is objected to. In the planets we have these two motions 
 separate, while in the sun they are presumed to be united. 
 But is it not possible that they may once have been separated 
 even in the case of the sun, and that we have now only the 
 rotation remaining, the progressive motion being otherwise 
 disposed of.'' But to show how that might possibly have been, 
 requires explanation. 
 
 Suppose, then, that the central mass of the nebula which 
 now constitutes the body of the sun, formed itself in the first 
 place into a ring more or less perfect, as is quite possible and 
 not at all improbable, being only the innermost of the rings 
 formed out of the nebula. Next suppose that ring, by the 
 conjunction of Venus and Mercury, or by any other cause, to 
 have been weakened in one place, and ultimately ruptured on 
 that side, it would slowly draw together towards the opposite 
 side. It would be prevented from collecting in the centre by 
 its own centrifugal force ; but when drawn to one side it would 
 gradually lose the restraining centripetal force, and would 
 ultimately fly off into the regions of space. 
 
 This motion, compounded with any proper motion which 
 the nebula might have had originally, would result in the 
 proper motion which the sun has now. The velocity of the 
 new progressive motion, being small compared with the velo- 
 
Notes. 159 
 
 cities of the planets, they would follow in its train, with nothing 
 more than a disturbance of their orbits, changing from a cir- 
 cular to an elliptic form, or, if that change had taken place to 
 some extent before, rendering them more eccentric. Then, if 
 any proper motion which the nebula may have had before was 
 not in the plane of the ecliptic, this new motion of the sun in 
 that plane would also disturb the planes of the orbits of the 
 planets, which would otherwise all have been in one. 
 
 But I have entered upon an intricate subject, requiring the 
 acumen of abler mathematicians than I profess to be, and 
 to their consideration I venture to commend it. It may, if 
 thought worthy of being followed out, provide employment for 
 the utmost skill of the rising generation of astronomers. My 
 object is gained if I can show, as I think I have done, that the 
 objection I have been discussing does not form an insuperable 
 obstacle to our reception of the nebular theory. It would 
 have been satisfactory to have had a solution of the difficulty 
 from Laplace himself; but he either did not perceive that it 
 existed, or passed it over in silence. 
 
 MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, 
 PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.