^•i:--^' M H^M>- » :S>^ 5» 6./2>,2-5 H^rnm thp SItbraru nf Spqi«ati|pb bit I|im tn thp Ctbrari; of Prinrrtntt Qlbpnlogtral S>pmtnary BS 651 .P4 1897 Perce, Warren R. 1843-1914 Genesis and modern science ^ GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE WARREN R. PERCE "Thy word is true from the beginning." Psalm cxix. 160. NEW YORK JAMES POTT & CO. FOURTH AVENUE AND 22D STREET 1897 Copyright, 1897, by Warren R. Perce TIIK NKW VOKK TYPK SKTTINO COMPANY I'KINTF.li HV .1. .1. I.ITTI.K A- CO. TO MY WIFE COMPANION AND HELPER IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS BOOK PREFACE. In these days, when the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures, their inspiration, and authorship are subjects of gi-eat and increasing interest and importance, this book, which aims to prove the literal truth of the scriptural account of the Ci-eation of the world, offers its quota of tliought. It is the result of long-continued study upon that famous problem, which doubtless has never yet been fully solved: how to harmonize the teachings of tlie Bible with the science of geol- ogy. There has been a disposition on the part of some thinkers, and even of some Christian teachers, to depreciate the authority of the early chapters of Genesis, and to regard them as con- taining mere Semitic traditions, of some literary importance, indeed, but of little or no historical value. According to these thinkers, in the light of the researches of the " higher criticism," it is by no means certain where or how the Penta- 1 2 PREFACE. teiK'li originated, who the "redactor" or editor Avas, or how the original documents, which this unknown compiler has brought together, came into existence. Nor is it quite clear at what point iu the sacred narrative it begins to be true and may safely be believed. To all this mass of manufactured and labori- ous doubt there is the clear and authoritative answer, "Thy word is true from the begin- ning." ^ The Christian Scriptures claim to be divinely ins2:)ired, and while by reason of inaccurate translation or the j^overty or uncertainty of human language they may sometimes be im- perfect in literary form or expression, their Avliole revealed content must be true iu every part, whether in history, science, ethics, or tlieology. 80 mingled are the statements of the natural and supernatural that no discrimination between them is possible as to their credibility. A Bible which contains scientific errors cannot be inspired by infinite wisdom. If it be false in its teachings concerning the things which are seen, the temporal, how can it claim our faith as to the things which are not seen, the eternal ? The word of God is not an amalgam of fact and fiction, tnitli and error. Tliough thei-e have been many, and still are some apparent ' Ps. cxix. 1()(). " lOvci'v word, ffoiii (xenosis (callccl by tilt' .Tews fi'oiu its lirst W(»r(ls. 'In llu' l)t'uiiiiiiiig') to tilt' end of tlic Si-riptures, is true." PREFACE. 3 discrepancies between the teachings of the Bible and science, a larger knowledge and a more in- telligent interpretation of both have resulted in a growing accord of the word and works of Clod as they have been reverently studied in their mutual relations, each aiding, illustrating, and enforcing the other. In increasing numbers the large-minded leaders in all the sciences have gladly devoted their studies and researches to such efforts. ^ What is religion but the science of divine things as applied to human faith and l)ractice, and what is science but the discovery and statement of God's methods in the realm of nature! It has been finely said, "True science and true religion are twin sisters, and the sepa- ration of either from the other will prove the death of both." With an earnest desire to interpret truly the Creation story as written on the sacred page and graven on the rocks, I have carefully collected various well-established facts of science best suited for my purpose, together with the opin- ions of eminent scholars thereon, and with the aid of two simple and self-evident propositions have so combined and classified these facts as not only to reach an easy and natural solution of some of the perplexing and hitherto unan- swered problems of geology, but also to dem- onstrate the scientific accuracy of the Book of Genesis. 1 Charles W. Shields, Century, November, 1892. 4 PREFACE. T desire to express my n])]>r('('i;itioii of two Looks, President Warren's Vayadlac Foiuul and Kev. Dr. Hughes's Genesis aud OeoJof/)/, which have been especially helpful in my studv. W. K. P. PROVmENCE, H. I., July, 1897. DIVISIONS. PERIODS. STRATA. ANIMALS. POST-TERTIARY. '^^^^^^ PLIOCENE. |!f^vi'^i?j^vi^>;' MIOCENE. EOCENE. j^ - - -^ 3. CRETACEOUS .": PERIOD ^ 2. JURASSIC -3£^^r^^r^:^ PERIOD. i^i^p^S 1 TRIASSIC '^^^^' PERMIAN PERIOD. ^?:>' "'::?"■'" U ul U < ^ CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD. DEVONIAN OR OLD RED SANDSTONE, AZOIC TIME OR AGE. ABRIDGED TABLE OF FOSSILIFEROUS STRATA AND LIFE TABLES. CHAPTER I. GEOLOGY VS. GENESIS. The first chapter of Genesis has been during the nineteenth century the field of most severe ])attle between skepticism and the Christian religion. Geology, the youngest and most im- perious of the sisterhood of sciences, feeling that she has been dispossessed of her peculiar domain by the Mosaic cosmogony, has seemed, of all foes, the most hostile. The Westminster Assembly of Divines, in the Shorter CatecMsm, has given expression to the Ijelief of the Christian Church which jirevailod until the present century by declaring, "The work of creation is God's making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good." God himself has expressly said, " In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is." But Geology points to the monumental in- scriptions which Time has engraved upon the rocks. These evidently tell of vast ages during 5 6 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. which the earth slowly progressed to its habit- able condition. The skeptic, seeing this indisputable evidence so entirely contradicting the simple assertion of the Bible, finds here his strongest argument against the credibility and authority of the Holy Scriptures. If on the very first page of the Bible he finds a demonstrated error, why should he believe its later pages I Many thoughtful minds have been troubled by the first chapter of Genesis. With weakened faith they have reasoned: If the foundation is unsound, how can the superstructure be secure? The greater number of Christians, though un- able to harmonize the very evident contradic- tion between science and the Bible, do not doubt that this difference is only apparent and not real. They believe that in due time the sacred record will be vindicated by the aid of that very science which has seemed antagonistic to it. But if such reconciliation is seemingly inipos- sible, they prefer to believe the testimony of the Bible rather than the testimony of the rocks. God has plainly declared his own work; there can be no superior evidence, not even the pro- foundest speculations of all the philosophers. Geology is too recent a science (scarcely a cent- ury old), its investigations have been too limited, its conclusions are too immature, to warrant a denial of the word of God. It is easier to believe that God could and would make GEOLOGY VS. GENESIS. 7 a fossil at once, and cr.eate matter with all its present appearances, than to believe that he has not declared the exact truth about the creation of the world in six days. But years of careful study of this ancient problem warrant the belief that by astronomy and geology it can be proved that the solar system was actually created in six days. Why should it be thought an incredible thing that God's word is strictly true, and, however auda- cious may seem the attempt, why should we not expect to confirm and illustrate the book of revelation by the book of nature — if indeed both were written by the same hand? The theory which is the result of that study will be presented in these pages, not in a dogmatic manner, but in the spirit of scientific investiga- tion. The Christian reader will doubtless respect tlie motive, and the scientist should approve the methods. How has the apparent discord between the natural and the supernatural revelations been overcome ? At first, by grave doubts that fossils are at all the vestiges of former organic life. It was contended by some that the fossil is a mere mold, a lusus naturce^ or freak of nature. But when this doubt was no longer tenable in the light of continued discovery and research, the fossils were explained as deposits of the Noa- cliian Deluge. Tlie fact that marine shells were found scattered over large areas, and even upon 8 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. the summits of high hills and mountains, made this explanation exceedingly plausible, and especially satisfactory to theologians. Poor Voltaire was much distressed by it. "About the year 17G0 news of the discovery of marine fossils in various elevated parts of Europe reached Voltaire. He feared that these new discoveries might be used to support the Mosaic account of the Deluge. All his wisdom and wit, therefore, were compacted into argument to prove that the fossil fishes were remains of fishes intended for food, but spoiled and thrown away by travelers; that the fossil shells were acci- dentally dropped by crusaders and pilgrims returning from the Holy Land ; and that sun- dry fossil bones found between Paris and Etampes were parts of a skeleton belonging to the cabinet of some ancient philosopher.^ Through chapter after chapter Voltaire, obej'- ing the supposed necessities of his theology, fought desperately the growing results of the geological investigations of his time." - 1 " As an instance of his desire to throw donbt in- discriminately on all geological data, we may recall the passage where he says, ' The bones of a reindeer and hippopotamus discovered near Etampes did not prove, as some would have it, that Lapland and the Nile were once on a tour from Paris to Orleans, but merely that a lover of curiosities once preserved them in his cabinet ' " (Lyell's Principles of Geologi/, p. 55). 2 Popular Science Monthly, vol. xxxii., p. 599. GEOLOGY VS. GENESIS. 9 When the Dehige theory became untenable, commentators began to argue what the word day might mean in the Scripture narrative. Dr. J. H. Kurtz, professor of theology at Dorpat,^ propounded the unique theory that the facts of the Creation were revealed to Moses in a series of visions of six apparent days and nights, in which he saw as in a panorama all the phenomena and changes of the creative work; and that when we read of the work of the "first day" or of the "second day," we are reading about what he saw in the vision of the "first day" or of the "second day," although the events themselves, thus revealed, actually occu- pied vast periods of time. This theory is widely held and has many able advocates, among whom is Hugh Miller, who, in his book. The Testimony of the Bocks, states the argument on which it rests and gives it his fullest approval. It also forms the basis of Rev. Dr. Boardman's delight- ful book. The Creative Week, which has been widely circulated and admired. The unin- structed reader of the first chapter of Genesis, however, would never suspect that he was reading only a dream, and the positive, un- equivocal assertion of God, "In six days the Lord nmde heaven and earth," compels a belief such as this theory cannot inspire. We in- stinctively feel that these words must be true, even though we cannot understand them. Per- ^ Bihel mid Astronomie. 10 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. haps this theory easily overcomes all difficulties, yet we cannot rid ourselves of an uneasy con- viction that it is a scheme and nothing more. But on closer examination we find that it is an explanation which explains nothing. The theory is loyal to geology at the expense of the Bible. Another, and perhaps the most generally satisfactory explanation hitherto offered, is this: that between the events narrated in the first and second verses of this chapter there was a period of vast and unknown duration, in which interval were comprehended all the geo- logical ages of whose existence the structure of the earth tells us. Having thus made provision for all the demands of geology, this theory re- gards the remaining verses of the chapter as a history of only those changes by which the earth was prepared for human habitation. This hy- pothesis was first announced about sixty years ago by Dr. Buckland, and has been advocated by many others since that time. It is loyal to the Bible, but not true to geology. Professor Dana says:^ "Rev. Dr. Buckland places the great events of geology between the first and second verses of the Mosaic account, but does not pretend that there is any geological basis for such an hypothesis ; and no writer since has ever brought forward the first fact in geology to support the idea of a re-arrangement Just be- ^ Biblical Bepository, 1856. GEOLOGY VS. GENESIS. 11 fore man. Not one solitary fact lias ever been appealed to. The conclusion was on biblical grounds, and not in any sense on geological. The best that Buckland could say, when he wrote, was that geology did not absolutely dis- prove such an hypothesis, and that cannot be said now." Professor Dawson ^ makes a strong argument on this question when he writes, " Some emi- nent expositors of these words are disposed to consider the first verse as a title or introduction, and to refer to this period the whole series of geological changes ; and this view has formed one of the most popular solutions of the appar- ent discrepancies between the geological and scriptural histories of the world. It is evident, however, if we continue to view the term earth as including the whole globe, this hypothesis becomes altogether untenable. The subsequent verses inform us that at the period in question the earth was covered by a universal ocean, possessed no atmosphere and received no light, and had not entered into its present relation with the other bodies of our system. No con- ceivable convulsions could have effected such changes on an earth previously possessing these arrangements ; and geology assures us that the existing laws and dispositions in these respects have prevailed from the earliest periods to which it can lead us back, and that the modern 1 Origin of the World. 12 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. state of things was not separated from those which preceded it by any such general chaos." The last theory requiring mention, of those which have been propounded for the purpose of reconciling Scripture and science, is one so obviously unreasonable that it would not be regarded seriously if it were not sanctioned by such men as Chalmers, Pye Smith, Harris, King, and Hitchcock. It is that the Scripture record refers, not to the creation in general, but to a creation in a particular locality. It considers that the word earth in the second verse denotes a certain region, temporarily obscured and re- duced to ruin, but afterward fitted up, by the operations of six days, for the residence of man. This limited territory is thought to have been in central Asia. Dawson fairly criticises the theory as follows : " Can we, after finding that in verse 1 the term eartli must mean the whole world, suddenly restrict it in verse 2 to a limited region ? Is it possible that a writer who in verse 10 for the first time intimates a limitation of the meaning of this word by the solemn announcement, *And God called the dry land Earth,' should in a pre- vious place use it in a much more limited sense without hint of such restriction " f It is unreasonable to believe that there was a territory in Asia, or any other limited region upon the surface of this planet, which had no atmosphere or " firmament " ; or that the sun and moon were set in the heavens to illuminate GEOLOGY VS. GENESIS. 13 that particular place ; or that a special creation of grass, herbs, and trees was required for the furnishing of that country ; or that " moving creatures," " winged fowl," " living creatures," " cattle," and " creeping things " were made ex- pressly for that region. Of what possible use would "great whales" be in central Asia! All these forms of vegetable and animal life, grass, herbs, trees, fish, fowl, and beasts, had been created long ages before. Why could they not l)e transported to this Asiatic province ? Why should a new creation be required! And if earth in verse 2 denotes a limited area, why should it not have the same meaning in verses 26, 28, and 29, in which we read that God gave dominion to man over all the earth and over all the creatures, even " every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth," and "every living thing that moveth upon the earth," and "every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth," and commanded him to " be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth " ! If in verse 1, " God created the heaven and the earth," the word means the terrestrial globe, and if in verses 26, 28, and 29 it means the same (and that this is the only possible meaning in these instances is very evident), must not the word earth in verse 2 have the same meaning! This theory is one compelled by the supposed neces- sities of the case. It is true neither to Scripture nor geology. The theory sot forth in these pages may not 14 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. be satisfactory in all respects. It would indeed be a marvel if it alone should prove to be fault- less where all before it have failed. Of the grand nebular hypothesis of Laplace it has been said, " The striking coincidence of all the plane- tary phenomena with the conditions of his system gives to these conjectures, to use his modest language, ' a probability approaching certitude.'" Yet against this magnificent the- ory, which satisfactorily accounts for so many phenomena of the solar system as to have com- manded the belief of the scientific world, there are the unexplainable facts that the satellites of Uranus revolve in the wrong direction, and that Phobos, the inner satellite of Mars, recently dis- covered,^ revolves too fast.- So, in like manner, the main facts of geology easily support the theory about to be stated, while some of the perplexing questions of science are satisfactorily solved by it, and all so simply as nearly to amount to a demonstration. It therefore seems probable that the essential features of this hy- pothesis are reasonable and true, even though certain details of it may not be. It is, however, of less consequence to prove a theory than to discover the truth. At this point, perhaps more conveniently 1 1877. - It is said by Professor Hongli, of Dearborn Observ- atory, that tins satelHte revolves around Mars in seven hours, thirty minutes, and fourteen seconds. GEOLOGY VS. GENESIS. 15 than at any other, the thought usually urged in connection with this general subject may be expressed. The Bible is not a text-book of science. It was never designed to communicate scientific knowledge. The utmost demand which can reasonably be made upon it is that its statements must be consistent with true science. If the first chapter of Genesis had set forth the Creation of the world in full detail, with the origin and laws of matter, the consti- tution and movements of the sun, planets, satellites, comets, and stars, the spherical form of the earth, and the various astronomical, geo- logical, chemical, botanical, physiological, and psychological facts which make up the body of modern science, — and that, moreover, in an age when man had none of the implements and appliances necessary to demonstrate their truth, • — such statements could not have been under- stood, or if understood could not have been be- lieved, because contrary to the evidence of the senses and to reason ; and so the spiritual truth, which alone it is the purpose of the Bible to communicate, would have received no credence, because resting upon incomprehensible, unde- monstrable, and unreasonable premises. With even more significance might the Lord then say, " If I have told you earthly things, and ye be- lieve not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things ? " ^ And when we consider 1 John iii. 12. 16 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. how little is now known of all that is knowable, how small are the present acquisitions of science as compared with what must yet be acquired, it is by no means certain that if all physical and mental phenomena were fully explained in the Bible we ourselves could comprehend them. And even if all were comprehended, the human mind would lose as fields of conquest those vast realms of thought and research wherein it has made its highest development, and tlie continual endeavor after more knowledge, which is the grandest characteristic of human civilization and progress, would cease. Is it not better, and more in accordance with tlie divine methods, that man should by the exercise of his God-given powers slowly but steadily attain to a knowledge of all truth, rather than receive it all without an effort? But to resume. The theory is that the Bible is true in its statement that the world was made in " six days " ; and it can be shown that, by the operation of the simple yet mysterious and sub- lime law of gravitation, the earth passed through all the geological ages, immeasurably vast as they really were, in the space of six days, and that geology itself furnishes the evidence of all the essential, elements of this hypothesis. But mark, it is not said that the world was made in a ivcck. The words creative week are the relics of the supreme error into which the thinking world has fallen. Where in Holy Writ are we GEOLOGY VS. GENESIS. 17 infonned that the world was made in a week? The instance cannot be fonnd. And what right have we to import an error of onr own into the sacred text, and then gravely question the truthfulness of the record because of the error which we ourselves have fastened upon it ? It is not impossible tliat God could create the uni- verse in a week or in a moment. Time is not of the essence of the miracle. But the evidence indicates a slow progress of organization, and it seems unreasonable to believe that the strati- fied rocks, which were apparently deposited as a sediment, and in the aggregate are 100,000 feet in thickness, could have been formed in one hundred and forty-four hours. ^ For the purposes of this argument these three propositions may fairly be assumed: (1) God created matter. (2) The laws of matter are im- nmtal;)le. (3) God is the author of life. AVith these three postulates it is proposed to demon- strate the Creation of the world and the fur- nishing of the earth in the period of six days ; to account for the inclination of the earth's axis to the ecliptic, and show how, when, and why it occurred ; to explain the former torrid climate of the Arctic regions, and how and when it be- came frigid; to consider the excess of cold in 1 Such a deposit in one hundred and forty-four hours would be at the rate of 694 feet each hour, or more than Hi feet each minute. 18 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. the soufhern hemisphere, and the peculiarity of the coal-beds of that hemisphere ; to throw some light on the vexed question of the glacial periods of both the northern and southern hemispheres ; and to show the improbability of the existence of pre-adamic races of men, and the possible and probable universality of the Noachian Del- uge. CHAPTER II. THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. The nebular hypothesis is the basis of this argument. This is one of the grandest general- izations of modern science and one of the most magnificent conceptions of the human mind. It was first announced by Herschel, though foreshadowed by Leibnitz and Kant, but was so elaborated by Laplace that his name is most commonly associated with it.^ This hypothesis was at first denounced as atheistical. It has, however, been confirmed by later discoveries, and is now generally accepted as true.- 1 The names of the great mathematician Laplace and of the philosopher Kant are connected by the nebular hypothesis. " It is remarkable that substan- tially the same theory should have been independently formulated by two men whose intellects were so dif- ferent." 2 Le Conte asserts three hundred and ninety coin- cidences in the solar system wliicli are conformable with the nebular hypothesis {Johnson's Unctjdopedia). 19 20 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. All the celestial bodies composing the solar system are of the same constituent elements. The orbits of the planets and their satellites are nearly circular. They revolve around the suu in the plane of the sun's equator. They revolve around the sun in one direction, which is the direction of the sun's rotation. They rotate upon their axes, so far as known, in the same direction, and their satellites (except those of Uranus) also revolve in the same direction. This uniformity of arrangement and motion indicates not only design, but a common cause. This theory accounts for the rings of Saturn, the ring of the asteroids, and the zodiacal light. Each separate state which it asserts is seen dem- onstrated for us in the starry heavens. The spectrum analysis has revealed that some of the nebulous masses in the depths of space are gases in a state of combustion, and some of them appear in an elliptical aggregation, or in a spiral form, arranged around a central nucleus, thus illustrating for us the earliest characteristics of the original mass of the solar system. Before stating this hypothesis a few facts of chemistry may be mentioned. All substances which have never been resolved into simpler forms are called elements. Sixty-five ^ such substances are known. Of these twenty-six are ^ International Cyclopedia, article "Chemistry." To those mentioned there must now be added the two elements recently discovered, argon and helium. THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 21 of very rare occurrence, and of the remainder a considerable number are apparently of little importance. The great mass of the earth and of the objects upon it is made up of sixteen elements. T]ie elements are divided into two classes, metallic and non-metallic; the former are usually electro-positive and the latter elec- tro-negative. Of all the elements oxygen is the most abundant in the universe and has a wider range of chemical affinity than any other. Oxy- gen forms not less than one-half of the solid crust of the earth, one-fifth of the atmosphere, and eight-ninths of the water. Every element will burn at a certain temperature peculiar to itself and will unite with oxygen at that tem- perature. Oxygenation is combustion. The original atoms of the elements composing the solar system were flung out into space by the Creative Hand. The motion of the atoms occasioned electricity by friction, whereupon the oxygen united with the other elements and caused combustion of the entire mass. The first phenomenon of matter, therefore, was com- bustion, that is, incandescence or light.^ ^ Tliis combustion of the original elements may be further explained by the dynamical theory of heat. " The absolute amount of heat generated by the collis- ion of a given amount of matter is deducible from a mathematical formula. Dr. Julius Robert Mayer, of Heilbronn, Germany, has computed the amount of heat that the matter of the earth would have generated if 22 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. The mass of gaseous matter resulting from this combustion would cohere by reason of chem- ical affinity, but in an exceedingly attenuated condition. The extent of this original gaseous mass in space far exceeded the present limits of the entire solar system. The temperature of the interplanetary spaces is very low, estimated by Laplace at 100° below zero, or even lower.^ The temperature of the space in which this volume of glowing gas found a place must have been much colder, for the planetary spaces have since then received great quantities of heat by radiation from this mass and its fragments. it had been formed originally of only two parts, drawn into collision by their mutual attraction, and has found that it would be from to 32,000 or 47,000 Centigrade degrees, according as one part was infinitely small as compared with the other, or as the two parts were of equal size, (The melting temperature of iron is 1,500 Centigrade.) Professor Helmholtz, another laborer in the same field of science, has computed the amount of heat generated by the condensation of the whole of the matter composing the solar system. This he finds would be equivalent to the heat that would be required to raise the temperature of a mass of water equal to the sum of the masses of all the bodies of the system to 28,000,000 degrees of the Centigrade scale" {The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite, Nasmyth and Carpenter). ^ The temperature of stellar space, according to the investigations of Herschel and Pouillet, is not above —2390 F. {Climate and Time, Croll, p. 35). THE NEBULAE HYrOTHESIS. 23 The outer portions of this flaming mass, coming in contact with this cold temperature, caused a condensation of those portions, and at length such a difference in density in the various parts as to form a center or nucleus of such denser parts. Every portion of this nebula attracted every other portion, and therefore there must have been a condensation around the densest part. If, in this condensation and attraction to the center or nucleus, more parti- cles passed on one side of the center of gravity than on the other, they would impart a tangen- tial force, and at length rotation would ensue, which would be accelerated as the mass became more dense. Thus the atoms of matter would gradually be congregated about the central portion in some such manner as is now seen in the depths of space in the spiral nebula, 51 M Cannm Venaticorum. Very slowly this body would acquire more and more density and a proportionate acceleration of rotation. By the law of revolving liquid bodies the mass would at length assume the shape, as seen from above, of an immense circle, and, as seen from the side, of an immense narrow ellipse, such as we now see in the stellar spaces near the star N in An- dromeda; or, in other words, the mass would assume the form of a spheroid of exceedingly great oblateness. As the rotation became more rapid the cen- trifugal force generated at the equator of the revolving body preponderated over the force of 24 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. gravity, and the particles of matter thus acted upon in an equatorial zone were lifted into a vast ring and finally separated from the central mass. This nebulous ring was left in space, revolving in the same plane and about the same axial line as the parent nebula and with a veloc- ity equal to the peripheral velocity of the original mass at the time of the disengagement. This ring retained its form until its particles, congregating at some point, gave to that portion a superior density, whereupon oscillation began and the ring collapsed. Its fragments, uniting, assumed a spheroidal form by the law of revolv- ing liquid bodies, and this spheroid rotated upon an axis of its own in the same direction as the central mass and traveled in an orbit around the central mass.^ "I shall now show what an interesting con- firmation this theory receives from a recent photograph.- '• There is in the constellation of Andromeda a nebula so remarkable that its nebulous char- ^ A. n. Green, in liis lecture on The Birth and Groirfh of Worlds, illustrates this part of the nebular hypothe- sis by showing on a screen an experiment which ex- hibits a ball of oil floating in a mixture of spirit and water of the same density as itself and rotating upon an axis. As the rate of the spin increases, a ring of oil is thrown off, which collects into a ball that revolvTS around the original central mass. 2 See Frontispiece. THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 25 acter was recognized even long before the in- vention of the telescope. "This nebula was first photographed,^ with conspicuous success, in October, 1888, by Mr. Ira Roberts, of Liverpool, and again on December 29, 1888. Our illustration is from the latter of these, in which the exposure was for four hours. " The result is of the greatest interest, for in it we actually see what Laplace pictured in his mind's eye. There is a bright central conden- sation, surrounded by ring after ring, gradually dying away into faintness. "In one of the rings there is a region of greater brightness, which may fairly be inter- preted as a center of aggregation for a planet. At another place, which is clearly more remote from the center, — although brought nearer by foreshortening, — we have a brilliant round lu- minous ball, surely a planetary nebula already formed. At a much greater distance there is an elongated nebulosity, which we may conject- ure to be a planetary nebula seen edgewise, but in a further state of advance than the other. It is worthy of notice that the remote planets, ^ Within the last few years photographic processes have been so far perfected as to make it possible to photograph faintly luminous celestial objects. An exposure of the sensitized plate is necessary for a long time — three or four hours. The photographic tele- scope is made to move by clockwork to correspond with the movement of the heavens. 26 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. Neptune and Uranus, rotate about axes nearly in the plane of their orbits, and from the direc- tion of elongation of this subordinate nebula it seems as though the like must be true here." ' But to resume the discussion of the nebular hypothesis. The smaller spheroid separated and formed as already described is the planet Neptune, the most remote of our system yet discovered.^ At the time of its separation the diameter of the original mass was approximately 5,500,000,000 miles. In like manner Nej^tune in condensing its volume threw off an equatorial ring, which afterward centralized and became a satellite revolving around the planet itself. While Neptune and its satellite were thus forming, the central mass, condensing yet more, threw off another equatorial ring, which, col- lapsing, formed the planet Uranus. At this time the diameter of the central mass had been reduced to about 3,700,000,000 miles. The mass so detached threw off from itself four satellites. ^ G. H. Darwin on " Meteorites and the History of Stellar Systems," in Century Magazine, October, 1890. This essay formed the subject of a lecture at the Royal Institution of London, on January 25, 1889. - The perturbations of Uranus led to the discovery of Neptune by Leverrier and Adams in 184G. It is possible that the perturl^ations of Neptune, now being studied, may lead to the discovery of some remoter member of our system. THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 27 Next in order Saturn was formed in the same manner. Tlie central mass had tlien shrunk by condensation to a diameter of about 1,900,- 000,000 miles. Saturn threw off eight satel- lites and two rings. The rings of Saturn are most singular objects, unlike anything else known in the celestial spaces. They furnish an ocular demonstration of the nebular hypothesis. Unlike all the other rings, these did not break, but retained their primitive form, as they were when detached from the planetary mass. The diame- ter of the external ring is 176,418 miles, while the diameter of the planet is 79,160 miles. The rings are about 250 miles thick and 1,791 miles apart. We are thus furnished with visible evidence of the extent of the reduction of the volume of this great mass by its gradual condensation. When the central mass, still cooling and con- densing, had contracted to a diameter of about 992,000,000 miles, it threw off the fragment which formed the planet Jupiter, i the largest of 1 That Jupiter when detached was in a fluid or plastic state is proved by the remarkable oblateness of its present spheroidal form. Its equatorial diameter exceeds its polar diameter by about 6,000 miles. The difference in Saturn's equatorial and polar diameters is about 7,500 miles ; the difference in the earth's is 2G miles. Recent spectroscopic observations of Jupiter seem to indicate that it shines partly by its o^vn light, thus showing that its crust has not yet sufficiently cooled and thickened to become opaque. 28 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. all the planets, which itself threw off five satel- lites. The fifth satellite was discovered in 1892 by Professor Barnard at the Lick Observatory, California. The next ring or fragment which separated from the central mass is one of great interest, because it has suggested many strange problems for astronomers. By the law known as Bode's law there should be a planet between Jupiter and Mars, but no such planet was found. It would seem, however, that a planetary mass was once there, but that the ring in collapsing did not form into one spheroidal body like the others, but broke into comparatively minute fragments, or that the planet, if any there were, exploded. The first fragment was discovered January 1, 1801, since which time many others have been discovered.i These form the ring of the asteroids. A strange fact is that the nodes of the asteroids are nearly coincident, which, by the theory of Dr. Olivers (1802), indicates their connnon and simultaneous origin. Hiram Mat- tison, the author of a popular text-book on 1 Up to January, 1891, 299 asteroids had been dis- covered {International Cyclopedia, article " Planetoids"). " The roll-call of the asteroids, the pigmy children of the sun, continues to increase. They now number 440, of which 19 have been discovered in 189G." Ad- dress of President Patterson of the Astronomical and Physical Society of Toronto, reported in The Literary Digest, June 5, 1897. THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 29 astronomy, thus summarizes the reasons for believing that the asteroids were originally one planet. He says : " From certain peculiarities of the asteroids it has been considered highly probable that they are the fragments of one large planet, which has been burst asunder by some great convulsion or collision. The grounds of this opinion are as follows : " (a) The asteroids are much smaller than any of the other primary planets. " {h) They are all nearly the same distance from the sun. " (r) Their periodic revolutions are accom- plished in nearly the same time. The difference of their periodic times is not greater than might result from the supposed disruption, as the parts thrown forward would have their motion ac- celerated, while the other parts would be thrown back or retarded, thus changing the periodic time of both. " {(1) The great departure of the orbits of the asteriods from the plane of the ecliptic is sup- posed to favor the hypothesis of their having been originally one planet, the assumption being that the explosion separating the original body into fragments would not only accelerate some portions and retard others, but would also throw them out of the plane of the original orbit, and in some cases still farther from the ecliptic. " (e) Their orbits are more eccentric than 30 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. those of the other primaries. Although the tables show the eccentricity of Uranus's orbit as greater in miles than that of even Juno or Pallas, yet when we consider the difference in the magnitude of their orbits it will easily be seen that his is less elliptical than theirs. " (/) The orbits of Ceres and Pallas, at least, cross each other. This, if we except perhaps the orbits of some of the comets, is a perfect anomaly in the solar system." The planet Mars was formed in the manner previously described, at a time when the central mass had contracted to a diameter of about 290,000,000 miles. It threw off two satellites, recently discovered (1877). Then came the formation of the earth as a separate body. The central mass was then of a diameter of about 183,000,000 miles. When the earth had contracted to a diameter of about 485,000 miles, it threw off a ring, which became the moon. The present diameter of the earth is 7,912 miles. This shows to how great a de- gree condensation has proceeded since the earth became detached from the sun, and also since its separation from the moon. And so the central mass continued to contract and to detach from its equator rings of gaseous matter, which became the planets revolving between the earth and the sun. The sun is the present remainder of the original fiery mass. It is 1,400,000 times larger than the earth, and THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 31 more than 700 times larger than all the planets and satellites combined. Its diameter is 852,58-1: miles. The jieriod of its rotation upon its axis is twenty-five days. Astronomy gives place to geology as soon as the discussion begins with the existence of the earth. The following table is taken from Chambers' s Encyclopedia: 1 ■g ■= a S B g S|-2 1 5 cl 1 '-C > Miles. ■§ > Miks. P •c Days. Mercury 35 2,962 386 105,330 88 \'eiuis G6 7,510 1,010 77,050 225 Earth 91 7,912 1,040 65,533 365i Mai's 139 4,920 628 53,090 687 Jupiter 476 88,390 27,985 28,744 4,332 Saturn 872 71,904 21,538 21,221 10,759 Uranus 1,754 33,024 10,921 14,963 30,687 Neptune 2,746 36,620 Unknown 11,958 60,127 Moon * 2,153 10 2,273 * Sun 852,584 4.407 CHAPTER III. THE FIEST DAY. " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. "And the earth was withont form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. '' And God said, Let there be light : and there was light." Having thus Lastilja-e viewed the essential feat- ures of the nebular hypothesis, I will proceed to the discussion of the first chapter of Genesis, to show its entire agreement with scientific research. '■'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." ^ This grand and solemn state- ment is the foundation of all Christian philos- ophy. God is first revealed as the Creator. ^ " In the beginning Avas the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and Avithout Lim was not any thing made that was made " (John i. 1-3). 32 THE FIKST DAY. . 33 " These simple, familiar words answer all pos- sil)le questions as to the origin of tilings and include all under the conception of theism." ■ " The world was created by God — not by chance, not by self-generation, not by impersonal powers of nature, not by many agents." " The heaven and the earth did not exist, therefore, from eternity, nor are we permitted to trace them backward from age to age, till we lose all idea of their having had a beginning." ^ " In the beginning " — that is, the beginning of the material universe. "Before the world was," God was.- " Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." ^ " God created." Creation is the prerogative of Deity. Man cannot create an atom. He can only change the form, position, and relation of matter. But God originated matter itself and gave it existence. The creative act is here expressed by the Hebrew word hara^ a word of compara- tively rare occurrence in the Scriptures and employed to denote absolute creation. -^ In this 1 Old Testament History, William Smith, p. 17. 2 John xvii. 5. 3 Ps. xc. 2. ^ *' The word created means that God caused that to exist which, previously to this moment, had no being. The Rabbins, who are legitimate judges in a case of verbal criticism in their own language, are unanunous 34 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. chapter it is used in two other instances: in verse 21, " God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth " ; and also in verse 27, "God created man." These instances are significant as showing, not the elaboration or the working over of something already exist- ing, as in the other verses of this chapter, but the introduction of an absolutely new element in each case ; first, the vital principle or animal life, and secondly, the spiritual life of an im- mortal soul. The distinction is also clearly presented in Genesis ii. 3 : " God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." " The heaven and the earth." Observe the order — the heavens before the earth. " The heaven " here does not mean the same as " the firmament " in verses 6-8, but rather the starry heavens and all their hosts. It is not unreasonable to believe that all the stars and celestial bodies w^ere evolved from the original atoms at the same time that the in asserting that the word hara expresses tlie com- mencement of the existence of a thing, or its egression from non-entity to entity. It does not in its primary meaning denote the preserving or new-forming things that had previously existed, as some imagine, bnt creation in the proper sense of the term, though it has some other ae(^eptations in otlier places'' {The Mosaic History of the Creation of the ]Vort(l, Wood, p. 44). THE FIRST DAY. 35 solar system began its development. The spectroscope reveals that the stars and nebulae are composed of elements such as those which constitute the earth, the planets, and the sun. The stars are but suns like our own, and may be the centers of systems like ours. But the starry heavens were created long cycles of ages before the earth had any separate exist- ence. Of the immensity of the stellar spaces we can form no conception. The time required for the light to travel from the remote stars to the eai-th has been estimated by Seechi to be not less than ten thousand years. When we re- member that light traverses the space l^etween the sun and the earth, a distance of more than ninety-one million miles, in about eight minutes, or at the rate of eight times around the eai*th in a single second of time, how utterly incompre- hensible are the distances which separate us from the remoter stars ! This first verse seems intended as a preface to the whole chapter, and states the general subject, which is wrought out in detail in the subsequent verses. So Dr. Robert Jamieson holds : " This first verse is a general introduc- tion to the inspired volume, declaring the great and important truth that all things had a beginning; that nothing throughout the wide extent of nature existed from eternity, originated by chance or from the skill of any inferior agent, but that the whole universe 36 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. was produced by the creative power of God. After tliis preface the narrative is confined to the earth."! " And the earth was without form, and void." Literally, the earth was vacancy (toJiu) and emp- tiness {holm). The Eevised Version has "the 1 Professor Winchell writes : " There is a little par- ticle {etli) in the Hebrew^ not translated in our version, which (often, at least) means tlie substance of, and, standing before the words translated 'heaven' and 'earth/ expresses the snbstance of the heaven and the substance of the earth" {Reconciliation of Science and MeJigion, p. 321). Such a translation, if proper, would be of great value in a discussion of this character. But as one has well said of the translation of the Old Testament Hebrew, ''We cannot be too careful in keeping out of a word what we deem should be in it. It is best not to squeeze these words too hard." Pro- fessor Winchell, however, urges his view with much force. He writes in an appendix to his book (p. 3G2) : " The particle efh, used in the first verse of Genesis i., signifies, in some situations, the substance of the thing mentioned. One competent and respected critic as- serts that certain authorities, whom he cites, give no sanction to such a use of the word. On the contrary we might have cited the authority of Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, Ainsworth, Buxtorf, Nordheimer, and others. In addition the Syriac translation so imderstands the particle ; and St. Ephraem, the learned apostle of the old Syriac Church, in his commentary on this place, uses tlie same Syriac; word yoth and understands it in the same way. And finally, the word hara, used in THE FIRST DAY. 37 earth was waste and void." ^ " Tlie earth " here siguifies the cosmic materials, the matter of which the earth was to be made. " Void." Void of what ? Void as a noun means an empty space, a vaciuim ; as an adjective, empty, vacant, not occupied, being without, destitute, free, wanting. It has been suggested that the phrase means void of life. But life is not inherent in nor an attribute of matter. Matter has certain inherent qualities, however, such as chemical affinity, attraction, electricity, and the like, which have a relation to it similar to that which life has to an animal body. Of these qualities, doubtless, matter at the very beginning may have been destitute. "And darkness was upon the face of the deep" {tcliom). Probably the depths of space, the abyss.- " This word [cihyss]^ in its this connection, implies in the Kal conjngation (ac- cording to Gesenius) creation rather than formaiion; and as creation in cojitrast with formation is an origi- nation of suhstance, the context fully sanctions the meaning which we have attrilnited to the particle efh." The general opinion, however, seems to be that this word is merely the sign of the definite object, and, as it has no force, it is not translated. 1 " The first word denotes rather the lack of form ; the second, the lack of content, in the earliest condition of the earth "' [Lancje's Conuneidarij, vol. i., p. IGo). - " The fii'st state of the earth was itself teliom, and over this roaring flood lay the darkness spread abroad" {Lange's Commentary, vol. i., p. 163). 38 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. leading uses, is associated with the cosmological notions of the Hebrews, having reference to a supposed illimitable mass of waiters from which our earth sprung, and beneath whose profound depths the wicked were punished." ^ " And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Or, "the Spirit [or wind]-' of Grod moved upon the face of the waters." ^ Here two meanings are possible. The Hebrew word ruacli signifies spirit or wind. In twenty-eight pas- sages it is translated " breath." ^ So the English word spirit^ which in one of its meanings signi- fies the soul or immortal part of man, is derived from the Latin sjnritus, which means breath, or a current of air. In this sentence, therefore, we may have the personal or impersonal idea pre- ^ Wehster''s Unabridged Dictionary. '- Old Testament History, Wilhani Smith, p. 18. ^ "The ^waters'' of verse 2 is quite another thing than the water proper of the third creative day : it is the fluid (or gaseous) form of the earth in its first condition" {Lange^s Commentary, vol. i., p. 164). " The whole collection of matter, created in a fluid state, was a crude, indigested chaos. All belonging to our system, as the sun, moon, stars, earth, and seas, lay blended together in one vast confused mass, with- out any arrnngoment of their constitiu'nt particles, heavy and light, dense and rare, fluid and solid, l)eing all mixed together" [The Mosaic History of the Creation of the World, Wood, p. 45). * Younfs Concordance. THE FIKST DAY. 39 dominate. If the personal, the word should be translated " Spirit," that is, the Holy Spirit. Thus Rev. Dr. Jamieson interprets it : " The immedi- ate agency of the Spirit, by working on the dead and discordant elements, combined, arranged, and ripened them into a state adapted for being the scene of a new creation. The account of this new creation properly begins at the end of this second verse." The Creation is ascribed in the Scriptures to each of the three persons of the Godhead (Gen. i. 1, 2 ; John i. 3, 10 ; Neh. ix. 6 ; Heb. i. 2 ; Col. i. 16 ; 1 Cor. viii. 6 ; Rom. xi. 36 ; Job xxvi. 13 ; Acts iv. 24, 25 ; compare Acts i. 16). So Milton, in his Paradise Lost, ad- dresses the Spirit of God, and thus interprets the meaning of the word moved in this passage : " Tliou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss, And mad'st it pregnant." ^ The word moved the great Hebrew lexicographer Gesenius declares means hrooded ; that it is here used in reference to the Spirit of God as brood- ing over and vivifying the chaotic mass of the earth. So, too, Bishop Patrick says, " The word we here translate 'moved' signifies, literally, brooded upon the waters, as a hen doth upou her eggs."" The Revised Version gives as a 1 Paradise Lost, Book I., lines 19-22. 2 Genesis and Geology, p. 42. 40 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. mavginal reading for moved, in this verse, was hroocUug upon} Now, if the Holy Spirit was thus brooding over and upon the chaotic matter, what was the purpose? As the hen broods over her eggs to give life to her young, so the Spirit vivified matter, infused forces into it so that it was no longer an inert mass, but was endowed with the properties which made it useful for the purposes intended. As intermediate between the personal and impersonal interpretations, two passages of Scripture may be cited where breath and spirit are related as cause and effect. " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Gen. ii. 7). "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost " (John xx. 22). The impersonal inteipretation would trans- late riiacli " breath" or " wind," and the Hebrew word rachaph " move " or " shake," as given in Yoim(fs Concordance. This interpretation is well supported by Psalm xviii. 15 : " Then the channels of waters were seen, and the founda- tions of the world were discovered at thy re- buke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils." Here the word breath is the same 1 This same verb rachaph is ti'anslated 'fluttereth' in Deuteronomy xxxii. 11 : "As an eagle , . . flutteretli over her young." THE FIRST DAY. 41 word ruach. For a similar passage see Exodus XV. 10 : " Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered tlieui: they sank as lead in the mighty waters." The word translated "wind" is ruach. Now, if the impersonal interpretation is to be given, the sentence would signify that God blew upon the face of the waters and set them in motion by his breath. This would add to the conception the idea or element of motion. It seems quite impossible to discriminate be- tween the two interpretations. Both are reason- able and of great importance. AVe cannot alf ord to exclude either in order to adopt the other. Each seems to be well supported by the au- thority of scholars and to be corroborated by other Scripture. Why may they not both be true! If the human soul was imparted to the clay image of Adam by the breath of God, if the Holy Spirit was communicated to the apos- tles by the breath of the Lord, why may not the breath of God have given to the chaotic mass of matter the life-like powers which it pos- sesses, and at the same time have imparted motion to that mass? It seems to be entirely reasonable. Yet with either of these interpre- tations, exclusively taken, the explanation to be given to the next verse is consistent. Reviewing these various definitions and opin- ions relating to the second verse of this chapter, the following results are naturally deduced. 42 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. We here begin the history of matter from and after its creation. We have a vision of chaos, "the rude, confused state or unorganized con- dition of matter before the creation of the uni- verse,"^ a formless, shapeless mass of inert matter, just substance and nothing more, with- out properties or qualities, inwrapped in utter darkness, in the midst of an abysmal space. God blew upon it with mighty breath. Every atom became endowed with force and the whole mass was set in motion. Electricity and heat were generated by the friction. The elements united with the oxygen and universal combus- tion was the result. " And God said, Let there be light : and there was light." How wonderfully exact is this Scripture when compared with the hypothesis of creation stated in the foregoing chapter ! The first phenomenon of matter was light. We may well pause here for a moment to admire this perfect harmony between Scripture and science. This Scripture is either of divine origin, or it is not. If it is divine, we need not wonder that its assertions, made thirty-three hundred years ago, are confirmed by the scientific researches of the last two centuries. But if it is not divine, if it be the product of a human mind, if it be the thought and opinion of Moses, then indeed the marvel is beyond credibility. How did Moses know that light was the first phenomenon of matter! How could Moses have foreshad- 1 Welster's Unabridged Dictionary, "Chaos." THE riEST DAY. 43 owed so exactly the most suljlime concei^tions of modern science? How could he have told the precise development of the creative work, tlie true sequence of events, the proper order of the introduction of life upon the earth, without so much as one error? Without the telescope or spectroscope, without the knowledge of even the existence of fossils, how could he have an- ticipated the wonderful results of scientific in- vestigations, even foretelling the discoveries in paleontology? How could he have constructed the true theory of the solar system so many years before Copernicus and Newton, Herschel and Laplace? The wonder grows when we remember how early in history this man lived. Grecian history had not even begun. Eome was not built till nearly eight hundred years later. Troy, now the center of dim traditions, had just l)een founded, and even Homer, who innnortalized them in long years after, is now considered a person of uncertain historical exist- ence. And the wonder still increases when we com- pare the teachings of Moses with those of the Greek philosophers who flourished a thousand years after his time, for contemporary philoso- phers there were none whose names have sur- vived to the present. Thales taught that water is the original element out of wliich all other things proceed. Rarefied, it becomes air; con- densed, it becomes earth. Anaximander taught that the sun is in the highest part of the heavens. 44 GENESIS AND MODEliN SCIENCE. and has a circumference twenty-eight times greater than the earth, and resembles a cylinder from which flow continual streams of fire ; that eclipses are caused by the stopjjing of the oj^en- ings from which the fire flows; that the moon is a cylinder nineteen times greater than the earth; that the moon's phases are caused by obliquity of position, and eclii:)ses by a complete turning around ; that the earth is in the form of a cylinder floating in the midst of the universe ; that it was formed by the drying up of moisture by the sun ; and that animals are produced by moisture. Anaximenes taught that air is the primal element. All things are made from it by condensation or rarefaction. The sun and moon are fiery bodies of a flat, circular form, and the stars are fiery substances fastened like nails in a crystalline sphere. The earth is a tablet resting on the air. Empedocles taught the existence of force and four original elements, air, fire, earth, and water; and this view con- tinued to i:>revail until the origin of the modern science of chemistry.^ These philosophers rep- resented the best thought, indeed, led the " ad- vanced thought," of their times. How fanciful and crude it all was ! How science has swept it all away ! But the teachings of Moses, who lived a thousand years before them, receive confirmation more and more as science pursues its investigations. 1 Evidences of Chnstianiti/, Rev. Barnas Sears, D.D. THE FIRST DAY, 45 Indeed, when we say that the writings of Moses are confirmed by modern science, it is amazing in tlie liistory of human thought how very modern the present sciences are. Chemis- try as a science does not date back of the be- gimiing of the eighteenth century. Priestley discovered oxygen in 1744 and called it de- phlogisticated air. Hydrogen, under the name of combustible air, was known in the sixteenth century, but was first accurately described in 1766. The science of electricity originated in the year 1600, but has been developed to a use- ful extent only within the past hundred years. Geology, too, dates back to the sixteenth cent- ury, but only to small beginnings, when fossils were thought to be the results of the fermenta- tion of fatty matter, or of terrestrial exhalations, or the influence of the heavenly bodies, or mere concretions of earthy matter, or the sports of nature. The modern science of geology properly begins about the year 1788. The first microscope was not made until 1590, and the first telescope not until 1609. The velocity of light was dis- covered in 1675, and the spectrum analysis not until 1849-50. The laws of gravitation were unknown until 1665, when Newton, a young man twenty-three years old, conceived the stupendous idea of universal gravitation. Co- pernicus constructed the true theory of the solar system in 1530, and Laplace elaborated the celestial mechanics in 1799. But Moses, who 46 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. lived 1491 b. c, and who was unaided by instru- ments and unguided by the wisdom of his time or of preceding ages, conceived and committed to writing a scheme of creation which all these modern sciences, aided by all these instruments, demonstrate as true and faultless ! It seems hardly necessary to say (but I will say, in order to prevent any misunderstanding) that I do not assert that Moses knew the facts which are the result of modern scientific re- search, 7nuch less that he announced them. I simply mean that he stated a i:)lan and method of creation which are entirely in accord with all the physical sciences, and that, too, when these sciences were unknown to him and to all men. Cosmogonies are especially peculiar to relig- ions. Compare the Mosaic cosmogony as a foundation of the Hebrew religion with the cosmogonies of. any or all other religions. How puerile are the conceptions of the origin of the world found in all other sacred books, or em- bodied in the mythologies of mighty Eome or intellectual Greece ! Those are as ridiculous as a nursery rhyme, devoid of all scientific truth, containing no hint of any trutli since discovered by science, demonstrated as false by all science. Yet the cosmogony of Cenesis, to its least detail, is consistent with all science and confirmed by it continually.^ ^ As showing how dangerous it is for the founder of a religion to construct a cosmogony, I may refer to THE FIRST DAY. 47 It is far more probable that the Scriptures contain a true revelation of the Creation, given by the Creator himself, than that Moses, by his own unaided wisdom, has alone and by so many centuries anticipated the best results of modern science. Mohammed, who lived twenty-two centuries after Moses. In chapter xh. of the Koran is this passage : " Say, Do ye indeed disbelieve in him who created the earth in two days ; and do ye set up equals unto him ? He is the Lord of all creatures. And he placed in the earth mountains firmly rooted, rising above the same : and he blessed it ; and provided therein the food of the creatures designed to be the inhabitants thereof, in four days ; equally for those who ask. Then he set his mind to the creation of heaven ; and it was smoke : and he said unto it, and to the earth, Come, either obediently, or against your will. They answered, We come, obedient to thy command. And he formed them into seven heavens, in two days ; and revealed unto every heaven its office. And we adorned the lower heaven with lights, and placed therein a guard of angels." Of the Flood he says (chap, xi.) : Noah "built the ark ; and so often as a company of his people passed by him, they derided him : but he said, Though ye scoff at us now, we will scoff at you hereafter, as ye scoff at US; and ye shall surely know on whom a punishment shall be inflicted, which shall cover him with shame, and on whom a lasting punishment shall fall. Thus were they emploj'ed until our sentence was put in execution, and the oven poured fortli tvater" 48 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. I have used the word prohahJe., and have done so designedly. What are the probabilities? Mathematicians have computed probabilities scientifically and ascertained the laws even of chance itself.^ There are in the first chapter of Genesis more than two hundred assertions which are capable of being contradicted. But suppose we select only fifty of this number as affording the opportunity of egregious mistakes. The mathematical rule is, " The probability of any number of independent events all happening together is the product of their several proba- bilities." - Suppose that there are fifty items or events which must concur. The ratio would then be 1 : 2^°. The probability that Moses could name as a guess fifty items, all of which would concur, would be 1 chance as against 1,125,- 1 See Essay on ProhaMities, by Augustus de Morgan, professor of mathematics in Trinity College, Cam- bridge, chap, ii., p. 49. - To illustrate. I will saj^ a certain event will hap- pen. There are two chances: it may happen or it may not. Let a stand for the event, and s for the failure of the event. We then have the two chances, z and a. Suppose I prophesy the concurrence of two events, a, h. The chances now are z, that neither of them will happen, that a will happen witliout h, tliat b will happen without a, and that a, h will liappcni to- gether. The concurrence is one chance out of four. As each item may happen or may not, let 2 ecpial the probability of each item (supposing them to be of equal probability). The ratio would then be 1 ; 2-. THE FIRST DAY. 49 900,713,242,624 chances that he could not ! For, supposing there is an equal chance for the hap- pening or the failure of any one of these partic- ulars, it is so many as above named to one that they never all occur in any way. We thus see that if Moses has named correctly in the first chapter of Genesis fifty particular events, which together constitute the record of the Creation, he has succeeded by one chance as against eleven hundred and twenty-five millions of millions of chances of failure ! And this, too, So let there be three events foretold, a, b, c. The possibilities then are : One chance out of eight, or 1 : 23 ") without h,c h " a,c c, " a,b a,b, " c a,c, " h h,c, " a a,h,c Let tliere be four events, a, h, c, d, to concur, possibilities are : The a, h d, a,b, a,c, a,d, b,c, h,d, c,d, a,b,c, (i,b,d, a,c,d, b,c,d, a,b,c,d ^ without h,c,d \ a,c,d a,b,d a,b,c c,d b,d b.c (i,d a,c a,b d c b a One chance out of sixteen, or 1 : 2* 50 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. against all the probability that such a guess would be asserted as a divine revelation, and that the fraud would be pei-petrated l)y a man wiiose laws have had a controlling influence on all legislation since his day, and whose religious influence has dominated three of the greatest religions that the world has ever known. It is easier and more reasonable to accept the first chapter of Genesis as a divine revelation than to believe that Moses thought out all these propositions of fact and philosophy by his own wisdom. It is easier to believe in such a God than in such a Moses. It has been objected by superficial thinkers that the Mosaic record bears on its face a con- tradiction in that it declares the creation of light on the " first day " and the creation of the sun, moon, and stars on the "fourth day." How could there be light, say they, before there was a sun? Laplace, however, has shown in the nebular hypothesis this very order, making the light antedate the separate existence of the sun by many ages. If this sequence is not inconsistent with science as expounded by its most illustrious scholars, it is certainly no reason for doubting the credibility and authority of the Scriptures, which announced the same fact more than three thousand years before Laplace or Hersehel. In- deed, if Moses had written a philosophy of his own, he never would have fallen into so obvious an error as to put the creation of light before THE FIEST DAY. 51 the creation of the himinaries. But the Bible does make the assertion, simply and boldly ; an assertion which was contrary to the reason of mankind until, during the last century, scien- tists, arguing from purely scientific premises, have shown to the world the truth of this first scientific statement of the Bible. CHAPTER IV. THE FIRST DAY {Concluded). " And God saw tlie light, that it was good : and God divided the light from the darkness. " And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morn- ing were the first day." This passage is of great interest. It contains the first mention of the word daij. What does it mean ? The word very evidently does not mean in the first instance what it means in the next sentence, for there it denotes the sum total of the first night and the first day. Here it signifies simply a period of light as distinguished from a period of darkness. Is it in this case significant of time or duration ? E\adently not, but rather a word denoting brightness or light. How long a period does the word datj denote? At the present time and in this sense it means the period between sunrise and sunset. But even 52 THE FIEST DAY. 53 now, in these last years of the world's existence, this is an indefinite time-measure and varies con- tinually at different places upon the earth, except twice in each year, that is, at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. The points of the inter- section of the ecliptic and the equator are called the points of equinox, a word of Latin derivation {(Fqiius, " equal," and nox, " night "), signifying that the day and night are equal in duration over all the earth. But when the sun is north or south of the equator the days are variable in length ; for example, in the latitude of St. Peters- burg the period between sunrise and sunset varies during the year from five hours to nine- teen hours, while at the poles the day is six months long. But we must remember that the conditions on this " first day " were entirely different from those existing in these last days. The daij could not then have signified the time between sun- rise and sunset. There was as yet no sun to rise or set, and no earth with reference to which the sun could be in such a relation, if there had been a sun. There was in the whole solar sys- tem but one glowing mass of burning gases, not yet, nor for long ages afterward, condensed even into a liquid condition. How, then, could this first day have resembled in any respect the days of the present era, the interval between two nights? This one mass was incandescent. The light radiated from it in all directions. There 54 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. was, in tlie whole space of the solar system, no place of darkness. Darkness was impossible. Even when, after long ages, planet after planet was detached, these planetary masses, no less than the central mass, were all incandescent. The earth itself shone like a star for ages after it was separated from the parent mass. What the sun is now the earth once was, differing in nothing except magnitude and motion. Is there any darkness in the sun ? Does it derive light from any other luminary? No; it is the only orb in our system of worlds of which it can be said there is no night there. It shines with its own light, emanating from its own mass and flooding the celestial spaces. Such was the earth also for incalculable ages. " And the evening and the morning were the first day." We have seen that it is an error, though a common one, to reckon " the first day " by any reference to our present time or standards of measurement. In this second use of the word day the difficulty apparently increases. Here the word denotes more than a i:>eriod of light. It signifies the sum of a period of darkness and a period of light ; a time of darkness at a period when, in the whole space of the solar system, darkness was an impossibility. Yet in this sec- ond instance the word day is, without doubt, used as a measure of time. What can it mean ? Let us seek for wisdom in THE FIRST DAY. 55 the dictionary. We read first tliat a day is " the period between sunrise and sunset." This defi- nition, as we have ah-eady seen, is not applicable to " the first day." The second definition seems more helpful : " the period of the earth's revolu- tion upon its axis." That at least is a definite period, always the same. Yes; for thousands of years the earth has revolved on its axis once in twenty-four hours. ^ But if there w^ere an earth at all, did it revolve on its axis in that time on " the first day " I Certainly not ; unless it was of the same volume and density as now. But this we know was not the case. Science teaches us that the earth was once in a molten condition and was a more difi:use mass than it now is. The present polar diameter of the earth is twenty-six miles shorter than its equatorial diameter, and this fact is incontrovertible proof that the earth was formerly in a liquid or semi- liquid condition. A simple rule in the science of mechanics is that the velocity of a revolving li(iuid body is rapidly increased by a contraction of its mass. The earth, then, could not alw^ays have rotated upon its axis as rapidly as now, because its original volume has contracted to its present dimensions. Who can conjecture what the velocity of the rotation of that one nebulous mass must have been in its earliest movements ? It would seem that it must have been very slow; but this investigation is beyond the reach of 1 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4^^ seconds. 56 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. human wisdom. It is, however, absohitely cer- tain that the rate of rotation could not have been so rapid as to complete a revolution in twenty-four hours. That would have been a physical impossibility. Besides, what would rotation under such cir- cumstances accomplish, which could serve as a measure of time? It would bring no change from light to darkness. The earth was itself luminous, a ball of fire. Eotation of such a blazing globe would have no significance as to time. The sun now rotates upon its axis once in twenty-five days, but there comes no dark- ness nor shadow over its flaming surface. In like manner, however fast or slowly the earth rotated, wliile incandescent it could find no place of darkness. By these simple considerations we can see how thoughtless and unreasonable is the con- clusion that " the first day" was but twenty-four hours long. The length of that day is beyond human computation. We have no means of calculation. Still, here stand the sacred words: "The evening and the morning were the first day." What do they mean ? I now give the first key to my theory by stating an exact definition of the word day — a definition which will suit all the varying condi- tions in the history of the world, a definition which the word of God itself affords. A day THE FIEST DAY. 57 is a period of darkness followed by a period of cosmic or solar ligbt, whether tliat alternation occnrs in twenty-four hours, or in one year, or in myriads of years. One such alternation con- stitutes one day. When was the period of darkness 1 The Bible tells us : " The earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." When was the period of light? The Bible tells us: "God said, Let there be light: and there was light." This darkness and this light constituted " the first day." How long was that day? No human mind ever knew or can know. It continued until there was a second period of darkness, as we are expressly told in the sacred text. It there- fore must have continued during all the time while the original mass was passing by combus- tion into a gaseous form, and while it was condensing and rotating and detaching its equa- torial rings, and while the planets and their satellites were forming, until at length the earth had passed from its gaseous condition into a state of liquidity, aud a crust was spread over it, and it became thenceforth oi:>aque. This immense, incalculable period was "the first day." So thoroughly are we imbued by education with the idea that the rotation of the earth upon its axis is the cause of the alternation of day 58 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. and night that it seems difficult to conceive that this alternation could ever have been caused otherwise ; and as the period of this rotation is now about twenty-four hours, we hasten to the conclusion that the "first day" must have been twenty-four hours long. We have, however, seen that during the first period equivalent in duration to our twenty-four hours there was neither a sun to rise or set, nor an earth to revolve. I need only add that during that time there could not have been any rotation. The elements were then and for a long time there- after in a state of combustion, uniting in a gaseous condition. Eotation could not even have commenced until gravitation and conden- sation began to assemble the denser particles into a nucleus. Condensation could not have commenced until all the original atoms had been transmuted into gas and refrigeration had begun to contract the external j^ortions of the gaseous volume to a denser condition. This result could not have been reached in twenty-four hours, and perhaps not in twenty-four centuries. If, then, at the beginning and for an indefinitely long time afterward there was only a blazing, shapeless mass of matter, if as yet there was neither a sun nor an earth as such, nor in the whole material universe any rotation of any- thing, how unreasonable and unfounded is the idea, so long eherislK^d, that " the first day" was but twenty-four hours long ! THE FIRST DAY. 59 Considering, moreover, for how short a time comparatively the earth has rotated upon its axis once in twenty- four hours, why should we make its present velocity of rotation a standard of the measurement of its velocity when its diameter was about five hundred thousand miles! If a sphere of such dimensions should rotate once in twenty-four hours, the equatorial velocity of rotation would be at the rate of sixtj'- five thousand miles an hour. No such rapid rotation is known in the solar system. The present equatorial velocity of the earth's rota- tion is but one thousand and forty miles an hour.^ Then, too, it is a trivial and unworthy con- ception that the grand movements of the origi- nal mass, which were in progress befoi-e the earth began its separate existence, should be reckoned by standards of time then impossible, and which are peculiar to only the last stage of one of the smallest fragments of that mass. If rotation is to furnish the standard of meas- urement, why should it not be the rotation of the original mass itself, or, afterward, the rota- tion of the central mass ? Or, if planetary rota- tion is to be selected for the purpose, why not ^ ''Where are we to get twelve hours for this first night? Where is the point of commencement when darkness began to be on the face of the waters ? All is vast, snhlirae, immeasurable" {Lamje^s Commentanj, vol. i., p. 132). 60 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. take the Neptunian day, the Uranian, the Sa- turnian, or the Jovian! Why pass over these earher standards of time and adopt the terres- trial day as the means of reckoning those first movements of matter ? If present rates of rota- tion are proper to be taken for this purpose, why not take for a standard of measurement, within the solar system, the rotation of its great common center, the sun itself, which rotates on its axis once in twenty-five days, rather than that of one of the lesser planets, the earth, which occupies no such important or central relation to the sisterhood of planets ? The more carefully this subject is considered, the more conclusive must appear the oj^inion that rotation upon the earth's axis is not the true criterion of the measure of a day in all ages in the history of the earth, and that there is but one definition of universal application amid all the varieties of circumstances in the develop- ment of our system, and that is the one I have given, which, indeed, the Bible itself gives: a day is one alternation of darkness and cosmic or solar light. In closing this chapter it is worth while to notice the peculiar order in the sentence, " And the evening and the morning were the first day" ; the evening first, thus reversing the order most familiar in our thought. Tlie Revised Version even more forcibly and more simply phrases the idea: "And there was evening and there was THE FIRST DAY. Gl morning, one day.^i The whole idea is that there was a period of darkness and a period of light, and that these two constituted the " first day." In this order we see the exactness of the Scripture in stating the facts as science has de- termined them. There is no conflict between science and the Bible as to the wonderful events of " the first day." 1 The Douay Version has it, " And there was evening and moruiug one day." CHAPTER V. 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 nnder the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament : and it was so. "And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day." In my thoughts as a child I used to wonder why God did so little on the first day as to create light and so little on the second day as to make the sky, but on the next four days made so many things. But the work of the " first day," as we have seen, was of the greatest magnitude, and its chief characteristic was the breaking forth and prevalence of light. In no single word could the work of the " first day " liave been so well comprehended as in the one word I'ujht. So, too, the events of the "second day" were of 62 THE SECOND DAY. 63 great importance and oeenpied a vast time, yet no single description of them could be move comprehensive and characteristic than that con- tained in the Bible. Let us attend to the teach- ings of science on this subject. As the mass of the earth became more dense and contracted to about its present dimensions, new phenomena appeared in its development. At the first the earth shone with the light of its own incandescence, not dependent in any degree upon the central sun for light. But before it lost its incandescence, while yet it shone in the brightness of its own liglit, an opaque veil was spread between the earth and the sun, cutting off all rays of light which emanated from the sun or other incandescent masses of the solar system. In the partial cooling down of the terrestrial mass some of the substances composing it w^ould pass from a gaseous to a liquid condition at a certain temperature, while others would remain in a state of gas or vapor and would form around the terrestrial spheroid an envelope or atmos- phere. The word atmosphere is of Greek origin, derived from atmos, vapory, and spliaira., sphere. The extent of the primitive atmosphere doubtless reached to the moon. It included, in short, in a state of vapor, the enormous mass of waters which now, in their condensed form, constitute the mighty ocean, and, besides these, many substances which, in the high temperature 64 GENESIS AND MODEllN SCIENCE. then prevailing, still remained in a gaseous con- dition. The heaviest vapors, as of the metals, would also be the thickest, and they would be opaque, though the earth was still at a red heat. Next above them would come the more vapo- rizable substances, such as the metallic and alka- line chlorides, etc., and above them all watery vapor or steam, in combination with substances naturally gaseous, as carbonic acid, azote, etc. In this manner would our globe circulate in space, carrying in its train the burning streaks of its multiplied atmosphere, unfitted as yet for living beings, and absolutely veiled from the rays of the sun, around which, nevertheless, it described its gigantic curve. ^ And so gradually the light grew dim upon the earth. The earth, losing its incandescence, at length glowed with a lurid glare, and its red crust grew darker and darker, and then gleamed no more. Now came a time of profound dark- ness. Light no longer was emitted from the internal fires, and the dense atmosphere of metallic vapors and steam was impenetrable to the solar rays, A solid film had inclosed the liquid fires of the earth's mass, and continued refrigeration thickened this film into a firm crust. The heated currents of the atmosphere, rising from the earth to the remotei- limits of the va- ^ This paragraph is substantially from Figuier, The World before the Deluge, p. 33 et seq. THE SECOND DAY. 65 porous envelope, came in contact with the frigid temperature of the interplanetary spaces (which, as already mentioned, Laplace has estimated at 100° below zero), and so were condensed and precipitated in the form of rain. But so heated were the lower strata of the atmosphere by ra- diation from the earth's internal fires that the rain, before it could reach the earth, was vapor- ized into steam, and rose again, to be again condensed aud precipitated. This process was continually repeated until at length the surface of the earth gradually became sufficiently cool, so that the waters could remain upon it without immediate evaporation. Then the rains de- scended continually, and the waters accumu- lated and spread over the whole globe and formed the universal ocean. '• As these clouds held all the water belonging to oiu- planet, they poured forth the most abun- dant rains, which, by beating upon the rocky smiace and by the wear of torrents, produced vast amounts of sediment, which were spread over the bottom of the accumulated ocean. Chemical reactions also took place in these waters, which threw down sheets of sediments, which mingled with those of mechanical origin. These sediments were the material from which the oldest rocks were formed." ^ " According to Hunt and Logan, the limestones of this early period could have had no other than a chemical 1 Pt-e-adamifes, Wiiicliell, p. 359. 66 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. origin." ^ " The cliemieal reactions and precipi- tations and sedimentary accumulations to wliicli I have referred extended over an immense in- terval of time. During this long period materials accumulated at the bottom of the sea to the thickness of twenty-five thousand feet. Their geographical extent corresponded with that of the primeval sea." - It was a time of profound darkness. There was no glimmer of light throughout that long period of the falling waters. At the first the ocean must have been of the temperature of boiling water, the crust being still comparatively thin and permeable to the inner heat. From this seething caldron dense vapors of steam continually ascended, and there seemed to be an incessant struggle between the ocean and the enshrouding atmosphere. The lower portions of the atmosphere, probably for the height of miles, were a mass of steam or aqueous vapor. But at length the ocean became cooler, and as the refrigeration of the earth's crust proceeded and evaporation became less and less, a separation began between the waters of the ocean and the watery vapors of the at- mosphere. The ocean no longer gave off its great volumes of steam, and the aqueous masses in suspense in the air began to rise and form a canopy. The waters were parted in the midst. ^ SlrMics of Crmtion, Wincliell, p. 58. - Ibid., p. 63. THE SECOND DAY. 67 Waters were divided from waters. There were waters above the firmameut and there were waters under the firmament — a universal ocean below and a watery atmosphere above. At last the clouds and fogs of the skies were broken by the power of the solar rays from without, and being no longer fed by the evaporation of the ocean below, were dissipated and suddenly passed away; just as we have seen a fog, so dense as to render invisible even objects near at hand, vanish under the power of the sun. Now for the first time the sunlight illumined the terrestrial globe. Such are the teachings of science. By way of exegesis we may consider the meaning of the v^ordjirnianioit. The marginal reading is expanse. To expand is to cause the particles of a substance to spread themselves, or stand apart — a word admirably fitted to express the attenuation of the atmosphere. "Webster says that the word firmament "in Scripture denotes an expanse, a wide extent ; for such is the signification of the Hebrew word coinciding with rer/ion and reaeh. The original, therefore, does not convey the sense of solidity, but of stretching,^ extension; the great arch or ex- ^ In Psalm eiv. 2 is a heautifnl poetic reference to God's work on the first and second creative days. " Who coverest thj'self with lif/hf as with a garment: who sfref chest out the heavens like a curtain." Upon this passage Fausset comments that the use of the word 68 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. pause over our heads, in which are placed the atmosphere and the clouds, and in which the stars appear to be placed and are really seen." In verse 20 we find " fowl " referred to as flying "in the open firmament of heaven," or, as in the margin, " on the face of the expanse of the heaven." Here, it is evident, the air or atmos- phere is referred to. We must therefore con- clude that verse 7 narrates the creation of the atmosphere of the earth. " And the evening and the morning were the second day." What was the evening? That long period of darkness which prevailed from the time when the enshrouded earth ceased to emit light from its internal fires, all through the formiug of the universal ocean, in the manner above described. What was the morning! The passing away Zi^^^ refers to the first work of creation, and that the stretching of the heavens refers to the visible heavens or sky, which covers the earth like a curtain. •' The Hebrew word raJcia, from ral'ci, used by Moses (and which our translators, by following the firmamen- turn of the Vulgate, which is a translation of the stereoma of the Septuagiut, have improperly rendered firmament), signifies to spread out as tlie curtains of a tent or paviHon. It corresponds with those beautiful words of Isaiah, ' It is he that stretcheth out the heav- ens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in " ( The Mosaic History of the Creation of the World, Wood, p. 95). THE SECOND DAY. 69 of the vapors which had so long exckided the rays of the sun, and the flooding of the terres- trial globe with the bright sunlight of heaven. This darkness and this light, one alternation, constituted the " second day." How long was the " second day" ? We have no means of calculation, but doubtless it was of comparatively less duration than the "first day." Yet the refrigeration of the earth from a par- tially gaseous condition until it was inclosed by a crust sufficiently cool and firm to support a universal ocean must have required a vast peri- od. In the hundreds of centuries since the " sec- ond day " the crust of the earth has continued to cool and thicken, yet so slow has been the refrigeration that now at the depth of only 8,100 feet we find the temperature of boiling water, and at the depth of two miles below the surface of the earth water would entirely vaporize. When we consider, moreover, the enormous volume of the ocean, and remember that its waters were all in the form of aqueous vapor held in suspense in the atmosphere, we have another proof of the immense duration of the " second day." The present expanse of the ocean upon the globe is l-4-4-,500,000 square miles. The depth varies from 1,000 feet or less to 50,000 feet, the mean depth being from 15,000 to 20,000 feet. The mean height of the continents is but 1,000 feet. To fill the ocean to a mean depth of 15,000 feet with earth would require forty times 70 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. the quantity of all the dry land now above the aea-liivel. This forming and purifying of the terrestrial atmosphere was a most important preparation for the subsequent occupation of the earth by living beings, and as necessary for vegetable as for animal life. The atmosphere of the earth possesses wonderful properties, and has a great variety of important uses besides the more ob- vious service it performs in the vital function of respiration. It is material and ponderable. It has height and color and elasticity. It exerts a constant pressure of 5,835,425,000 tons upon the earth, and yet is so light and fluent that it yields to the least vibration of the wings of the most minute insect. It is the great reservoir of solar heat, and tempers and retains the rays of the sun. It holds the light of departing day and graduates the brilliancy of the dawning light, so adapting the Hglit and darkness to our comfort. It is the medium of sound, and with- out it all the delights of music and the greater delights of human speech would be impossible. It contains the mysterious mechanism of the weather. It receives into its capacious store- houses the immense volumes of vapor which water the earth with fruitful rains, and through its broad expanse the winds bear the vapors thus treasured up from the ocean and carry them over the earth. Mighty currents traverse its vast areas, and fierce tempests sweep through THE SECOND DAY. 71 its wide domains. And so, whether feeding life or embracing the earth in its gentle yet gigantic grasp, or manifesting its own mighty forces in the spaces above, it affords a continual exhibi- tion of the power and wisdom and goodness of God. It seems scarcely possible, as we look up into its clear blue depths, to believe that it is a watery mass ; and yet even in this last period of earth- history, when it has been made pure and suited to animal existence, the average quantity of aqueous vapor or water held in the air is esti- mated at 54,460,000,000,000 tons— a quantity sufficient, if precipitated at once, to cover the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America to the depth of three feet. Does not this verify tlie sacred rec- ord that God " divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament " I And yet the atmos- phere of to-day is dry as compared with the vaporous atmosphere which he separated on that second day. Even as late in the history of the earth as the Carljoniferous age the atmosphere was characterized by great humidity. What the earth would be without an atmos- j)liere is exemplified for us by the present con- dition of the moon, which has "an atmosphere two thousand times rarer than that of the earth. It can scarcely be regarded as an atmosphere at all. The contents of an air-pump receiver can 72 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. seldom be rarefied to . a greater extent than about T(H)"o of tie density of air at the eartli's surface with the best of pneumatic machines, and the lunar atmosj)here, if it exists at all, is thus proved to be twice as attenuated as what we are accustomed to recognize as a vacuum." ^ The lowest forms of vitality cannot exist with- out air, moisture, and a moderate range of tem- perature. For the lack of these the moon is a lifeless world. " Dawn, as we have it upon the earth, can have no counterpart upon the moon. Xo atmos- phere is there to reflect the light while the luminary is yet out of actual sight. From the black horizon the sun suddenly darts his bright, uninterrupted beams upon the mountain-tops, crowning them with dazzling brilliance while their flanks and valleys are yet in utter dark- ness. There is no blending of the night into day. In the lunar sunrise there is none of that gilding and glowing which make the phenome- non on earth so gorgeous. Those crimson sky- tints with which we are familiar are due to the absorption of certain of the polychromous rays of light by our own atmosphere. The blue and \'iolet components of the solar beams are intercepted by our envelope of vapor, and only the red portions are free to pass ; while on the moon, as there is no atmosphere, this selective absorption does not occur." ^ The Moon, Nasmyth and Cai-penter, p. 53. THE SECOND DAY. 73 " This atmosphere of ours is the most influ- ential element in beautifying our terrestrial scenery. We are accustomed to the sun with its dazzling brightness, overpowering though it be, subdued and softened by our vaporous screen. Upon the moon there is no such modi- fication. The sun's intrinsic brilliancy is undi- minished, its apparent distance is shortened, and it gleams out in fierce splendor — only to be realized, and then imperfectly, by the conception of a gigantic electric light a few feet from the eye. And the brightness is rendered more striking by the blackness of the surrounding sky. Since there is no atmosphere, there can be no skylight, for there is nothing above the lunar world to diffuse the solar beams, not a trace of that moisture which, even in our tropi- cal skies, scatters some of the sun's light and gives a certain degree of opacity or blueness, deep though it be, to the heavens by day. Upon the moon, with no light-diffusing vajjor, the sky must be as dark as, or even darker than, that with which we are familiar upon the finest of moonless nights, and the blackness prevails in the full blaze of the lunar noonday sun." "Without an atmosphere there cnn be no aerial perspective or gradation of color in the laudscape. The shadows have an awful black- ness. Most notable among the effects of the absence of an atmosphere is the untempered heat of the direct solar rays. The sun pours 74 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. down his beams with UDmitigated ferocity upon a soil never sheltered by a cloud nor cooled by a shower, until the soil is heated to a temperature equal nearly to that of melting lead." The moon is a region of silence. "Even commotions sufficient to crack the crust of the moon, though they might be felt by the vibra- tions of the ground, would not manifest them- selves audibly, for without air there can be no connection between the grating or cracking ground and the nerves of hearing. Dead silence reigns on the moon. A thousand cannon might be fired, but no sound would be heard. Lips might quiver and tongues essay to speak, but they could not break the utter silence." ^ But the earth has an atmosphere, and so is a world of beauty and life. " The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork."2 Is not this work good, grand, glorious ? Did not G od regard it with compla- cency and satisfaction? There can be no rea- sonable doubt that the work was good and that it pleased God. Yet the Scripture record does not say so. The work of every creative day, except the second, is expressly stated to be good in the sight of the Creator. On the first day, " God saw the light, that it was good." On the third day, we read ttcice^ " God saw that it was good"; once when the dry land appeared 1 The Moon, Nasmyth aud Carpenter, cliap. xiii. 2 Ps. xix. 1. THE SECOND DAY. 75 and the waters were gathered together into one jilaee, and again when verdure clothed the earth. On the "fourth day" he set the knninaries in the heavens to rnle the day and the night, " and God saw that it was good." On the "fifth day" he created the moving creature and the winged fow], " and God saw that it was good." On the "sixth day" he made the beasts of tlie earth, "and God saw tliat it was good." Was there no approval of the firmament, that vast work of the "second day" ? Was it not good, like all his other works I It mnst have been. It was. He gave to tlie firmament the beautiful name Heaven, the name of his own celestial abode. In the last verse of this chapter we read, " God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." This phrase, " and God saw that it was good," must be of great importance and full of meaning, else it would not have l)een so often repeated. Its omission in the record of the "second day" seems strange and inexplicable. What the omission signifies we are unable to say. It is of importance, however, to note the simple fact that there is this omission. In concluding this chapter we are able to afhrm that there is no conflict whatever, but only beautiful and perfect harmony, between science and Scripture as to the events of the " second day." CHAPTER VI. THE THIKD DAY. " And God said, Let tlie waters under the heaven be gathered together unto 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." In the geological record we read the same history. While the crust of the earth which had been formed by refrigeration was suffi- ciently firm and rigid to support the universal ocean, the inner mass by further cooling was contracted in its volume, and could no longer sustain the crust, which had become too large for it. Precisely as when an apple has withered and its pulp has been reduced in size by loss of moisture, the skin, which at first exactly fitted and covered it, is too large for the shrunk volume and consequently forms in folds and wrinkles, so the crust of the earth, which no longer fitted 7G THE THIRD DAY. 77 the iuner mass, sank in and formed vast folds and wrinkles, thus breaking the previous uni- formity of the surface. The immediate conse- quence was that the waters of the universal ocean filled these depressions in the crust, and the highest portions of the ocean -bed were drained of the waters and appeared above the level of the sea, thus forming dry land. There is great beauty and a scientific exact- ness in the words, "let the dry land appear.^'' It was not then created. The land was under the water everywhere, but none of it had ap- peared. Now at last the waters retired to their appointed place and thus uncovered the highest parts of the earth's crust so that they appeared in sight. With great sublimity the psalmist sings of this creative work. God "laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved forever. Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a vesture ; the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down unto the place which thou hadst founded for them. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over ; that they turn not again to cover the earth." ^ Dana, speaking of the whole world, says there is "little doubt that the existing places of the deep ocean and of the continents were determined even in the first formation of ^ Ps. civ. 5-9, Revised Version, marginal reading. 78 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. the earth's crust, in the early archrean era, and that in all the movements tliat have since oc- curred, the oceans and continents have never changed places." ^ Geology is able to determine which portion of the earth's crust first emerged from the uni- versal ocean. It was the archi'ean or azoic - rocks of the Laurentian period. "The oldest sedimentary rocks anywhei'e found on the globe are those which underlie the whole of Canada, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Labrador, and the country nortli of Lake Superior; perhaps also the less explored regions of the far North- west toward the Arctic Sea."^ "This great northern area has been estimated to contain 2,000,000 square miles." ^ "The thickness of its bed is estimated by Sir William Logan at 30,000 feet. It rises to hills or mountains 4,000 feet high, and in the deep gorge of the Saguenay River forms perpendicular cliffs of 1,500 feet." ^ In Euro^ie the arch^an rocks cover the most of Sweden, Norway, Lapland, Finland, a large part of the northern half of Scotland and the ^ Genesis and Geohfjj/, p. 73. 2 Meaning ''without life." ^ Encycloptedia Britunnica (ninth edition), article " America." ■* Manual of Geohcjy, Dana (fourth edition, 1895), p. 442. ^ Encydopcedia Britannka (ninth edition), article '' America." ^ORTH POLe South pout POSITION OF THE EARTH IN THE AZOIC AGE. POSITION OF THE EARTH IN THE PALEOZOIC AGE. THE THIRD DAY. 79 Hebrides, parts of western Ireland, the west of Wales, the south and west of England, also areas in Fi-ance, Saxony, Bavaria, and Bohemia.^ Although these rocks are also found in limited areas in the northern part of South America, Brazil, and in different parts of the Ajides, yet it will Ije observed that they lie principally in the northern portions of the north temperate zone and in the north frigid zone, as we now designate those divisions of the earth's surface. This fact is of very great significance and in- dicates that at this juncture a very remarkable phenomenon appeared. This phenomenon was none other than an entire change in the direc- tion of the earth's axis of rotation. Whereas it previously had been perpendicular to the eclip- tic, it then became coincident with the ecliptic. This is the second element in my theory. I desire to develop this proposition more fully before considering its consequences or review- ing the geological proofs of it. By the nebular hypothesis we have seen that when the rings of nebulous matter became de- tached, they revolved in the same plane as the central mass and upon an axis coincident with that of the central mass. When the ring broke and formed itself into a compact spheroidal body, it still rotated, as before, in an orbit about the central mass, but upon an axis of its 1 M.nuud of Geology, Daua (fourth edition, 1895), p. -^^^Q). 80 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. own. This axis, however, like the axis of the central mass, was perpendicular to the plane of its orbit. As soon, however, as there was a change in the distribution of its matter and in the density of it, there must, by the law of gravitation, have been a change in its center of gravity fi'om the original geometric center of the mass to some point more or less distant from that geometric center, unless, of course, the changes of distri- bution and of density were equal and uniform in every direction from the original center, which, though possible, is entirely improbable. This is so obvious that an argument is not required; yet so fundamental is it to my hy- pothesis that I desire to elucidate it by simple illustrations. I do not claim that the mass of the earth was changed as to quantity or weight, but that the quantity and weight were changed in their posi- tion in respect to the original center of gravita- tion ; or, in other words, I claim the manifest fact that the change in the shape of the enrtli from a regular to an irregular spheroid changed its center of gravity. For example : Let AB represent a lever hav- ing its fulci'um upon the wedge x. Let C repre- sent a weight of ten pounds suspended upon the lever at a certain distance from the fulcrum, nnd D a weight of ten pounds suspended upon the lever at the same distance from the fulcrum THE THIED DAY. 81 upon the opposite end. The lever then supports a weight of twenty pounds ; but as the weights C, D are equal and are placed at the same distance from the geometric center x, they bal- ance each other and the center of gravity n -J is on the point of x. ^ /\ But let us now change the relative position of the weights C, D, by plac- ing the weight C nearer the fulcrum and the weight D farther from the fulcrum. Although the lever AB sustains precisely the same weight (twenty pounds), the center of gravity is changed, because the weights C, D are now differently arranged and the weight D falls to a lower plane than that of the weight C. In this illustration, however, I have used a fixed point or fulcrum, .r, on which the lever and Its weights are supported. The earth is not thus hung upon a fixed point. God "hangeth the earth upon nothing." ^ This was the declara- tion of Job in the oldest book of the Bible, al- though the statement was contrary to all human philosophy for many a century after it was written. We know now that the earth is sus- pended freely in space and is confined to its orbit by the combination of the centrifugal and ^ Job xxvi. 7. 82 GENESIS AND MODEllX SCIENX'E. centripetal forces which impel it. An illustra- tion more analogous may be found in observing the action of gravitation upon a body falling freely in space. A perfect sphere of equal density throughout would not, however, in fall- ing, turn in any direction, because its mass is equally distributed about its geometric center. But a solid body, irregularly distributed in its mass about its geometric center, will, in falling freely in space, come into such a position that its heavier side will be toward the earth. There are more atoms on that side to be acted upon by gravitation. If a boy shoots his arrow up- ward it ascends with its head or knob foremost, but as soon as the force of gravitation has over- come the propelling force given by the bow, the arrow describes a turn in mid-air and falls to the ground with its head or knob downward. If an aeronaut, leaving the basket which hangs vertically suspended from the balloon, clambers up into the netting half-way to the top of the balloon, his weight will bring the side to which lie is clinging down toward the earth ; and yet at the same time the balloon will keep steadily on in its course, drifting with the air-current in which it floats, and by its buoyancy overcoming the power of gravitation which seeks to draw it bodily downward. In this illustration it will be noticed that, while gravity does not overcome the lifting power of the gas contained in the bag, the bag itself is turned, because the weight THE THIRD DAY. 83 which it is carrying is changed in the relative position thereon. A very satisfactory demonstration of this action of gravitation npon a globe whose density is unequal in different parts is afforded by a com- mon toy balloon, which consists of a thin rubber bag distended by air or gas, and having a neck closed by a string tightly drawn and tied. This neck, extending from one side of the balloon, makes it heavier on that side, and whether liberated with the neck projecting vertically upward, or horizontally, or in any angular direction, it will turn itself in mid-air until the protuberance extends vertically down- ward. Another illustration may be drawn from the movement of comets in the heavens. A comet advances rapidly in an orbit of great eccentric- ity, but its heavier portion, that is, its nucleus or head, is always directed toward the sun, so that the comet approaches the sun head fore- most and retreats from it tail foremost. In this case the element of orbital velocity does not overcome the force of gravitation. Substantially the same thought was elabo- rated and clearly stated by Dr. C. F. Winslow in his little book called The Cooling Globe, pub- lished in 1865, which came to my attention for the first time long after the preparation of the manuscript of this volume. He says : "Any homogeneous and perfect sphere — a 84 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. marble, for instance — will fall from a state of rest in a vacumn withont rotating or changing its position. But change the form of that body to a spheroid, or project mountains or sink de- pressions on various parts of its surface, it will change positions, partially rotating, and fall with its longest diameter or major axis toward the earth. . . . This planet (discarding rotation) is only a marble of enormous dimensions and heterogeneous nature, falling, in a vacuum, to the sun. Whatever may have been the cause of its primitive irregularity of form, the slight- est preponderance of matter at one point of its surface or another will necessarily alter the re- lations of its poles to the plane of the ecliptic. The diameter of the globe at the equator is twenty-six miles greater than at the poles, and the inclination of its axis to the plane of the ecliptic is adjusted by laws of gravitation so fixed that it can never alter unless the relative amount of matter in the hemispheres be dis- turbed. Should this disturbance ever occur, from any cause whatever, or in any manner, the axial inclination must shift, either suddenly or slowly, according to the agency operating to produce disturbance of equilibrium. . . . Such consequences would naturally follow the slow elevation or submergence of continents." " Gravitation is admitted by all astronomers and physicists as an estal)lished fact and uni- versal law, and is beyond discussion. It controls THE THIRD DAY. 85 the i^osition of all bodies upon and suspended around tliis planet and establishes their equilib- rium according to the major amounts of matter in their different diametei-s, the major diameter always tending toward its center. . . . Bodies, whatever their form, size, or weiglit, when sus- pended and free to move in all directions and settle into equilibrium, will finally assume that position toward the center of the earth which coincides with the greatest number of particles, or, in other words, Avith the greatest density or weight of that diameter which is immediately perpendicular to the surface and in a line with the radius between it and the earth's center." ^ In the light of these statements and illustra- tions, let us study what effect the protrusion of the Laurentian rocks on the north side of the earth must have caused in the relative position of the earth toward the sun. Such protrusion would not only give to that side of the earth an increased leverage, so to speak, but another result would follow such an elevation of that portion of the earth's crust. This change of the center of gravity would change the level of the sea over the whole globe. In my second illus- tration I supposed that one of the weights upon the lever was placed farther from the fulcrum, while the other weight was placed nearer the fulcrum. Precisely so would it be with refer- ence to the waters of the sea. There would be 1 The Cooling Globe, pp. 14, 15, 38. 86 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. an actual re-adjustment of the volume of the ocean with reference to the new center of gravity, and that re-adjustment would be an ac- tual transference of a vast volume of sea-water from the southern to the northern hemisphere, thus still further aiding the gravitation of that side of the earth toward the sun. Let us en- deavor to compute this added weight, while we prove by sufficient authority the truth of the proposition itself. The French mathematician, Alphonse Joseph Adhemar,^ has accounted for the nutation of the poles by reference to a change in the center of the earth's gravity, occasioned by the vast accumulation of ice and snow in the polar regions in alternate periods of ten thousand five hundred years. In this conclusion he has been followed by many eminent scholars. So sensi- tive is the earth to the force of gravitation that (as it seems from this authority) the preponder- ance of ice at one pole over that of the other swings the mighty mass of the earth and deflects its polar direction. And not only so, but we are assured that " the enormous accumulation of ice at one pole during the maximum of eccen- tricity will displace the center of gravity so as to raise the level of the ocean in the glacial hemisphere." - Dana says : " Were the ice of a 1 Revolutions de la Mer (1840). ~ Ennjdopa'dia Bv'dannica (ninth edition), article " Geology," by A. Geikie. THE THIRD DAY. 87 glacial epoch to be accumulated about the poles and thus make a polar ice-cap or meniscus thousands of feet high, the ocean-level would be changed through all latitudes to the equa- tor." 1 " Dr. Croll has estimated that if the present mass of ice in the southern hemisphere is taken at 1,000 feet, extending down to latitude 60°, the transference of this mass to the northern hemi- sphere would raise the level of the sea 80 feet at the north pole. Other methods of calculation give different results. Mr. Heath puts the rise at 128 feet, Archdeacon Pratt makes it more, while the Rev. 0. Fisher gives it at 409 feet. More recently, in returning to the question. Dr. Croll remarks that tlie removal of 2 miles of ice from the Antarctic continent (and at present the mass of ice there is thicker than that) would displace the center of gravity 190 feet, and the formation of a mass of. ice equal to one-half of this in the Arctic regions would carry the center of gravity 95 feet farther, giving in all a displace- ment of 285 feet." 2 In his book Cl'miate and Time ^ Dr. Croll clearly demonstrates how this change in the center of gravity is effected. He says : " In order to pre- sent the question in its most simple form, I shall 1 Manual of Geology (fourth edition, 1895), p. 34G. - Encyclopiulia Britannka (ninth edition), article " Geology." 2 Page 368 et seq. 88 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. assume an ice-eap of a given thickness at the pole, and gradually diminishing in thickness toward the equator in the simple proportion of the sines of the latitudes, where at the equator its thickness, of course, is zero. Let us assume, what is actually the case, that the equatorial diameter of the globe is somewhat greater than the polar, but that when the ice-cap is placed on one hemisphere the whole forms a perfect sphere. " I shall begin with a period of glaciation on the southern hemisphere. Let WNES' be the solid part of the earth, and c its center of gravity ; and let ESW be an ice-cap covering the southern hemisphere. Let us, in the first i^lace, assume the earth to be of the same density as the cap. The earth and its cap now form a per- fect sphere with its center of gravity at o, for WNES is a circle, and o is its center. Suppose, now, the whole to be covered with an ocean a few miles deep, the ocean will assume the spheri- cal form and will be of uniform depth. Let the southern winter solstice begin now to move around from the aphelion. The ice-cap will also commence gradually to diminish in thickness, and another cap will begin to make its appear- ance on the northern hemisphere. As the north- ern cap may be supposed, for simplicity of THE THIED DAY. 89 calculation, to increase at the same rate that the southern will diminish, the spherical form of the earth will always be maintained. By the time that the northern cap has reached a maximum the southern cap will have completely disap- peared. The circle WN'ES' will now represent the earth with its cap on the northern hemi- sphere, and o' will be its center of gravity, for o' is the center of the circle WN'ES'. And as the distance between the centers o, o' is equal to NN', the thickness of the cap at the pole, NN' will therefore represent the extent to which the center of gravity has l)een displaced. It will also represent the extent to which the ocean has risen at the north pole and sunk at the south. This is evident, for, as the sphere WN'ES' in all respects is as the sphere WNES, with the ex- ception only that the cap is on the opi:)osite side, the surface of the ocean at the poles will now be at the same distance from the center o' as it was from the center o when the cap covered the southern hemisphere. Hence the distance be- tween and o' must be equal to the extent of the submergence at the north pole and the emergence at the south." He next considers the result when the earth and ice are taken at their actual densities, re- spectivel}' 5.5 and .92. Then he computes the result if the ice-cap, instead of reaching to the equator, reaches down to latitude 55°, and finds that, as its center of gravity is much farther re- 90 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. moved from tlie eartli's center of gravity than it was when it extended down to the equator, it possesses in proportion to its mass a mnch greater power in displacing the earth's center of gravity. He proceeds to discuss the fact that the ocean will adjust itself, not in relation to the center of gravity of the solid mass alone, but in relation to the common center of gravity of the entire mass, solid and liquid ; and concludes that the water which is pulled over from one hemi- sphere to the other by the attraction of the cap will also aid in displacing the center of gravity and will co-operate with the cap and carry the true center of gravity to a point beyond that of the center of gravity of the earth and cap, and thus increase the effect. Now, supposing that the immense mass of the Laurentian rocks (which have the vast area already described and are of the thickness of 30,000 feet, that is, nearly 6 miles) was thrust outwardly to a height varying from 1,500 to 4,000 feet from a sphere or spheroid otherwise perfect and regular in shape, and bearing in mind the great difference between the specific gravity of rock and ice, we can see that it would be a very moderate estimate that such a protrusion would displace the earth's center of gravity to the ex- tent of 300 feet. On this basis it is easily com- puted that there would be transferred from the southern to the northern hemisphere, by this change, a volume of water the weight of which THE TIimD DAY. 91 would exceed 13,000,000,000,000,000 tons; and as so much would be lost to tlie southern hemi- sphere and added to the nortliern, the difference in the weight of the two hemispheres, by reason of this transference, would be 26,000,000,000,- 000,000 tons, which, added to the increased leverage of the protruding parts of the earth on that side, would instantly cause the earth to turn its northern side to the sun. Now if, as geology proves, the northern side of the earth protruded at this juncture, and, by the consequent increase of leverage and the enormous increase of weight over that of the southern hemispliere by reason of the change of the sea-level, as described, gravitated on that side toward the sun, a result of startling signif- icance in this discussion was effected, being no less than an entire change in the direction of the earth's axis of rotation. I do not claim that the earth's axis itself changed its position in relation to the earth's mass (although such a claim could rest upon eminent authority),^ but I claim sim- 1 " Sir William Thomson and George Darwin admit as liiglily probable that the axis may have shifted its position, owing to deformations in the earth's shape by the elevation of portions of its enist, and that in this manner the pole may have wandered 10c> or 15'=> from its primitive place, or possibly so far away as 20°, 30°, or even 40°. . . . That the axis of the earth's rotation has snccessively shifted, and consequently that the poles have wandered to dilf erent points of the surface 92 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. ply tliat the direction of the axis changed in re- lation to the plane of the earth's orbit, so that the axis, instead of being perpendicular to the ecliptic, as at first, became coincident with the ecliptic. of the globe, has been maiutained by geologists as the only possible explanation of cei'tain remarkable con- ditions of climate which can be proved to have for- merly obtained within the Arctic circle. ... A wide- spread npheaval or depression of certain portions of the surface to a considerable vertical amount might shift the axis. . . . Sir William Thomson freely con- cedes the physical possibility of such changes. ^ We may not merely admit/ he saj'S, ' but assert as highly probable, that the axis of maximum inertia and the axis of rotation, always very near each other, may have been in ancient times very far from their present geographical position, and may have gradually shifted through 10, 20, 30, 40, or more degrees.' . . . Though no known geological operation seems to have been capable of producing an effective change in the posi- ti(m of the axis of rotation, there may have been variations in the position of its center of gravity" {EncycIojKedia Britannica [ninth edition], article " Ge- ology "). My theory would be as well satisfied by a change in the position of the earth's axis as by a change in its direction. A chauge in the position of the earth's axis does not, however, seem probable to me. The equa- torial diameter of the earth exceeds the polar diameter by 2G miles. The equatorial velocity of the eai-tli's rotation is 1,040 miles per hour. I think that the THE THIED DAY. 93 "What consequences would result from such a change in the direction of the earth's axis? There could no longer be any alternation of darkness and light. The northern hemisphere, always turned toward the sun,^ would have one unending day, and the southern hemisphere, always turned away from the sun, would have one unending night.- Neither could there have momentum of the rotation of such a spheroid, moving at sneh a rate, would be so great as to prevent any shifting of the axis from one place to another, althongh it would not prevent a change in the polar direction. Maedler {FopnJare Astronomie, p. 370) combats the theory of a change in the position of the earth's axis, and states that, according to the calculations of Bessel, the bodily plucking up of 114 cubic miles of the Himalaya Mountains and the transfer of them to North America would change the position of the earth's axis less than 100 feet. But if it is true math- ematically that such transference of only 114 cubic miles could shift the earth's axis about 100 feet, is it not at least possible that the lifting in mass to a height of from 1,500 to 4,000 feet of 1,704,000 cubic miles of the Lauren tian rocks from a spheroid otherwise regu- lar in shape might have displaced the earth's center of gravity 300 feet ? ^ I do not forget the present parallelism of the earth's axis, but Avill discuss it later. - "By the earth's rotation the several portions of the surface have each their turn of light and of dark- ness. This happens because the position of the earth is such that the equator is, on the whole, presented 94 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. been any alterncation of seasons. The northern hemisphere wonld always have an even, warm temperature, with its torrid chmate chiefly in the polar regions, while the southern hemisphere would have perpetual cold as well as perpetual darkness. In the succeeding chapters will he presented the geological and other proofs relating to this part of the subject. A still further illustration of the present hypothesis is found by a reference to the position of the moon in its relation to the earth, which is strikingly analogous to what seems to have been the position of the earth in relation to the sun on " the third day." The same side of the moon is always presented to the earth. No man has ever seen the other side of the moon. If the satellite's rotation in its orbit were uniform we should always see exactly the same portion of its surface, but as this is not the case, there are two small strips of surface running from pole to pole on the east and west sides which alternately become visible. This oscillation is called the moon's longitudinal libration. The libration in latitude arises from the moon's axis not being perpendicular to its orbit, in consequence of which a portion of its surface around the north pole is visible during toward the sim ; had either pole been toward the sun, that hemisphere would have revolved in continual light, the other in continual darkness" {Cliamhers's Encyclopedia^ article '' Day ")• THE THIKD DAY. 95 one-half, and a corresponding portion around the south pole during the other half of itsrevo- hition in its orbit.^ By reason of these librations we actually have seen about four-sevenths of the moon's surface. As the moon continually has this side toward the earth, so the earth con- tinually had its northern side toward the sun duriijg the period called " the third day," but with this difference : that the moon presents its equator, whereas the earth presented its north pole. The moon is not perfectly spherical, but is bulged toward the earth.- " The form of the lunar disk, when fully illu- minated, we perceive to be a perfect circle ; that is to say, the measured diameters in all direc- tions are equal. We know that the earth and the rest of the j^lanets of our system are sphe- roidal, or more or less flattened at the poles; and we know that this flattening is a conse- quence of axial rotation, the extent of the flat- tening, or the oblateness of the spheroid, depending upon the speed of that rotation. But ill the case of the moon the axial rotation is so slow that the flattening produced thereby, al- though it must exist, is so slight as to be imper- ceptible to our observation. We might therefore conclude that the moon is a perfectlj" spherical body, did not theory step in to show us that ^ Chattihers^s Encyclopedia, article '■ Libratiou." - The Moon, Nasmyth and Carpenter, p. xii. 96 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. there is another cause by which its form is dis- turbed. Assuming the moon to have been once in a fluid state, it is demonstrable that the at- traction of the earth would accumulate a mass of matter like a tidal elevation in the direction of a line joining the centers of the two bodies ; and as a consequence the real shape of the moon must be an ellipsoid, or somewhat egg-shaped body, the major axis of which is directed toward the earth." That some such phenomenon has obtained is evident from the coincidence of the times of orbital revolution and axial rotation of the lunar sphere. " ' It would be against all probability,' says Laplace, ' to suppose that these two motions had been at their origin perfectly equal,' but it is sufficient that their primitive difference was but small, in which case the constant attraction by the earth of the protuberant part of the moon would establish the equality which at present exists." ^ The moon revolves around the earth in twenty-seven days, seven hours, forty-three minutes, and eleven and one-half seconds, and rotates upon its axis only once in the same time that it revolves around the earth. This is the reason why the moon always presents the same 1 The Moon, Nasmytli and Carpenter, p. 35. '' The moon has a small elon / SOUTH AMERICA. AUSTRALIA. THE THIED DAY. 133 turn gradually taper off to mere points in an illimitable sea, long before they reach the Ant- arctic circle. Within this circle the configura- tion of the land is precisely the reverse of that in the north; it is that of a solid cap of land around the pole, in the midst of the great ocean." ^ These three southern appendages of the north- ern continental masses are themselves conti- nental, but in their general outline are also peninsular. South America and Africa are connected with the northern continents by the Isthmus of Panama and the Isthmus of Suez respectively, while Australia is linked to the main-land by a chain of islands called collect- ively the Sunda Islands. These three southern continents have a wonderful similarity in shape. South America and Africa have in the northern half an approximately ovoid shape, from which part a triangular portion extends southerly. Australia has the same general egg shape, and if it be connected with Tasmania we find again the triangular extension j:)ointing south- ward. If, however, we consider it in connection with New Zealand and in view of the ocean- depths in the immediate vicinity, the result, as indicated in the outhne figures upon the oppo- site page, is more remarkable still. In each 1 Paradise Found, p, 439, quoting Marquis G. de Saporta. Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Reinie des Deux Mondes. 134 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. case there is a large rounded portion in t1ie north extending westerly, a sharp j^oint extend- ing easterly, formed by the intersection of north-east and south-east coast-lines, and a narrowing extension soutlierl}^ Even in so small a detail as the indentation on the northern coast of each of these continents, there is a simi- larity in outline between the Gulf of Carpentaria of Australia and the ancient Syrtis Major and Syrtis Minor of Africa and the Amazon mouths of South America. This massing of land northward toward the north pole, this tapering of land southward to- ward the south pole, the thrusting eastward of the sharp noses of the three southern continents, and their occipital protuberances westward are so striking and characteristic as to indicate some general plan or purpose, whatever the explanation may be. We have thus considered the great differences ]3etween the northern and southern hemispheres, which existed from the earliest geological ages and which are now existing. Professor Dana, most eminent of American geologists, has re- cently said : "I find no explanation in the present state of science wherefore most of the dry land of the globe should have been located about the north pole, and of the water about the south. Physicists say that it indicates greater attrac- tion, and therefore a greater density in the solid material beneath the southern ocean. But why THE THIKD DAY. 135 the mineral ingredients should have been so gatliered about the south pole as to give the crust there greater density is the unanswered query." ^ It is thus apj^arent that these diver- sities between the northern and southern hemi- spheres have been the subject of profound study, but that no satisfactory conclusion has here- tofore been reached. The theory set forth in these pages seems to give the true solution to this difficult problem. But many and great as are the proofs which I have massed about this portion of my argu- ment, — relating as they do to the past and present structure of the northern and southern countries, their fossil flora and fauna, their sur- face and outline, — there are astronomical proofs of planetary polar exposures to the sun which constitute a most interesting and substantial corroboration of my proposition. The discus- sion of these will constitute the next chapter. ^ Paradise Found, p. 323, quoting American Journal of Science, vol. xxi. CHAPTER IX. THE THIRD DAY (Continneci). In Chapter VI. reference was made to the fact that the moon always presents the same side to the earth. This seems to be a common phe- nomenon of the rotation of satelhtes around their primaries. If the same can be shown to be true of one or more of the planets of our system in the relation thereof to the sun, then surely it is possible that the earth may have revolved around the sun with the same side always presented thereto. In discussing the nebular hypothesis it was said that when the nebulous ring was detached from the central mass, it revolved in the same plane and about the same axial line as the cen- tral mass, and that when the ring collapsed and formed a spheroidal planetary body, it revolved in the same plane as before, but ui)on an axis of its own. This axis, therefore, would be per- pendicular to the plane of the orbit. Althongh such was the axial direction of the early planet- 13G THE THIKD DAY. 137 avy masses, no two of tliem are now alike as to the inclination of their axes to their respective orbits. This variety of inclination shows that they have been snbjeet to the power of gravita- tion and have assnmed their present j)ositions on account of their respective changes in the center of gravity. As their crusts have thick- ened and have been irregularly disposed in relation to their original centers of gravity, so losing the true spheroidal form, their protuber- ant or heavier sides have fallen toward the sun. Jupiter, the largest of the planets, and therefore presumably the least developed, has its axis of rotation nearly perpendicular to the plane of its orbit (3° .04'). Saturn, a smaller planet, and presumably more developed than Jupiter, has found its equilibrium at an angle of 26° 50' to the plane of its orbit. Venus is so near the sun that its rotation and the position of its axis can- not be easily determined, but Cassini, Bianchini, and Schroter said that its axis of rotation forms an angle of only 16° with the plane of its orbit. Professor Richard A. Proctor, the distin- guished astronomer, says, " The axis of Uranus lies very nearly in the plane wherein the planet moves around the sun." ■ The Eucydopccdia Britannica (ninth edition), a conservative authority, contains an interesting plate ^ showing at a glance the inclination of the ^ Guillemin's Ilea reus. - Article " Astrouomy." 138 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. axes of the several planets to their orbital planes. This plate I have taken the liberty of copying and inserting in this place. An examination will prove it to be very instructive. The page itself represents the orbital plane as viewed from a point perpendicularly above. It will be seen that the axis of the planet Uranus is represented as coincident with the orbital plane. If the poles of Uranus now lie in the plane of its orbit, so also the poles of the earth may once have been in the plane of its orbit, the ecliptic. If this one fact is conceded, the scientific accuracy of the first chapter of Genesis is practically es- tablished. Since the preceding paragraphs were written there have appeared two remarkable articles in current literature which are of great importance in this connection. The first was written by Schiaparelli, of the observatory of Milan, Italy, who is justly re- garded as one of the most eminent of astrono- mers.i It is entitled " Scenes in the Planet Mercury." 2 He says that a telescopic examination of Mer- 1 It was Schiaparelli who first descril)ed the canals (channels) of Mars. He also first announced that shooting-stars are the Avreckage of comets and follow the orbits of the comets respectively. - Popular Science Monthly^ vol. xxxvii., p. G4, a trans- lation from del ct Terre. o THE THIED DAY. 139 oury is very difficult. The little we have here- tofore known of this planet is derived from the observations made a hundred years ago by Schroter with the imperfect instruments of that time. Mercury describes a small orbit around the sun, and is never seen so far from it as to permit an observation in temperate latitudes in the full darkness of night. It can seldom be observed in the morning or evening twilight, as it is then so near the horizon and so affected by the agitation and unequal refraction of the lower strata of the atmosphere that it usually has in the telescope an uncertain and flaring aspect, which appears to the naked eye as a strong scintillation. The ancients therefore called it Stilhon, the scintillating star. Schiaparelli resorted to observations of this planet in broad daylight, in the immediate presence of the sun, and in a highly luminous atmosphere. Beginning these efforts in 1881, he became satisfied that valuable results (L'ould be thus obtained. In 1882 he began a regular study of the planet, and in the next eight years suc- ceeded in bringing his telescope to bear upon it several hundred times, often, indeed, with but little profit ; but by patience he has been able to see the spots upon the planet with more or less precision one hundred and fifty times, and to make fairly satisfactory drawings of them. He found its rotation very different from what had been supposed. Mercury revolves 140 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. around the sun in the same manner in which the moon revolves around the earth. As the moon always shows nearly the same face to the earth, so Mercury in traversing its orbit con- stantly presents nearly the same hemisphere to the sun — nearly, but not exactly the same, for, like the moon, it is sulgect to liljration. It con- stantly directs one of its diameters, not toward that focus of its elhptical orbit which is occupied by the sun, but toward the second focus. These foci are distant from each other about one-fifth of the whole diameter of the orbit. Hence the libration of the planet is enormous. The point which receives the rays of the sun vertically changes its position on the planet and performs an oscillatory movement along the equator 47° in amplitude, or through more than one-eighth of the equatorial circumference. The whole duration of this oscillation, back and forth, is equal to the time occupied by Mercury in traversing its orljit, or about eighty-eight terrestrial days. "Thus Mercury stands ori- ented toward the sun like a magnet toward a mass of iron ; but the orientation is not constant to the point of excluding a movement of oscil- lation to the east and to the west, like that which the moon presents to us." "This oscillation is of great importance for the physical condition of the planet. Suppose, for instance, that it did not exist, and that Mercury always turned the same heniisphere to THE THIED DAY. 141 the light and lieat of the sun, the other hemi- sphere remaining plunged in perpetual night. The point of the surface situated at the central pole of the illuminated hemisphere would have the sun eternally in the zenith ; the other points of the planet accessible to the solar rays would have the sun always at the same point in their horizon, at the same height, without any appar- ent movement,! without any perceptible change ; consequently, no alternation of day or night, no v^ariety of seasons, the stars eternally invisible because of the perpetual i^resence of the sun ; and, Mercury having no moon, we can hardly imagine how the inhabitants of those regions, condemned to an endless day, would find a means of regularly computing time." To an observer on the surface of the planet the oscillating movement would, of course, ap- pear to be of the sun itself, which apparently swings back and forth through an arc of 47° ; but the position of this arc in relation to the horizon is always the same. Thus, according to the j)osition of the observer, there is a variety of appearances, as also a difference in the distribution of light and heat. A por- 1 Althoiigli the period called '' the third day " was prior to the creation of man, yet it is a curious fact that " the Aztecs said that when the sun had risen for the first time, at the beginning, it lay on the horizon and moved not" {Pairiilise Found, p. 196, quoting Dor- man, Frhuiih'e Superstitions, p. 330). 142 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. tion equal to three-eighths of its surface has the arc of osciUation ahvays above the horizon, and that part, therefore, has perpetual sunshine, l)ut the obliquity of the sohir rays varies. Night is impossible there. Another region constitut- ing three-eighths of the surface of the planet has the arc of oscillation always below the hori- zon. There the sun never shines and the thick night is continual. The remaining quarter part of the surface has the arc of oscillation partly above and partly below the horizon, and so enjoys intervals of light and darkness. Organic life might exist upon a planet so constituted if there were an atmosphere capable of distributing heat into different regions so as to diminish the extremes of temperature. Schroter a hundred years ago suspected that Mercury had an atmosphere. Schiaparelli con- firms this view with much probability. The spots on the planet are more clearly visible in the central parts of the disk, and become dim- mer as they approach the border. Peculiarities of appearance seem explainable on the theory of the existence of clouds. The dark spots have a warm brown tint like sepia. The general color of the planet is a clear rose bordering on copper. The light and heat of the sun are more intense than on the earth. JMei-cury, by direct- ing the same face toward the sun during its whole revolution, is distinguished from the other planets, whose rotation has been determined and THE THIllD DAY. 143 which turn upon their axes in a few hours. This mode of rotation is unique among the planets, but is connnon among the satellites. Our moon has always conformed to it. Recent observations demonstrate that the fourth satel- lite of Jupiter moves in this way, and it is probable that the first three do also. Cassini has verified the same of Japhet, the eighth sat- ellite of Saturn. It may therefore be considered the rule among satellites, while it is an exception among the planets. The second article to which reference is made is a translation from Cosmos (Paris), of February 8, 1896,^ giving an account of observations of the planet Venus lately made by Tacchini, the director of the observatory at the College of Rome. It was formerly believed that Venus rotated upon its axis once in about twenty-four hours, like the earth. Several years ago Schiaparelli concluded from his observations that its rota- tion is once in two hundred and twenty-four days (which is its year), and that it always turns the same face to the snn, as the moon does to the earth. Tacchini confirms this opinion. The difficulty of observing Venus is because of its bright light and its dense atmosphere. But it is now determined that its rotation is extremely slow and prqbably equal to its side- real period of revolution. Well-defined, large 1 The Literary Digest, March 14, 189G. 144 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. spots, sliaped much like continental masses, have been discovered and watclied for hours. If the planet revolves on its axis in twenty-four hours of our time, these spots should move through a visual angle of 90° in six and one-quarter hours, and so change in appearance. In fact, however, these spots retain their position and identity of form through all that period, and hence it is proved that the planet does not appreciably rotate in that time. Tacchini has remarked that in the planets which have a dense atmosphere and a rapid rotation the dark and light cloud-bands are all parallel with each other, but at a right angle to the axis of rotation. Jupiter presents this ap- pearance most plainly. But in Venus tlie clouds are not in bands. They are very un- evenly distriljuted and often lie in the direction of the axis of the planet. This seems to prove that the rotation of Venus is extremely slow, and goes far to confirm the opinion that its axial and orbital movements are in equal times. Still more recently these opinions have re- ceived further confirmation. In December, 189G, Mr. Percival Lowell, who had been making ex- tensive observations at the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona, removed his telescope to Tacubaya, Mexico. This telescope is one of the largest in the world and has a magnifying ca- pacity of 2,000 diameters. Many observations of Venus and Mercury have been made and THE THIRD DAY. 145 sliown by sketches. These fully confirm his former deductions at Flagstaff. The planets rotate only once in the full course of orbital revolution around the sun, the faces thus turned toward that orb enjoying perpetual day, while the farther sides are wrapped in endless night Professor See, who has assisted in these ob, servations, writes in Popular Astroiwnii/ : ^ " Mr Lowell's recent observations of Venus and Mer. cury, and the important conclusions he has been enabled to draw from them, possess a very high interest for astronomers who are concerned with physical causes which have operated in past ages and thus shaped the phenomena now ob- served in the solar system." There is " definite observational proof that these two planets rotate once only in the course of their orbital motions about the sun, and thus show one hemisphere only toward that body. . . . The credit for tlie establishment of these important facts of ob- servation may be divided between the illustri- ous Italian astronomer, M. Schiaparelli, and Mr. Lowell ; the former being the first to re-examine the long-accepted but erroneous rotation jieriods of these planets, and to render the present re- sults highly probable; the latter being the first to furnish a decisive proof that no other periods than those of the sidereal revolutions could ac- count for the observed phenomena. . . . Lowell's ^ April, 1897, quoted iu The Literary Digest, April 24, 1897. 146 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. work on the physical features of Venus has also thrown much light on the general character of the planet's surface, and enabled us for the first time to construct a fairly accurate map of the hemisphere illuminated by the sun." It seems certain, therefore, that three of the planets of our system, and several (perhaps all) of the satellites, perforin their orbital journeys with the same hemisphere toward the sun, or toward the piimary, as the case may l^e. It is therefore possible and (from the evidence already presented) probable that the earth once moved in its orbit with its northern hemisphere con- tinually turned toward the sun. Herodotus mentions an old tradition of the Egyptians that the ecliptic was once perpendic- ular to the equator, and the Chaldeans also held the same opinion.^ "The Bushmen of South Africa have the strange idea that the sun did not shine on their country in the l)eginning. Only after the chil- dren of the first Bushmen had been sent up to the (northern I) top of the world, and had launched the sun, was light procured for this South African region" (Bushmen Folh-Jore). " A similar myth was found among the Austra- lian aborigines." - In order to show that the foregoing proposi- tions have seemed reasonable to more competent 1 CJiamhers's Encyclopedia, article "Ecliptic." - Paradise Found, p. 200. THE THIRD DAY. 147 thinkers, I deem it useful, before passing to au- otlier topic in this discussion, to refer to several writers who have propounded similar theories. Although this hypothesis is original with me, and was formed without any knowledge of the opinions of others on the subject, it has, in common with other theories, the essential idea of a change in the direction of the earth's axis of rotation. M Mangiu, in writing of the glacial period and its causes, says : " The most violent convulsions of the solid and liquid elements appear to have been themselves only the effects due to a cause much more powerful than the mere expansion of the pyrosphere, and it is necessary to recur, in order to explain them, to some new and bolder hypothesis than has yet been hazarded. Some philosophers have belief in astronomical revolutions, which may have modified its position in relation to the sun. They admit that the poles liave not always been as they are now, and that some terrible shock has displaced them, changing at the same time the inclination of the axis of rotation of the earth." Figuier (from whom this quotation is cited) continues : " This hj^othesis, which is nearly the same as that propounded by the Danish geologist Klee, has been al)ly develojDed by M. de Bourchepon. Accoi'ding to this writer, many multiplied shocks, caused by the violent contact of the earth with comets, produced the elevation of mountains, the displacement of seas, 148 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. and perturbations of climate — plienoniena which he ascribes to the sudden disturbance of the parallelism of the axis of rotation. The antediluvian equator, according to him, makes a right angle with the existing equator." ^ With the theories of these French philoso- phers I have no concern. I do not claim, as they do, that there was ever any actual change in the position of the equator or the axis of ro- tation, but simply that these were once in a different relation to the ecliptic. Among others who have argued for this change in the inclination of the earth's axis were Drayson, Bell, and \yarring. What their theories or arguments were I have no knowl- edge, as I have had no access to their writings. The last author whom I shall cite in this con- nection is Charles Kingsley, Canon of Chester, in whose charming book, Tonii Gcolor/i/, is this paragraph: "I should have liked to tell you more about this by-gone age of ice. I should have liked to say something to you on the curioiis question, which is still an open one, whether there were not two ages of ice ; whether the climate here did not, after perhaps thou- sands of years of Arctic cold, soften somewhat for a while (a few thousand years, perhaps), and then harden again into a second age of ice, somewhat less severe, probably, than the first. I should have liked to hint at the probable causes 1 The World before the Deluge, p. 388. THE THIED DAY. 149 of this change, mdeed of the age of ice alto- gether — whether it was caused by a change in the distribution of hxnd and water, or by a change in the height and size of these ishinds which made them large enough and high enough to carry a sheet of eternal snow inland ; or whether, finally, the age of ice was caused by an actual change in the position of the whole planet with regard to its orbit round the sun, shifting at once the poles and the tropics; a deep question, that latter, on which astrono- mers, whose business it is, are still at work, and on which, ere young folk are old, they will have discovered, I expect, some startling facts." This long day — one day, be it remembered — continued until the axis of the earth again changed its position relatively to the ecliptic, and would have continued until the present time but for great movements of the earth's crust, of which ample statement and proof will be given at the proper place in this discussion. This third day of the Creation comprised the geological periods known as the Silurian, Devo- nian, and Carboniferous ages, periods of vast duration, classed together under the general name of Paleozoic time.^ The immense dura- tion of these periods we can vaguely conceive of when we remember that in North America ^ " By the close of the Paleozoic, nine-tenths of all the rocks on the globe had been formed" {Manual of GeoJo(/i/, Dana, p. 413). 150 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. the thickness of the Silurian strata is 25,000 feet, of the Devonian about 14,400 feet, and of the Carl^oniferous nearly 10,000 feet ; making in all 55,400 feet, or more than 10 miles in thick- ness, all of sedimentary formation.^ ^ Text-book of Geology, Dana, p. 140. CHAPTER X. THE THIRD DAY (Concluded). *' And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yiekling seed, and the fruit tree \deld- iug 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, W'hose seed was in itself, after his kind : and God saw that it was good. "And the evening and the morning were the third day." We will now pass to a consideration of the second phenomenal event of "the tliird day," the appearance of vegetation. According to the Scriptures the first organic life upon the earth was vegetable. Superficial thinkers, observing that the Silurian age (or age of mollusks) and the Devonian age (or age of fishes) long ante- dated the Carboniferous age, have hastily con- cluded that the testimony of the rocks is that animal life preceded vegetable life. But such 151 152 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. is not the case. The most extreme statement wonld be that animal life and vegetable life were contemporaneous. In fact, however, there is no room for doubt. Vegetable life must have preceded animal life. The waters of the universal ocean in tlie period called in the Bible "the second day" were too heated and too heavily charged with impurities to support any organic life. No land had then appeared. The first traces of marine vegetable life are, however, distinctly seen in the very oldest fossiliferous strata and through- out all of them. Vegetable life must, as a matter of necessity, have preceded animal life. Vegetable life can endure more extreme conditions than ani- mal life. In the progressing refrigeration of the globe a temperature fit for vegetable life would have been reached before that which animal life could endure. Vegetation could thrive in an atmosphere charged with carbonic acid, which would be deadly to an ani- mal. Vegetation draws its sustenance directly from mineral matter and assimilates inorganic substances, while animals depend for food wholly ujDon organic substances (except water and salt). Professor Gray makes the statement, " All food is produced by plants." ^ All animal life rests upon vegetation as its base. Even animals which are wholly carnivorous are de- ^ Lessons in Bofani/, p. 3. THE THIED DAY. 153 pendent on vegetation for life, for the animals upon which they feed are herbivorous. From their lower position in the scale, plants are less instinct with life than animals. We know these facts independently of whatever geology may show of the conditions of ancient life. Nor do the facts of geology, in the least degree, conflict with these j)rinciples. Let us consider these facts. We must re- member that the sea is the mother of continents, and that, almost without exception, the fossil- iferous rocks are sediments deposited by the ocean. Hence aquatic species of plants were more likely to be preserved than those which grew upon dry land. The Silurian strata and much of the Devonian formation are deep ma- rine deposits. Hence the plants they contain are aJgc?, or sea-weeds. Professor Winchell, in summing up the evidence, says, " All things considered, we are led to believe that plant life had a history upon our earth a full epoch before the existence of the lowest animals." ^ I will briefly allude to some of the proofs of this statement. Not only do we find marine vegetable life fossilized in the Lower Silurian, while fishes first appear in the Upper Silurian ;- but even more highly organized plants than sea-weeds have been found in the Cambrian ^ SJcefches of Creation, Wiucliell, p. 61. ~ lu Europe, though uot until the Devonian in America. 154 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. rocks of Sweden and Wales. If we are re- minded of the Eozod)i canadense, the supposed foraniiniferous fossil of the Laurentian rocks/ we can make reply by referring to the beds of graphite which the same rocks contain and which rival in magnitude the coal-beds of later date. Everything indicates that they have been formed of vegetable tissues.- It seems by the purity of the deposits that they were not of marine origin. Anthracite is found in the azoic rocks of Norway. In Ireland, in the Lower Silurian strata, beds of anthracite are found from 1 to 12 feet in thickness, sufficiently inive to be used as fuel. They do not show distinct plant impressions, but must be of vegetable origin. Vegetable remains abound in the Upper Silurian and Devonian strata, though, of course, it is in the Carboniferous age that vegeta- tion reached its most profuse growth. Yet down in the very oldest strata vegetable re- mains are found, more or less abundantly, and " the existence of petroleum in considerable quantities even in gneissic strata proves con- clusively pre-azoic vegetation to have existed." In xVmerica the Potsdam period is the beginning of a system of life in geological history, and here ^ The most recent investigations make it doubtful if this fossil is a i-elie of animal life. - Graphite is known to l)e a common result of the exposure of mineral coal or charcoal to a liiti-h lieat, and is undoubtedly made up of vegetable remains. THE THIRD DAY. 155 we find sea-weeds and in some places even veins of coal. When land-plants first appeared, geology has not yet revealed. As they have no bony or very hard parts, it is not snrj^rising that fossils of them do not appear in the older rocks. They certainly wonld not be apt to be fonnd in the sediments of deep seas. They do not apjDcar at all in the Silnrian strata, but in the Devonian age land ti'ees of large size are found, and these are the first indication of land-plants. In the Chemung period of the Devonian age many land-plants appear. The European Dev^onian rocks yield, besides sea-weeds, land-plants of great variety, ferns, conifers, etc. In subjecting the eleventh and twelfth verses of the first chapter of Genesis to a critical and scientific examination, it is at once noticeable that the plants called into being were land- plants. Let us consider this fact in two as- pects. First, what kind of plants they were. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass." The marginal reading is teuder grass. The verb hriu() forth is dasha; the noun grass is deshe. Gesenius says that the primary meaning of this noun is "the first shoots from the earth." The verb means "to shoot forth." Gesenius trans- lates the noun " tender herbage." Young- translates the words, "cause to yield tender grass." " Tender heritage of any kind and how- ever simple will sufficiently correspond to the 156 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. word deslieP'^ "At the end of the Devonian period there were a 'green sward' upon the ground, and an abundance of herbs, and the lands were covered with forest-trees." - The next plants named in the Mosaic list are *' the herb yielding seed, and the fruit ti'ee yield- ing fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself." I now quote freely, with some abridgment, from Genesis and Geology (p. 75 et seq.), first pre- mising that an herb is defined as " a plant whose stems are not woody, and which dies altogether, or dies to the ground, after it has produced its seed, or at the api3roach of winter." The Bible speaks of " the herbs of this period, and also of the trees, as bearing seed. But it makes a dis- tinction as to the kinds of seed produced by the herb and the tree. It tells us of the herb simply that it yielded seed. But of the tree it tells us that it yielded fruit whose seed is in itself, that is, in the fruit. It would appear, therefore, that there was this difference between the seed of the herb and of the tree: that in the one there was to be seed tvitJiout fndf, and consequently which was not in a fruit ; whereas in the other there was to be fruit with seed in it. ' But,' it will be asked, ' is there now any such distinction in vegetable productions as plants which bear seed without fruit, and others which bear fruit with seed in the fruit!' We answer, ^ Genesis and Geology, p. 74. 2 Ibid, p. 77. THE THIllD DAY. 157 this distinction does now exist. It marks the two great divisions of plants known as crj^to- gams and phenogams.^ Cryptogams are, as the name implies, plants which have the organs of fruitfulness concealed. Of this sort are ferns, ground-pines, Equisetacece, etc. These yield the naked seeds only, seeds which are commonly called ' spores ' ; and although entirely different from all our ordinary seeds, in being destitute of that fleshy matter which we find in almost all kinds of garden-seeds and seeds of fruit- trees, still they are really seeds, inasmuch as from them the plants are propagated. But almost all our ordinary plants are j)henogams, that is, plants whose organs of fruitfulness are apparent. But are there among phenogams trees yielding fruit whose seed is in the fruit I " All phenogamous trees are such. They bear nuts of various kinds, or fleshy fruits' having inclosed seeds; for, botanically speaking, the fruit of a plant is that which ripens from the blossom, and this term includes the seed-vessel and its contents. The seed-vessel in some j^lants has a fleshy covering and in others it has not. Considering that the earlier geological forma- 1 I must here interject the remark that these are the two grand divisions into which Linnaeus first classi- fies plants. He lived in the middle of the eighteenth century, yet in this classification of plants he was anticipated l\y Moses, who lived three thousand two hundred and fifty years before him. 158 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. tions were of marine origin, and that as late as the Carboniferous age the vegetatioii which be- came fossihzed was such as flourished in swamps and river estuaries, it is obvious that we are not to look for fruit-trees of an advanced type in the fossil remains of "the third day." "We are to look for herbs having spores for seeds, and full-grown trees, somewhat of the type of the walnut and hickory, with fruit whose seed is in the fruit." " Were the vege- table productions of the earth at that time divided into those two classes — herbs bearing seed only, that is, cryptogams; and fruit-trees with fruit whose seed was in the fruit! They were. For a long time, even to the end of the Silurian age, and perhaps afterward, cryptogams were the only kinds of plants in existence. There were no trees in the Silurian age, but there were small herbaceous plants of various kinds, and without exception they were crypto- gams, that is, herbs yielding seed (spores). In the Devonian age, however, fruit-trees appeared. They were of two classes: Lcjjidodoidra, that is, trees marked with scales on their bark ; and conifers, that is, trees allied to our modern spruces and pines. Both of these classes of trees bore fruit. And the fruit was such as had its seed in itself." Secondly, these verses, strictly interpreted, show that only land-plants were called into existence at this time. " And God said, Let the THE THIED DAY. 159 earth bring forth grass," etc. He does not say, as in verse 20, " Let the ivaters bring forth." The word for earth is erets^ and it is strictly defined for us in the next preceding verse, " And God called the dry land Earth" (erets). There- fore this passage means, " Let the dry land bring forth grass," etc. It is thus apparent that this passage does not refer to marine plants at all ; and if so, there is nothing in the Scripture nar- rative to indicate the creation of marine plants. Does the Bible make any reference to sea-weeds anywhere! This may seem at first a puzzling question, but a few minutes' investigation will show that it does. In the prayer of Jonah oc- curs this passage : " For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about : all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me al)Out, even to the soul : the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the moun- tains; the earth with her bars was about me forever." ^ Here the word for weeds is suph; but this word is not contained in the creative fiat. This Scripture is also of very great interest because it is the first reference in the Bible to created life. Up to this point all matter was inorganic, but now organic matter appeared ^ Joiiali ii. 3-6. 160 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. also. Between these two forms of matter there is a great gulf of mystery. What is life 1 Who can tell! Whether vegetable life or animal life, it is beyond comprehension. We know the phe- nomena of life, and our consciousness reveals to us our own individual life; but in what life consists we are ignorant. The defiiiitions which wise men have given show how utterly inde- finable it is. Eicheraud's definition of life is, "A collection of phenomena which succeed each other during a limited time in an organized body." But this is equally true of a dead body and a living body. De Blainville says, " Life is the twofold internal movement of composition and decomposition, at once general and continu- ous." But this applies as well to a galvanic battery as to a living body. Herbert Spencer in 1852 defined life as "the co-ordination of actions," but himself says that this definition would apply to the solar system. He later gave as a definition of life : " The definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external co-existences and sequences." ^ He again says, " The broadest and most complete definition of life will be, the continuous adjustment of inter- nal relations to external relations."- Chamhers^s Encyclopedia says, " One of the latest definitions of life is that which has been suggested by Mr. ^ Cliamhers's Encydopeilia, article " Life." 2 Principles of Bioloyy, § 30. THE THIRD DAY. IGl Gr. H. Lewes : * Life is a series of definite and successive changes, both of structure and com- position, which take place within an individual without destroying its identity.' This is per- haps as good a definition as has yet been given." ^ Oliver Wendell Holmes has, however, I think, given a better one : " Life is the state of an or- ganized being in which it maintains, or is ca- pable of maintaining, its structural integrity by the constant interchange of elements with the surrounding media." '^ " If we seek for the origin of life in material conditions we are baffled from the very start. Throughout the history of its development on our planet there is not a single fact to show life to be the result of chemical action, or of any combined activity of the forces of the inorganic world. Carefully conducted experi- ments have dissipated forever the dream of spontaneous generation. Everywhere life is begotten of life, and so far as human research has gone, life only can beget life ; and we are forced to recognize it as the manifestation of a power above and behind all the elements, forces, and conditions of the material world. Light, heat, magnetism, electricity, and chemical affin- ity were all active upon our globe ages before life appeared, and when life came, a new king- 1 Chamhers's Encyclopedia, article '' Life." 2 Century Dictionary, "Life," quoting Old Volume of Life, p. 201. 162 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. dom was born and a new world of marvelous possibilities opened into being." ^ We do not know what life is. It is not strange that we cannot define it. Chemistry cannot analyze it. The dissecting-knife cannot discover it. Of all the mysteries of creation, life is the greatest. Plant life is less mysterious than animal life because the organism is simpler and the phe- nomena fewer. The chief characteristic differ- ence between plant and animal life is that plants have no indication of mind or feeling, while animals have mind, as shown by sensation, volition, and other evidences of intelligence. Gray says that the most absolute difference is that vegetables are nourished by the mineral kingdom, while animals are nourished entirely by vegetables.2 i^ other words, plants live upon inorganic matter, but animals upon or- ganic matter. He therefore concludes that the great use of plants is to take portions of the earth and air, upon which animals cannot sub- sist at all, and to convert these into something upon which animals can subsist. This process is indeed most wonderful. Inert matter, utterly devoid of life, is seized upon by a plant-germ. Presently it becomes wholly different from what it was before and has new properties and powers. It builds a structure. 1 The Way, the Truth, and the Life, J. H. Dewey, M.D. 2 Lessons in Botany, p. 2. THE THIRD DAY. 1G3 It forms itself into organs and performs func- tions of various kinds. It has passed from tlie mineral kingdom and has become a part of the vegetable kingdom. Presently it is seized by an animal and is incorporated into an animal body. Now it feels. It enjoys. It suffers pain. It is endowed with mind. It has passed from the realm of vegetable life into the animal kingdom. The bread which is on my table to- day, a little while ago was wheat, swaying in the summer wind and sucking up the moisture of a decomposing soil; to-morrow it Avill be fashioned into a living tissue and form a part of my body and obey the behests of my soul. A chief characteristic of life is its self -preserv- ing power and its ability to reproduce itself in- definitely. Another is the automatic character of its functions. Suppose a man should tell me that he had an engine, no larger than a lady's thimble, which, being placed in the midst of water and fuel, would automatically supply itself therefrom in proper quantities and keep itself clear of waste products; would regulate itself and operate without any supervision; would work night and day for years, without a moment's interruption; would keep itself in perfect repair, and, while performing its work, would automatically produce a thousand engines like itself, each having the same powers and functions as itself. How could I believe such a statement? But if he should take from his 164 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. pocket an acorn, and should tell me that his Father made it, and that it would do all these ■wonderful things, I should recognize the entire truthfulness of his words. How wonderful a machine, then, is a seed ! It may lie dormant for years, but when it finds itself in its proper environment its activity begins and it goes through its career of plant life. Grains of maize found in the tombs of the Incas have been made to vegetate ; ^ and also, it is said, grains of wheat taken from Egyptian mummies — although of this there is some doubt. But, whenever the seed does germinate, it always yields " fruit after his kind,^^ to use the quaint but expressive Scripture language {niin, kind, species). There is never any variation. " Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." "Can the fig-tree, my brethren, bear olive-berries? either a vine, figs?" He who made all things, and without whom was not any thing made that was made, himself said, " Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? " " After his kind." Here is taught the persist- ence of species, indefinite reproduction, but of the same kind. How one seed differs from an- other cannot be explained. Out of the same soil, at the same time, under the same circum- stances, one seed will form a starch and another an oil ; one will distill a poison and another a food ; one will extract one kind of dye and an- 1 Chambers's Encyclopedia, article " Seed." THE THIRD DAY. 165 other a different color. Each has its individu- ality and maintains it persistently. In " the third day " I include the Carbonifer- ous age, a period of vast duration. During that time the climate was moist, warm, and equable, even to the Arctic regions. It may be thought that with the earth in the position described, its north pole directed constantly toward the sun, the solar heat would be insufferable. Perhaps it would, but this was before the hu- man period, and indeed before the existence of any land-animals whatever. In speaking of the moon. Sir John Herschel said that if any moist- ure exists upon that body it must be in a con- tinual state of migration from the illuminated or hot to the unilluminated or cold side of the lunar globe.^ The hot side of the moon proljably has a temperature of 300° F., and the cold side 200° below zero.- In like manner, if the earth was formerly in that position, there would have been a continual rising of vapor from the sea and a continual movement of the vapor from the northern hemisphere to the southern. The con- ditions of the atmosphere were not favorable for rain, but the air was heavily charged with moist- ure, and the heat must have been excessive and uniform. This seems to fully explain the mean- ing of that very perplexing passage. Genesis ii. 4-6 : " These are the generations of the heavens 1 The Moon, Nasmyth and Carpenter, p. 54. 2 Ihid., p. 56. 166 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and ev^ery phxnt of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew : for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." " Geologists are of the opinion, and expressly affirm, that the rank growth of this period was in great part due also to the humidity of the atmosphere, which, they say, characterized this age." " Dana, speaking of the causes that pro- moted the growth of vegetation in the Carbonif- erous era, says : ' The atmosphere was more moist than now. It must have been an era of prevailing clouds and mists.'' In like manner, Le Conte mentions the moisture of the period as a physical condition extremely favorable to vegetation. But why do clouds and mists so favor vegetation I Must it not be because plants imbibe moisture from the atmosphere ! ... Is it not a fact that all plants of the garden and of the field are greatly revived by the dews which fall upon their surface during the night! These dews scarcely reach the roots of the plant. Is it not plain, tlien, that they drink it in over their whole surface ! . . . Humboldt maintains that trees extract moisture from the atmosphere by means of their leaves, even when there is THE THIRD DAY. 167 neither rain nor dew. He says : ' The agreeable and fresh A^erdure which is observed in many trees in districts within the tropics, where for five or seven months of the year not a elond is seen on the vanlt of heaveu, and where no per- ceptible dew or rain falls, proves that the leaves are capable of extracting water from the at- mosphere by a peculiar vital process of their own.'"^ Doubtless the main purpose of this long period of rank vegetation just prior to the advent of terrestrial life was to purify the atmos- phere, to adapt it to the air-breathing animals about to be ushered into being. This was the period of coal-making. " The vast beds of coal represent so much carbonic acid once present in the air," " It has often been suggested that during the Carboniferous period the atmosphere must have been warmer and with more aqueous vapor and carbonic acid in its composition than at the present day, to admit of so luxuriant a flora as that from which the coal-seams were formed."- In fact the earth's atmosphere was heavily charged with carbonic acid. Coal is composed of carbon to the extent of 82.6 per cent. All this carbon was taken out of the at- mosphere by the rank vegetation of the Carbon- iferous age. When we think of the enormous quantities of coal consumed in the past century ^ Genesis and Geology, p. 94. 2 Encyclopmdia Britannica (ninth edition), article " Geology." 168 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. and consider the vast quantities now remaining, — reckoned by the commissioners in Great Brit- ain to be not less than 146,480,000,000 tons in the British Isles alone, — and remember that the coal- beds of the world exceed in area 322,321 square miles of unknown thickness, and then attempt to realize that all this solidified carbon once existed in the attenuated form of a gas and was a constit- uent part of the common atmosphere (which now contains only yo o of 1 per cent, of carbonic acid), we may vaguely conceive of the immensity of that period in which these deposits were stored up for the use of man. And we must not forget that these coal-beds are the remains of such vegetation only as grew in marshes and low- lands, where it could decompose under water; for vegetation on dry land could not be formed into coal, and would in centuries produce nothing more than a thin layer of mould upon the earth. The economic uses of coal have made it one of the chief factors in the civilization of man- kind. Without it, so far as we can now see, there could have been little communication of nations with one another and but a limited in- terchange of the products of different climes. Commerce and manufactures have been greatly stimulated by the use of coal, and thus material wealth and human comfort have been increased. These beneficent results, foreseen by the Crea- tor, doubtless entered into his purj)oses and plans. THE THIKD DAY. 169 The long ages of "the third clay," however, at length passed away. As " the second da}^," though of immense duration, was shorter than the first, so " the third day," though of immense duration, was shorter than the second. But that third day would not even yet have ended but for a phenomenon of most important character which was the great event of " the fourth day." CHAPTER XI. THE FOURTH DAY. " And God said, Let there be lights in the firma- ment of the heaven to divide the day from the night ; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years : ''And let them be for lights in the fii-mament of the heaven to give light upon the earth : and it was so. ''And God made two greatlights ; thegreater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night : he made 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. "And the evening and the morning were the fourth day." It lias been a favorite objection with skepties that, by the Bible cosmogony, the sun, moon, and stars were not created until " the fourth day," while light was created upon " the first day " ; 170 THE FOUETH DAY. 171 and also that vegetable life appeared on "tlie tliird day," tlioiigli the sun was not yet made; and it has been said, almost with the force of aii axiom, that there could have been no light with- out the sun,i and no vegetable life without sun- hght. It has already been shown, on the best scientitic authority, that light did appear long before the sun was formed, and in discussing the events of "thethirdday" I have repeatedly stated that throughout the entire Silurian, DeVonian, and Carboniferous ages the sun shone continu- ously upon the northern hemisphere of the earth It IS evident, therefore, that these old-time ob- jections do not affect the present theory. Let us attend first to the exegesis of this pas- sage. This Scripture does not declare that the sun, moon, and stars were created on "the fourth day." The word made here used does not signify creation, 1)ut preparation or arrangement. The word for made is asah, which is never translated "created" anywhere in the Old Testament, al- though a word of very frequent occurrence.^ It is generally translated " made," as in this passage ; for example, "They made coats of fine linen" (Exod. xxxix. 27). It is translated " dressed " in fourteen passages; for example, he "took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him " (2 Sam. xii. 4) ; Mephiboshetli had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his ^ Olsus, Voltaire, Thomas Paine. - Genesis and Geologi/, p. 85. 172 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. beard" (2 Sam. xix. 24). In thirty-two instances it is translated "prepared"; for example, " She gave the savoury meat and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob " (Gen.xxvii. 17) ; " He prepared him chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him" (1 Kings i. 5) ; " Let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him" (Esth. v. 4). It is the word used in Genesis i. 7 : " And God made the firmament." As we have already shown, he did not create the firmament, — that is, did not make it out of nothing, — but rather arranged a firmament, operating upon aqueous matter already existing, and dividing it so that a part of it was in one place and a part of it in another, with a firma- ment or expanse between. So here, the sun, moon, and stars, which had been created long before, were now arranged or put into a new relation with the earth. The meaning of the passage is indicated in Jeremiah xxxi. 35 : "Thus saitli the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night." The sun was to rule the day — that is, regulate the day, determine the day, set the boundaries of the day, as it never had done in all the history of the earth before. The sun, moon, and stars were on " the fourth daj^" appointed "to divide the day from the night " and to rule over them. " He appointed the moon for seasons : the sun knoweth his going THE FOUETH DAY. 173 down " (Ps. civ. 19). In Genesis i. 17 the word set is nathan. This word is of frequent occur- rence. The fol lowing passage is best suited to my purpose — 2 Chronicles xxxii. 5, 6 : he " re- paired Millo in the city of David, and made darts and shields in abundance. And he set captains of war over the people." Before " the fourth day," when the luminaries were thus set or ap- pointed for this purpose, there had never been any regularly occurring division between night and day. There had been no time-measure and no change of relative position between the earth and the sun. The annual circuit of the earth in its orbit brought no alternation of seasons or temperature, no change from light to darkness, nor from darkness to light. This Scripture does not declare that the stars were made on " the fourth day " — for notice, in the clause " he made the stars also," the words he made are supplied by the translators, who in their generation supposed such a statement to be scientifically true.^ The sentence seems to mean he made the lesser light and the stars also to rule the night.2 We are distinctly taught in the Holy ^ The Douay Version, in this and some other pas- sages, has a better rendering : " And God made two great lights, a gi-eater light to rule the day : and a lesser light to rule the night : and the stars." 2 " To him that made great hghts : . . . The sun to rule by day: . . . The moon and stars to rule by niftht." Ps. exxxvi. 7-9. 174 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. Scriptures, in a passage of wondrous beauty and power, that the stars were in existence long before tins period in time. God himself speaks, as he answers Job out of the whirlwind and says, " Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge ? Gird uji now thy loins like a man ; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened ? or who laid the corner stone thereof ; W^hen the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joyl"^ The spa- cious depths were peopled with glorious orbs of light while yet "the earth was without forni, and void." The stars were indeed created, but it was "in the beginning," when "God created the heaven and the earth." Mark the order, " the heaven and the earth." Now let us inquire how any change could have ])een made by which the sun, moon, and stars could become measurers of terrestrial time " to divide the day from the night." The answer is simple, though the fact is so stupendous. It was simply by changing the direction of the earth's axis of rotation. I do not say changing the axis itself, but its direction as related to the ecliptic — so that it was no longer coincident with 1 Job xxxviii. 1-7. POSITION OF THE EARTH IN THE MESOZOIC AGE. THE FOURTH DAY. 175 the plane of the echptic, but inclined at an angle thereto. As soon as that was done, the impor- tant results followed which the sacred text re- cords in grand and simple words. The axis of the earth at the present time in- clines to the ecliptic, or j^lane of the earth's orbit, at an angle of (jQ^°. For reasons here- after given it is probable that on "the fourth day " the angle of inclination was somewhat less. Any considerable inclination would accomplish the result indicated in the Scriptures. Let us i3ause briefly to admire the wisdom and simplicity of this arrangement. By it was secured at once the alternation of day and night in the jieriod of each rotation of the earth upon its axis ; but an equally important result was the alternations of the seasons, as the earth pre- sented first its northern and then its southern side to the sun. The succession of the dry and rainy seasons within the tropics, and of spring, summer, autumn, and winter in the two tem- perate zones now began, and thus the earth be- came suited to the wants of man, so soon to be placed upon it. The Hebrew for signs is otJt, which is a word having a well-defined meaning of pledge, token, or proof, and it frequently occurs in the Old Tes- tament. A familiar instance of its use is its reference to the signs wrought by Moses in the Egyptian plagues. It is, of course, only a ver- bal coincidence and probably of no important 176 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. signification that the word signs also denotes the twelve i:)arts of the ecliptic or zodiac. Now, for the first time, did the sun make its path along the signs of the zodiac. As seen from the earth, the sun apparently moves through the celestial spaces of these signs. These twelve divisions are designated by the several constel- lations of stars, known as Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn us, Aquarius, and Pisces. In Aries is the vernal equinox and in Libra the autumnal. In Cancer is the summer solstice and in Capri- cornus the winter solstice. It is true, indeed, that by the precession of the equinoxes the signs have become separated in the course of time about 30° from the constellations whose names they respectively bear; but the essential fact remains that the ecliptic is a great dial-plate, divided into twelve spaces, and as the sun performs its circuit around the zodiac it marks off the twelve divisions or months of the year. While the diurnal revolution of the earth upon its axis gives the sequence of day and night, the annual or orbital movement of the earth causes the change of seasons, and so our globe completes in one year its journey around the sun. Thus the signs mark off the divisions of the rolling year. "For seasons." For what else has God inclined the earth's axis to its orbit, if not to give the variation of tem- perature to the earth and to cause the vicissi- THE FOURTH DAY. 177 tilde of the seasons in tlieii* order? " For days, and years." How else could lie obtain these re- sults, without at the same time destroying the round of the seasons ? " And the evening and the morning were the fourth day." How long was that day ? Twenty- three hours, fifty-six minutes, and four and nine-tenth seeonds,^ the period of one diurnal revolution of the earth upon its axis, the sum of one alternation of darkness and light. I adhere to the same definition of day through- out this discussion — a period of one alternation of darkness and light; but now, for the first time in the history of the earth, such an alter- nation occupied but twenty-four hours. The alternation of the seasons depends not only upon the inclination of the earth's axis to the ecliptic, but also upon the constant paral- 1 As the length of the day has not varied so much as one one-hnndredth part of a second since the time of Hipparohus (200 B.C.), it is reasonable to believe that it has been invariable ever since the axis of the earth has been inclined at an angle to the ecliptic. Recently, however, astronomers have thought that the ocean tides, which move around the earth in a direction opposite to that of its rotation, may, by their friction, be gradually retarding the earth's rotation, and thus lengthening the day somewhat ; but if so, the variation in the past twenty-five hundred years has not, at the most, increased the length of the day more than one sixty-sixth of a second. 178 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. lelism of tlie axis in whatever paii of its orbit the earth may be. During "the third day," I have said, the north pole was always turned toward the sun. The earth's axis was then in the plane of the ecliptic, and the circles of its rotation were perpendicular to that plane. The centripetal force of gravitation was drawing the earth toward the sun, wdiile the centrifugal force was impelling it in an angular direction from the sun. The resultant of these two forces carried the earth forward in the direction of its orbit. While the centrifugal force is constant, the centripetal force is continually and regularly varying in intensity ; hence, by the familiar law of dynamics, the orbit is nec- essarily elliptical, having the sun for one of its foci ; and by Kepler's second law we know that the earth, when moving toward its perihelion, or nearer the sun, will move wit.li an increasing velocity, and when moving toward its aphelion, or farther from the sun, will move with a de- creasing velocity. Now consider these central forces as applied to the eartli, rotating upon an axis coincident with the plane of the ecliptic, and wdth its northern hemisphere gravitating toward the sun. The eartli would have a motion of trans- lation along its orbit, but the centripetal force would always be exerted in the line of the axis, while the centrifugal force would act in a direc- tion at a right angle to the axis; or, stating the a. Centripetal Forces. b. Centrifugal Forces. N North Pole. S. South Pole. The Position of the Earth in its orbit in Paleozoic Time. a Centripetal Forces. b. Centrifugal Forces. '^^^ N. North Pole. The Position of the Earth in its orbit in Mesozoic Time. THE FOUKTH DAY. 179 same fact differently, tlie orbital velocity of the earth "would be resolvable into two component forces, one in the direction of the earth's axis toward the sun, and the other at a right angle to the axis — but both these forces would be in the same plane, that is, in the plane of the eclip- tic. These central forces are conceived by the mathematician as ap- plied at the earth's cen- ter of gravity. In this diagram the circle is intended to represent q the earth, the solid ver- tical line the earth's axis, the page itself the plane of the ecliptic, the dotted line a the centripetal force, and the dotted line h the centrifugal force. The arrow-heads indicate the direction of the forces. The resultant of these two forces is the orbital movement in the direction of the dotted line c. It is apparent that if a line is drawn from the earth's center of gravity to the center of the sun it will be the line in which the centripetal force is ex- erted, and also the line of the earth's axis. As these lines are exactly coincident, the north pole would always be directed toward the sun, in whatever part of its orljit the earth might be. Hence there could be no alternation of seasons, nor of day and night. The sun, as seen from 180 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. the north pole of the earth, would always appear in the zenith, while from the earth's equator the sun Avould appear in the northern horizon, but would not move its position. But as soon as the earth's center of gravity- was changed, the axis of the earth was inclined to the ecliptic. This turning changed the direc- tion of the axis with reference to the central forces. Neither of the central forces now coin- cides with the axis of rotation ; but at the points of equinox the centrifugal force, for an instant, is in the vertical plane of the axis ^ or in a plane parallel thereto, and at the points of solstice the centripetal force, for an instant, is in the vertical plane of the axis or in planes parallel thereto. Except at these four instants the central forces are always at an angle with the vertical plane of the axis. These forces act and react upon each other and bear the earth along, as before, in an elliptical orbit, but cannot disturb its equipoise. Thus the axis of rotation is wholly unaffected by these forces, in whatever position in its orbit the earth may be. The equatorial velocity of the earth is not less than 1,040 miles an hour, and the rotation of so groat a mass, at so great a rate, insures the stability of the earth's axis and its constant parallelism. This stability and parallelism of the axis of rotation are well illus- ^ The plane here meant is a plane at a right angle with the plane of the ecliptic and coincident with the entire length of the axis of the earth. THE FOUETH DAY. 181 trated by the gyroscope, a paradoxical toy, the mathematics of whose movements presents a profound problem for explanation. When the earth assumed this position, the sun rose in the east and set in the west, and performed its circuit in twenty-four hours. Now let us turn to Grod's other book, written on the rocky tablets of the earth's crust, and see if we can there find any evidence of so great and important a change, and if so, how and when it occurred. Surely the evidence can- not be lacking on that historic page, if such an event took place. If it is true, that the change in the direction of the earth's axis with relation to the ecliptic was made at the conclusion of the Permian pe- riod of the Carboniferous age, then the fifth and sixth days of the Mosaic cosmogony must have been at or near the beginning of the Mesozoic,i the first of whose divisions is the Trias. The Mes- ozoic epoch is remarkable as the era of the first mammals, the first birds, the first common or osseous fishes, and also of the first forms of sev- eral kinds of vegetable life. Dana writes r " The steps of progress in the life of the globe, as the Mesozoic era opened in the Triassic period, were especially important. The storing away as coal of the excess of atmospheric carbon had purified the atmosphere, and soon after the Paleozoic ^ Meaning " middle life." '^ Manual of Geologi/, p. 429. 182 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. time we find higlier races breathing the better air." An English writer states:^ "Between the organisms of the Permian- and Triassie periods there exists a more striking difference than is to be found between those of any previous periods. Looking at this life character, the rocks from the Permian downward have been grouped together under the title of Paleozoic,^ while from the Trias upward the whole of the strata have re- ceived the name of Neozoic." ^ Speaking of the close of the Paleozoic time, Dana says : "The extermination of life wliieh took place at the time was one of the most extensive in all geological history, and must have been in consequence of great physical changes j^rogress- ing over the earth's surface. No fossils of Car- boniferous formation occur in the later rocks." ^ Figuier says : " Those geological commotions which called forth, not over the whole extent of the earth, but only in certain places, great movements of the soil, would appear to have been more frequent toward tlie close of this [Permian] epoch, and especially at the moment which formed, as it were, the passage between the Permian and Triassie periods." " ^ Cltamhers's Unci/rlopedid, article "Paleontology." - The latest period of the Carboniferous age. ^ Meaning " ancient life." ^ Meaning " new life." ^ Tejt-hoolx of Geology, p. 157. c The World before the Dehuje, p. 161. THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE. By holding the page so that the light will pass through it, the position of Antipodal Lands will be seen. THE FOURTH DAY. 183 Ha\ang thus indicated the great change be- tween Paleozoic and Mesozoic time, let ns con- sider its cause. It was due to a change in the center of the earth's gravity. The former equi- librium was disturbed by new movements in the earth's crust. While the mass of the earth was the same, not being increased in weight, yet this crust was now differently disj)osed, and portions of the southern hemisphere protruded, causing that side of the earth to gravitate somewhat toward the sun — thus deflecting the line of the earth's axis from the plane of the ecliptic and inclining it at an angle thereto. The crust of the southern hemisphere duriug these ages of intense and continuous cold had thickened and cooled more rapidly than that of the northern hemisphere, and the great folds and wrinkles of the ocean-bed of the South Pacific were up- heaved. Accompanying this change in the center of gravity was a change in the level of the sea, and a great volume of water — re-ad- justing itself to these new circumstances — was transferred from the northern to the southern hemisphere. New lands protruded and emerged from the southern ocean, notably southern Africa and the continent of Australia.' Professor Dana, in discussing the peculiarity of the Australian coal-beds, says that from the ^ By examining the map on the opposite page it will be seen to what part of the noi'thern hemisphere these lands are antipodal. 184 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. fossil contents there found it is evident that they contain a Triassic assemblage of sj^ecies. In view of all the facts he concludes that these coal-beds represent the Triassic period. The peculiar flora of the Carboniferous age, he says, is lacking.^ This is an important piece of testimony. If the peculiar flora of the Carboniferous age is lacking, that continent had not emerged from the sea in Paleozoic time. If the flora and fauna there found are Triassic, this portion of the Australian continent emerged from the sea in the Triassic period. In his last edition of the Manual of Geology he says that Australia is a Triassic continent — a fragment of the Triassic world. Its surface rocks are to a large extent Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic. And, too, he notices that the conditions prevailing in that continent and in the other lands of the southern hemisphere afford a strong argument for considering that the Permian period should not be united to the Carboniferous, but to the Triassic, into which it blends. Indeed, the movements in the south- ern hemisphere were not concurrent with those of the northern, but were more or less independ- ent; and owing to this, the boundary closing Paleozoic time, which is strongly marked in the geological history of Europe and America, can- ^ Manual of Geology, Dana, p. 443. THE FOUETH DAY. 185 not be satisfactorily defined in the southern hemisphere.^ This rising of the Triassic strata in Austraha was synchronous with a general uplift of the ocean-bed of the southern Pacific. The Trias- sic strata have also been found in great force in the geological formations of South Africa, which have been determined with much accuracy.- Sir Roderick Murchison has pointed out that the older rocks which are known to circle around the continent of Africa unquestionably included an interior marshy or lacustrine coun- try, and that the present center zone of waters, whether lakes, rivers, or marshes, is but the great modern residual phenomena of those of a Mes- ozoic age.^ This author states that the geology of South Africa is unique. No fossils are found save of species now living in that region. The rocks are of the Secondary (that is, the Mesozoic) age, and have never since been submerged.^ I do not mean to assert that it was these Tri- assic protrusions in the southern hemisphere which alone changed the equilibrium of the earth (for Triassic strata of equal or even 1 Manual of Geology^ Dana (fourth edition), pp. 406, 632, 797. 2 Sell em. ^ Encijclojxedia Britannica (ninth edition), article " Africa." * American Encyclopedia, article " Africa." 186 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. greater extent are found north of the equator), but rather infer fi'oni these southern forma- tions a general development of the earth's crust in that hemisphere, and vast movements of it from and after this time. For ages the sun never shone on the southern hemisphere. It was enwraj)ped in a perpetual winter. lee prevailed even to the equator. The constant cold, continuing perhaps for centuries, must have had the effect of refrigerating the earth's crust more rapidly in the southern hemisphere than in the northern, where the sun's heat was intense and unceasing. Whereas in the kSHu- rian and Devonian ages in the northern hemi- sphere the earth's crust north of the equator was heavier than the crust south of the equa- tor, the southern crust had become, by the time of the Triassic period, sufficiently thick and dense to weigh down that side of the earth and to lift the northern side ; or, in other words, to change the direction of the earth's axis from being coincident with the plane of the ecliptic to being at an angle thereto. In Chapter VIII. reference was made to the "unanswered query," stated recently by Dana, why the mineral ingredients of the earth's crust should have been so gathered about the south pole as to give a greater density to the solid ma- terial beneath the southern ocean. The theory just given offers a reasonable and sufficient ex- planation, which, however, is elaborated by the y^- A //" b / /' -3»^- -c V a: V^ ^: K THE FOURTH DAY. 187 diagrams on the opposite page. In these figures tlie arrows indicate the plane of the eehi^tie and the direction toward the sun. The circle is a metallic disk representing the earth. AB is a glass tube, having closed ends and secured upon the disk. The disk with its tube is mounted on a proper support by trunnions, C, at the geomet- ric center. Suppose this tube to be two-thirds fiUed with water. The space occupied by water is marked a and the air-space in the tube is marked h. In Fig. 1 the level of the water is parallel with the upper and lower sides of the tul)e. The apparatus is now evenly balanced and the tube is horizontal It is evident that any weight or change of leverage, however slight, applied at either end of the tube, will destroy this horizontal balance. Suj3pose now a piece of metal, marked x in Fig. 2, and shaped like a lune or crescent,^ is affixed to the disk in the po- sition indicated in Fig. 1 by dotted hues. The re-ult will be that the weighted side of the disk will fall to the position shown in Fig. 2, and the tube will be vertical. The level of tlie water will be one-third below the top end of the tube. In the position of the disk, shown in Fig. 2, however, it is e^ddent tliat a lune of the same size and weight as x, if applied to the upper portion of the disk, diametrically opposite the lune X, would not be sufficient to carry back the 1 Of course, a piece of any other form, may be used, but I prefer to preserve the chcular form. 188 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. disk and its tube to their former position ; but that, to effect any change in their position, a much larger or heavier hme than x must be apphed, and also that it must be applied in an angular direction, as indicated by the dotted lines in Fig. 2. Suppose, therefore, that such a lune, marked ^, be so attached, as in Fig. 3. The result will be that the disk will turn, and the tube will be tipped so as to be in the angu- lar direction there shown. If we consider the lune z as representing the protruding portion of the southern crust of the earth, and the lune X the protruding portion of the northern crust, we see not only that the former is thicker than the latter, but also why it must be so in order to change the direction of the earth's axis.^ If Fig. 1 is understood as representing the position of the earth in the Azoic age. Fig. 2 ^ This apparatus employs a tube partially filled wdth water, which serves as a shifting weight. lu fact, however, the earth was, in " the second day," a per- fect spheroid, covered with a universal ocean. As a spheroidal apparatus mth a liquid covering is not avail- able, I have used this simpler form ; but the principle involved in tlie movements is the same. It is true that this apparatus is hung upon a fixed pivot, hut that the earth is free in space and always finds its oquihbrium, being sensitive to every change in its center of grav- itj'. Yet, as in the mechanical ilhistration, the coun- terbalancing protrusion of the earth's crust must not only be lieavier than the weight which it is to over- come, but must be at a point less than 180° therefrom. THE FOURTH DAY. 189 represents it in the Paleozoic age and Fig. 3 in the Mesozoic. I do not deny the existence of Paleozoic strata in the sonthern hemisphere ; but they are in very small proportion, and were not suffi- ciently massive nor extended to have materially affected the earth's center of gravity during the period which I have designated as " the third day." AVhether those strata are contemjDora- neous with those of the northern hemisphere, or in what manner they are correlated with the latter, will be considered in the next chapter. CHAPTER XII. THE FOURTH DAY {Vuncludal). It is more convenient at this point than else- where, to discuss an important subject, quite material in this investigation : that of the con- temporaneity of the strata of the same name, wherever deposited. Tlie theory of Hutton, which was propounded ill the very beginning of the modern science of geology, about a century ago, has been retained to the present time, but rests upon mere as- sumption. It assumes that the sea-deposits tlie world around are always the same in charactiM' at the same time; for example, if the Silurian strata Avere forming at one place, then the sedi- ments of the seas forming thronghout the whole world at the same time were also Silurian. In an out-of-the-way place I found, copied from the Spectator, this contribution from the facile and graceful pen of Professor Richard A. Proctor, who has done much to popularize sci- 1 December 4, 1809. 190 THE FOUETH DAY. 191 eiitific truth: "If there is one theory which geologists have thought more justly founded than all others, it is the view that the various strata were formed at different times. A chalk district, for example, lying side by side with a sandstone district, has been referred to a totally different era. Whether the chalk was formed first, or whether the sandstone existed before the minute races came into being which formed the cretaceous stratum, might be a question. But no doubt existed in the minds of geologists that each formation belonged to a distinct pe- riod. Now, however. Dr. Carpenter and Pro- fessor Thompson may fairly say, 'We have changed all this.' It has been found that at points of the sea-bottom only eight or ten miles apart there may be in progress the formation of a cretaceous deposit and of a sandstone region, each with its own proper fauna. 'Wherever similar conditions are found upon the dry land of the present day,' remarks Di-. Carpenter, 'it has been supposed that the formation of chalk and the formation of sandstone must have been separated from each other by long periods, and the discovery that they may actually co-exist upon adjacent surfaces has done no less than to strike at the very root of the customary assump- tions with regard to geological time.'" Proc- tor accounts for this peculiarity on the ground of varying temperatures of deep-sea regions, caused by the direction of the currentsfrom 192 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. the equator or from the poles. This certainly is a reasonable explanation why the fauna of two adjacent regions of the sea should be unlike. '''' Homotaxis (from the Greek homos, same, and taxis, arrangement) is a word introduced into use by Professor Huxley to express an idea in geology remotely analogous to that expressed by liomology in zoology. It had been tacitly assumed in geological reasoning that a stratum or formation was throughout its horizontal extent of contemporaneous origin. The impos- sibility of this had long been apprehended by the more philosophical geologists, as Edward Forbes, De la Beche, and others ; and Professor Huxley finally gave clear expression to the contradiction by applying the term homotaxis to signify similarity of position in a series of rocks, apart from any question as to the contempora- neity or sequence of origin of the parts of the series." ^ Geikie says that the divisions of the stratified rocks are most satisfactorily classified by means of their characteristic fossils. Each formation has its own peculiar assemblage of organic re- mains. The same general succession of organic types is everywhere found, with, of course, some important modifications in different countries. This similarity of succession is termed homotaxis. Bj^ this method of compari- son the stratified formations of widely separated 1 Johnson^ s Universal Ci/rlopedia, vol. iv., p. 74. THE FOURTH DAY. 193 coiiuti'ies are brought into relation with each other. tSedinientary rocks containing certain genera and species, wherever they appear and however different their lithological character may be, are grouped together as homotaxial, that is, as having been deposited during the same relative period in the general progress of life in each region . It was formerly believed that strata having such similar fossils were chronologically con- temporaneous, and this opinion still prevails to some extent. Such an inference, however, rests on most insecure grounds. We may not, indeed, be able to prove that they are not strictly co- eval, but if we reflect upon present botanical and zoological conditions and modern sedimen- tation it is evident that any such assertion of contemporaneity is a mere assumption. Sup- pose, for instance, that some portion of Europe should be sul)merged, covered with marine de- posits, and then lifted again above the sea. The river terraces and lacustrine marls formed before the time of Julius Csesar could not be distin- guished by any fossil tests from those laid down ill the days of Victoria (unless the works of man could be found to indicate human progress dur- ing the two thousand years which intervened). So far as shells, bones, and plants are concerned, their relative ages could not be distinguished from each other. Thej^ would be classed as geologically contemporaneous, yet there might 11)4 GENESIS AND MODEEX SCIENCE. be a difference of two thousand years between them. In fact, strict contemporaneity cannot be declared of any strata simply because their fossil contents are similar or even identi- cal. The term " geologically contemporaneous," though found in geological literature, is too vague to have any chronological value. To speak of two formations as contemi3oraneous which may have been separated by thousands of years is a misuse of language. Under the conditions at present existing on the earth we find that identity or similarit}" of genera or species holds good only for limited areas. The wider the range of observation, the more varied are the forms of life. Vegetation alters its aspect from clime to clime, and in like manner there is a change in the character of animal life. A lake-bottom in England and another at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains present very different groups of organisms, yet the two deposits are absolutely co-eval, existing at the same moment. It thus appears not only that deposits containing the same kinds of or- ganic remains may vary as to their age, but also that deposits in which they are quite different may be strictly co-eval. It' at the present time community of organic forms o])tains only in limited regions, so it may have been in ancient times. Similarity or " identity of fossils in formations geographically far apart, instead of proving contemj^oraneity, may rather indicate THE FOURTH DAY. 195 great discrepancies in the relative age of de- posits, for the sj^read of any one species, and still more of any group of species, to a vast distance from the original center of dispersion must in most cases have been inconceivably slow. In- deed a species may have entirely disappeared from its birthplace, while it may be flourishing in the outward circle of its advance. Broadl}^ speaking, the grand march of life has been from lower to higher forms and alike in all quarters of the globe ; but while the succes- sion may have been the same, the rate of prog- ress may have been very different, and a certain stage of progress may have been reached in one region thousands of years before it was reached, in another. All, therefore, that can be safely affirmed is that geological formations in differ- ent countries, if they contain the same or a representative assemblage of organic remains, are homotaxial and belong to the same epoch in the biological development in each region ; but we cannot say that they are contemporaneous, unless we are willing to include in that term a vague period of thousands of years. i Dana says : "One continent may have received part of its species from another long after their first appearance on that other; and . . . the exterminations of species which may have taken 1 The last four paragraphs are au abridgment from Geikie's article on '* Geology " in the Unci/clajxedia Britannica (ninth edition). 196 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. place at the close of a period may liave been far more complete in one region than in another, so that certain species were living long in one after their disappearance from the other." ^ Consider now the thermal changes of climate caused by this new direction of the axis of the earth. The Arctic regions thereafter had the sunlight only half of the year. They moved away from the sun, not, indeed, so far as they now are, but so far that they became a temperate zone and Avere no longer torrid. The lands near the equator, which before were the colder, then became the warmer region. What must have been the effect on life in the northern hemi- sphere ? It does not surprise us to read Professor Dana's statement : " The transition from Paleo- zoic to Mesozoic time was strongly marked in geological history, unequaled, in fact, by any of earlier date after the Azoic revolution, — in which the Laurentian rocks were folded and crystal- lized, — and by any in later ages with the single exception of that from Mesozoic to Cenozoic'^ time. The events which give it this prominence are a thoroughly complete extermination of ex- isting life, an extinction of several great Paleo- zoic races, the decline of others, and a general change in the character of the life." ■' What more satisfactory cause can be as- 1 Text-book of Geologi/, p. 46. ^ Meaning "recent life." 3 Manual of Geology, p. 413. THE FOURTH DAY. 197 signed for these remarkable changes than that now given? A sudden change from tropical to temperate heat, or from temperate to tropi- cal heat, must have destroyed some life and caused the decline of other life. Suppose a tropical palm-tree to be carefully transported to New England soil — would it survive the vicis- situdes of the New England climate for a single year? Supj^ose an apple-tree to be carefully transplanted from Canada to the banks of the Amazon — would it not decline in vigor? Plants accustomed to a temperate climate might indeed live, though feebly, if taken to a trojjical. climate ; but plants which are troj)ical must in- evitably perish if removed to cold regions. In the case of this great transition it was not the plants that were moved, but the climate itself. It was now the equatorial regions which be- came torrid, and the north polar region which became temperate. The distribution of plants as well as of ani- mals, and the causes and methods of that dis- tribution, have become a profound question for investigation. The best authorities in the science of paleontological botany, "both in Europe and America, have lately reached the conclusion that all the floral types and forms revealed in the oldest fossils of the earth orio^i- nated in the region of the north pole, and thence spread first over the northern and then over the southern hemisphere, proceeding from north to 198 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. south. This is a conception of the origin and development of the vegetable world which but a few years ago no scientific man had dreamed of, and which, to many intelligent readers of these pages, will be entirely new. Its jirofound interest, as related to the present discussion, will at once be seen." ^ This new doctrine has been established by the researches of Professor Asa Gray of America, Professor Oswald Heer of Switzer- land, Sir Joseph Hooker of England, Otto Kuntze of Germany, and Count G. de Saporta of France. Sir Joseph Hooker, in studying the floral types of Tasmania, was impressed with the fact that in that far-off southern land " the Scandinavian tyj^e asserts his prerogative of ubiquity.'' He says : " When I take a compre- hensive view of the vegetation of the Old World, I am struck with the appearance it Xn-esents of there having been a continuous cur- rent of vegetation^ if I may so fancifully express myself, from Scandinavia to Tasmania" {The Flora of Australia^ p. 103).- ^ Paradise Found, p. 87. - Wallace writes in Maud Life (p. 48G) : " We have now only to notice the singular want of reciprocity in the migrations of nortliern and sonthern types of vegetation. In return for the vast number of Euro- pean plants which have reached Australia, not one single Australian plant has entered any part of the north temperate zone, and the same may be said of THE FOURTH DAY. 199 Professor Heer, writing about tlie fossil flora of the Arctic regions {Flora Arctica FossiUs, 1868), propounded the theory that the BUdmiffS- herd, or mother region, of all the floral types of the more southern latitudes was originally in " a great continuous Miocene continent within the Arctic circle," and that from this center these types had been radially spread southward. He demonstrated in the most convincing man- ner the existence in Miocene times of a warm climate and of rich tropical vegetation in the highest attainable Arctic latitudes.^ In this connection the following extract from the CornJiiU Magazine is interesting: "If an intelligent Australian colonist were suddenly to be translated backward from Collins Street, Melbourne, into the flourishing woods of the Secondary geological period, — say about the precise moment of time when the English chalk- downs were slowly accumulating, speck by speck, on the silent floor of some long-forgotten Mediterranean, — the intelligent colonist would look around him with a sweet smile of cheerful recognition and say to himself, with some sur- prise, 'Why, this is just like Australia.' The animals, the trees, the plants, the insects would all, more or less, remind him of those he had the typical soutlieni vegetation in general, whether developed in the Antarctic lands, New Zealand, South America, or South Africa." 1 Paradise Found, p. 87 et seq. 200 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. left behind liim, in Ins bappy borne of tbe sontb- ern seas and tbe nineteenth century. The sun would have moved back on tbe dial of tbe ages a few million summers or so, indefinitely (in geology we refuse to be bound by dates), and would have landed him at last, to his immense astonishment, pretty much at the exact point whence be first started. " In other words, with a few needful excep- tions to be made hereafter, Australia is, so to speak, a fossil continent — a country still in its Secondary age, a surviving fragment of the primitive world of the chalk period or earlier ages. Insulated from all the remainder of tbe earth about tbe beginning of the Tertiary epoch, — long before the mammoth and tbe mas- todon bad yet dreamed of appearing upon the stage of existence, long before tbe first shadowy ancestor of the horse bad turned tail on nature's rough draft of tbe still undeveloped and un- specialized lion, long before the extinct dinothe- rium and gigantic Irish elk and colossal giraffes of late Tertiary time had even Ijegun to run their race on tbe broad plains of Europe and America, — the Australian continent found itself at an early period of its development cut off entirely from all social intercourse with the re- mainder of our planet, and turned upon itself, like tbe German philosopher, to evolve its own plants and animals out of its own consciousness. Tbe natural consequence was that progress in THE FOUETH DAY. 201 j^.ustralia has been absurdly slow, and tliat the country as a whole has fallen most wofully be- hmd the times in all matters pertaining to the existence of life upon its surface. Everybody knows that Australia as a whole is a very peculiar and original continent. Its peculiarity, however, consists, at bottom, for the most part, in the fact that it still remains at very nearly the same early point of development which Europe had attained a couple of million years ago or thereabouts. * Advance, Australia,' says the national motto ; and, indeed, it is quite time nowadays that Australia should advance — for, so far, she has been left out of the running for some four mundane ages or so, at a rough com- putation." 1 " Australia shows a singular development of low types of life, as though in the progress of evolution this continent had been left a whole geological age behind the others." - Paleozoic life may have reached the southern hemisphere long after it disappeared from the northern, and lingered there for a while, as long as climatic conditions were favorable. This change in the direction of the earth's axis must have wrought a radical effect in the south- ern hemisphere. The ice-bound equatorial regions now feel for the first time the intense heat of the sun, and the thick masses of ice 1 Popular Science MontJih/, vol. xxxiii., p. 682. 2 Ibid., vol. xxxvii., p. 313. 202 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. yield to its powei'. There is a breaking up of the great ice-fields which cover the southern ocean. Farther and farther south the open sea prevails as the ice is melted away by the sun, now regularly visiting the southern heavens. Yet even to this day the ice has not been melted back to its destined domain, and the wonderful difference between northern and southern temperature, which we have already noted, is a present fact telhng us of a greater difference which prevailed in the earlier epochs. This, I believe, w^as the glacial period of the southern hemisphere. That of the northern hemisphere will be mentioned later. The grind- ing action of the moving ice, the deposits left as it drifted, date from this age of the melting away of the ice of Paleozoic time. In Patago- nia there are found great quantities of bowlder clay — a stiff clay containing bowlders of all sizes, some w^eighing as much as one thousand and two thousand tons. The origin of this remarkable de- posit has been ascribed to the former prevalence of glacial ice. "Professor Agassiz and his co- adjutors believe that the red soil and immedi- ately underlying beds seen at Rio Janeiro and in the valley of the Amazon are true glacial formations, and infer that the similar beds which are spread over so enormous an area in South America have been formed under similar conditions. Professor Agassiz has found moraines and ice-transported bowlders in THE FOUETH DAY. 203 various places in the mountains of Brazil, as also indications of valley glaciers." ^ Some geologists have concluded "that over India, Australia, and South Africa there were glacial conditions in the Permian era, a time when Europe and America were under luxuriant vegetation." "^ 1 Encyclopaedia Bntmuika (ninth edition), p. 673, article " America." 2 Manual of Geohxji/, Dana (fourth edition), p. 698. CHAPTER XIII. THE FIFTH DAY. " And God said, Let ttie waters bring forth abun- dantly 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 movetli, 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 multipl}^ in the earth. '' And the evening and the morning were the fifth day." In discussing the events of " the fifth day " the difficulty lies principally in finding an accurate translation of the sacred text. Until this is ac- complished it is useless to attempt any harmo- nization of this Scripture with the results of geological investigation. It has been very gen- erally assumed that this passage refers to the 204 THE FIFTH DAY. 205 creation of fishes and of fowls; and this evi- dently was the belief of the translators of the Authorized Version, as shown by their reading, " And God created great ichales " ; and although the translators of the Revised Version have substituted sea-monsters for whales, they evi- dently had the opinion that fishes are referred to, for in all other resj^ects they have followed the older translation. But if the creation of fishes is here narrated, the conclusion seems in- evitable that the creation of birds took place at the same time. The testimony of the rocks, however, is that the creations of these two orders of creatures were not simultaneous. Fishes abounded in the Devonian age, which was char- acteristically the " Age of Fishes," while birds first appeared in the Triassic period. Let us first of all, therefore, endeavor to as- certain the exact meaning of this passage of Scripture, and acce])t the results of our investi- gation without fear or hesitation — ^whether or not they agree with our preconceived notions, or are at variance with long-cherished opinions. The fact that in this single passage there are four marginal readings, two of which are radi- cally different from the main text, shows how puzzled the translators were. " Let the icaters bring forth." The animals to be created were water-animals, or, at least, animals which should be brought forth from the waters. 206 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. "Bring fortli abundantly." The verb is sJiarats, meaning to sivarm. Hence the Re- vised Version lias the marginal reading, "swarm with swarms of living creatures." " The moving creature." The word is sherets, the creeping thing. The Douay Version in this respect is more accurate than the other versions mentioned. Its rendering of verse 20 is as follows : " God also said : Let the waters bring forth the creep- ing creature having life, and the fowl that may fly over the earth under the firmament of heaven." The correct translation of sherefs is of impor- tance in this investigation. It is certainly a fair test to compare with the translation of this word, in the verse under review, the translation of it in other passages of Scripture. Dr. Hughes says,^ " The word shercts occurs repeatedly in Scripture, and is always translated " creeping," so far as I can discern, except on one other occasion, in Leviticus xi. 10, when it is again translated ' move.' " In Leviticus xi. 10 it seems to me, however, that fishes are referred to. Other instances are : Leviticus v. 2 ; xi. 43-46 ; xxii. 5. These do not throw any light on this inquiry. Genesis vii. 21-23: "And all flesh (lied that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, 1 Genesis and Geolotji/, p. 100 et seq.- THE FIFTH DAY. 207 and every man : all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was uj^on the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven ; and they were destroyed from the earth : and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." Here the creeping things must refer to land-animals, having nostrils to breathe the breath of life. It is nowhere stated in the Bible that all fishes w-ere destroyed by the Flood, nor are we told that Noah preserved alive in the ark any marine ani- mals. Leviticus xi. 20-23: "All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomi- nation unto you. Yet tliese may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; even these of tliein ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you." It is very evident that the creeping things mentioned in this passage are not fishes. The Eevised Version substitutes cricket for hectic, and in the margin says of the winged creatures mentioned, " Four kinds of locusts or grasshoppers, which are not certainly known." Leviticus xi. 29, 30: " These also shall be unclean unto you among 208 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. the creeping things tliat creep upon the earth ; the weasel [cJioIed], and the mouse [akbar], and the tortoise [tsah] after his kind, and the ferret [ariaqah], and the chameleon [koacJi], and the lizard [letaah], and the snail [chomet], and the mole [tliishemeth]" This seems a very impor- tant passage in this investigation, especially in the form in which it appears in the Revised Version : " the weasel, and the mouse, and the great lizard after its kind, and the gecko, and the land-crocodile, and the lizard, and the sand- lizard, and the chameleon." The marginal note reads, — as to the foiir preceding the chameleon, — " Words of uncertain meaning, but probably de- noting four kinds of lizards." The Douay Ver- sion has it: "the weasel, and the mouse, and the crocodile, every one according to their kind, the shrew, and the chameleon, and the stellio, and the lizard, and the mole." The Revised Version is doubtless the most scholarly translation. Gecko signifies a noctur- nal lizard, a species widely distributed in the torrid zone, a picture of which is to be seen in Wch.st('y''.'s UnalnhJfjed Dkilovary. The stellio (Latin, stcUio) is a newt having star-like spots on its back, from stelhi, a star; in zoology, a lizard, common about the Mediterranean. The chameleon is a well-known member of the sau- rians or lizards, one of the orders of the class of reptiles. Of the eight kinds of animals men- tioned, six are reptiles. Leviticus xi. 41, 42: THE FIFTH DAY. 209 "And every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth shall be an abomination ; it shall not be eaten. Whatsoever goeth npon the belly, and whatsoever goeth upon all fonr, or whatso- ever hath more feet among all creeping things that creep upon the earth, them ye shall not eat." To what creature do the words apply, "goeth upon the belly"? Very evidently the serpent. " U]3on thy belly shalt thou go " (G-en. iii. 14). Serpents belong to the order of OpJiidia, which is one of the three orders of the class of reptiles. Fishes form a class of the grand division of vertebrates, but no vertebrate has more than four locomotive appendages. There- fore the words "whatsoever hath more" than four "feet" must refer to some other division, probably to the articulates, which include crustaceans and worms. The only other pas- sage containing the word shcrefs, so far as I know, is Deuteronomy xiv. 19: "And every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you." This is a repetition of Leviticus xi. 20, to which reference has already been made. To determine further what kinds of creatures are referred to in this passage, let us consider how the creative command was fulfilled. In every other instance in this chapter the divine fiat was exactly obeyed. Certainly this instance is not an exception. " Grod created great whales." The word for ivJiale is tannin. It is of frequent occurrence in 210 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. the Scriptures. In two other passages, Ezekiel xxxii. 2 and Job vii. 12, it is translated " whale." Three times it is translated " serpent " — Exodus vii. 9, 10, 12 : " Take thy rod, and east it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent." In all other passages it is rendered " dragon." " It is a great puzzle to lexicographers. Gresenius gives it three meanings; first, a water-serpent, sea- monster, dragon ; second, a land-serpent, drag- on ; third, a crocodile (not whale). But what a dragon is it would be difficult for any one to explain. The root meaning of the word tauuecn is a long animal, from taunan, which means to extend. And one thing is very certain and evi- dent to any one who will be at the pains to ex- amine: that the animal into which Moses' rod was turned is called both naliash (which ordi- narily means serpent) and also tanneen. This would seem to imply that tanneen sometimes means a serpent, which is a long animal. It is clear, too, that on four other occasions — once in Psalms Ixxiv. 13, twice in Isaiah, xxvii. I and li. 9, and once in Ezekiel xxix. 3 — it means a crocodile, which is also a long animal. It is still further certain that tanneen is a name applied both to animals living on the land and in the water, and, therefore, cannot mean a whale. Tanneen- ini are in various places represented as having hard heads and being difficult to kill (as, for ex- ample, the crocodile), also as crying, as snuffing up the wind, as dwelling in the ruins of cities, THE FIFTH DAY. 211 as l)eing long animals, as being poisonous, and as ])iting. There is no animal that seems to fill all these conditions except the lizard kind. But this cannot be doubted : that all authority proves that the crocodile or lizard kind, and the ser- pent, will answer to every peculiarity of the tanneen of Scripture ; and therefore those great tanneenim of the fifth day were large animals either of the serpent or crocodilian character." ^ But serpents and lizards are included in the class of reptiles. On "the fifth day," besides creating great "whales," God created "every living creature that moveth." This cannot mean that he cre- ated every other kind of living, moving creat- ures on that day, for we are expressly told that on "the sixth day" he created beasts and cattle. In verse 21 " the word translated ' mov- eth 'is not sherets, but raumas. But Gesenius gives no other meaning to raumas ])ut that of ' crawling ' or ' creeping.' Although on some rare occasions these words may mean ' moving,' this is not their ordinary meaning. If you will refer to a concordance for the places in which the words creeping^ creej), and the like occur in our English translation, and then refer to the original word in the Hebrew text, you will find that in every instance, if a verb, it is either raumas or shaurats; or, if a noun, it is either the noun remes or sherets. Unquestion- 1 Genesis and Geology, p. 103. 212 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. ably, therefore, the creatures that the waters were to bring forth were to be not moving, but creeping things, or reptiles." ^ The translators of the Authorized Version evidently beheved that verses 20 and 21 narrate the creation of fish. " What was more natural than that they should suppose that the account given by Moses of what the waters brought forth on that day should be an account of the creation of fish? But, in fact, fish had been created long before, in the Devonian age of the Paleozoic era. And Moses says not one Avord about fish. He speaks of reptiles and birds only. To make him speak of fish the Hebrew is strained from its plain meaning. Thus, in translating the passage we are considering in verse 20, the translators were aware that tbey were not giving a literal translation of the He- brew, and, evidently supposing that this was an account of the creation of fish (which it was not), and not understanding how the motion of fish could be described as creeping, they substi- tuted moving in place of it." - We have still another criterion by which to understand the true meaning of this passage: " Let the waters bring forth abundantly the mov- ing [margin, creeping'] creature that liath life^ "The words translated 'creature that hath life' are in the original Hebrew nephesli hai- yau. ... In the opinion of those two most emi- 1 Genesis and Geologij, p. 100. 2 Ibid., p. 99. THE FIFTH DAY. 213 nent Hebraists, Geseuiiis, the author of the standard Hebrew Lexicon, and Young, the very learned author of the most valuable concord- ance m existence, as well as the author of a lit- eral translation of the Old Testament — in the opinion of these most eminent scholars, I say, the word nephesh here indicates av'r-breathing animals. The verb uaupliash means to breathe; and so the root meaning of the noun uephesli is breath. Gesenius expressly declares that in this particular instance, as also in verse 30, the true meaning of nephesli Imiyau is the breath of life. So that' the passage thus rendered would be, 'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the reptile that hath the breath of life.' According to Young it would be, ' Let the waters bring forth abundantly the breathing creature that hath life.' Although the word nephesli is of very frequent occurrence, and is variously trans- lated, yet after the examination of a large num- ber of instances where it is used (about four hundred and fifty), I have never found it applied to any but an rt/>'-breathing animal, and almost universally to human beings, although it un- questionably refers to inferior animals in this chapter. The waters, therefore, clearly were commanded to bring forth abundantly air- breathhuf reptiles.'''' ^ ^ Genesis and Geologi/, p. 101. '' Let the waters swarm a swarm. The verb is e^d- dently from the noun reptilia, the lowest and most prohfic kind of animals. So the Jewish- Arabic trans- 214 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE, Although Dr. Hughes says he has examined about four hundred and fifty passages contain- ing the word nephesh, and that he has never found it applied to any other than an air- breathing animal, there aTe, in fact, upward of six hundred and fifty passages containing that word, and in one passage it is used with reference to fish. As this single passage might seem to corroborate to some extent the trans- lation in the Authorized Version, it is impor- tant to consider it fully. The passage is Isaiah xix. 10, " And they shall be broken in the pur- poses [margin, fouiuJatioiis] thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish" (margin, of llviiKj thhuis). The word here translated "fish" is ncpliesli. The Douay Version has it, " And its watery places shall be dry: all tlie}^ shall mourn that made pools to take fishes." Fausset thus comments on the passage: "In the pur- poses, rather the foundations, i.e., Hhe nobles shall be broken,' or brought low: so chapter iii. 1 ; Psalm xi. 3 ; cf . verse 13. ' The princes, the siay of the tribes.' The Arabs call a prince '■ a piUar ' of the people (Maurer). * Their icafcr- ing-frames ^ {RoYslej). 'D/y/rr's' (Barnes). ^All that make sluices,' etc. ; * makers of dani.'^,'' made to confine the waters which overflow from the Nile in artificial fish-ponds (Horsley). ' Makers lator renders it by a similar dciioininative verb, made from a lizard. Let the waters bring forth lizards, or swarm witli lizards" [Lamje's Commentary, vol. i., p. 171). THE FIFTH DAY. 215 of gain,' i.e., the common people who have to earn tlieir livelihood, as opposed to the nohks previously (Maurer)." The word translated "sluices" is seker, which means liire^ wage, re- icard. This seems to make the passage still more obscure ; but on referring to the Revised Version all is made plain, for there we read, " And her pillars [margin, foundations] shall be broken in pieces, all they that work for hire shall be grieved in souL^^ "Soul" is the usual translation of nephesh. Thus the sluices disap- pear from the text and with them the fishes also; and the statement still holds true that nepliesli is never used in the Scriptures of any but air-breathing animals. The word irlndes is the first mention of fish in our common version of the Bible. Strictly speaking, however, the whale is not a fish, al- though resembling a fish in shape. It is a mammal, bringing forth its young alive and nourishing them with milk ; it is warm-blooded and breathes by means of lungs, and has all the characteristics of the class of Mamnudia. Therefore the use of the word tvJiales, even if a proper translation, would not necessarily prove that fishes as a class were created at that time. The true word for fish is not, however, wanting in this chapter. It is darjah, and a2:)pears for the first time in verse 26, and is repeated in verse 28. It does not appear in verses 20 or 21, and its omission there is very significant. 216 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. The result of this study seems clear and un- questionable. These verses plainly refer to the creation of reptiles and birds. ^ Turning now to the rocky archives of the earth's history, we find the exact counterpart of the Scripture narrative as thus interpreted. If it is proper to interpret the record of nature by the supernatural revelation, it must be proper to interpret Scripture by science as w^ell. It is precisely at this juncture that we find in geology the fossils of the first reptiles and of the first birds. The whole of the Mesozoic time, whose first period w^as the Triassic, was charac- teristically the " Age of Reptiles," and, in strict ^ To the same purport is the opinion of Hugh Miller {The Two Records, pp. 30, 43) : " The creative fiat went forth, and the oviparous animals, birds and reptiles, came into existence." This '' was peculiarly the age of egg-bearing amimals, winged and wingless. Its wonderful whales, not, however, as now, of the mam- malian, but of the reptilian class, must have tempested the deep ; its creeping lizards and crocodiles, creatures some of which more than rivaled the existing elephant in height and greatly more than rivaled him in bulk, must have crowded the plains, or haunted by myriads the rivers of the period ; and we know that the foot- prints of at least one of its many birds are of fully twice the size of those made by the horse or camel. It was peculiarly and characteristically a period of whaledike reptiles of the sea, of enormous creeping reptUes of the land, and of numerous birds, some of them of gigantic size." THE FIFTH DAY. 217 conformity with the sacred text, the Triassic reptiles were water species. These reptiles were mostly sanrians. They were literally long, extended animals. They were very numerous and of great variety. The mosasaurs were immense serpent-like reptiles, measuring 75 to 80 feet in length. The ichtby- osaurs were swimming saurians, some of them 40 feet in length, with jaws 6 feet long. The fossils of more than thirty species have been discovered. The plesiosaurus was a swimming saurian from 20 to 40 feet long, with a neck containing from twenty to forty vertebrae. Twenty-two species have been described. In the words of Buckland, " To the head of a lizard it united the teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enor- mous length, resembling the body of a serpent, a trunk and tail having the proportions of an ordinary quadruped, the ribs of a chameleon, and the paddles of a whale." There were flying saurians called pterosaurs, of which about thirty species have been found. Of these the ptero- dactyls were somewhat like bats, some, indeed, comparatively small, but others having a spread of wing 20 feet from tip to tip. There were enormous reptilian birds, having jaws 4 feet long and a wing-spread of 25 feet. The laljy- rinthodont was a gigantic sauroid batrachian, whose well-known foot-tracks occur in the Tri- assic rocks. "Tracks of birds which lived in the Triassic period are common in the sand- 218 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. stone of the Connecticut Valley," ^ and furnish the first evidence of. bird life. The fossil re- mains of birds are rare. Being gifted with tlie power of aerial flight, they easily avoided the catastrophes wliich overtook land-animals ; and when birds did die and fall into the sea, the lightness and hollowness of their bones and the spread of their feathers prevented their sinking into the ocean depths to be embedded and fos- silized in the sediment of the sea. They prob- ably floated upon the water and became the prey of fishes. "We may pause here a moment to contem- plate the greatness of the fact we have been studying — the introduction into our world of the earliest known vertebrate animals, which could open their nostrils and literally ' breathe the breath of life.' All previous animals that we know, except a few Devonian insects, bad respired in the water l)y means of gills, or sim- ilar apparatus. Now we not only have the lit- tle land-snails, with their imperfect substitutes for lungs, but animals which must have been able to draw in the vital air into capacious, chambered lungs, and with this power must have enjoyed a far higher and more active style of vitality, and must have possessed the facidty of uttering truly vocal sounds. ... It is one of the remarkable points in the history of Creation in Genesis that this step of the creative work ^ Manual of Zoiilofiji, Toiiney, p. 284. THE FIFTH DAY. 219 is emphatically marked. Of all the creatures we have noticed np to this point it is stated that God said, 'Let the waters bring them forth ' ; l3ut it is said that ' God created ' great reptiles." ^ The principal, if not the only objection which can l)e fairly taken to the interpretation herein set forth is that if the verses under considera- tion relate to the creation of reptiles and birds, there is no account of the creation of fishes in the first chaptQr of Genesis. This is, indeed, a startling omission; but we are somewhat pre- f)ared for it by a very similar omission in the record, of the Creation on " the third day." We have already commented upon that. It has been shown that there is no mention made in the Scripture narrative of the creation of nuiy'iue plants. So here we find that there is no men- tion of the creation of fishes, marine animals. The evidence of geology is that, before fishes were ushered into existence, there was other marine life. The radiates and the mollusks are found fossilized in the Lower Silurian strata. Indeed the Silurian age was characteristically the "Age of Mollusks." The radiates consti- tute the lowest branch of the animal kingdom. There are at least 10,000 living species. The mollusks are exceedingly numerous and of great variety. According to Leunis, there are 16,732 living and 4,590 fossil species, exclusive of poly- ^ The Htonj of the Earth and Mnu Dawson, p. 150. 1^20 GENESIS AND MODEllN SCIENCE. zoa; and it is probable that only a small pro- portion of the naked or shell-less moUusks are known.^ Yet of these great races of animals there seems to be no mention in the Bible nar- rative of the Creation. It is, however, to be observed that all these omitted classes of ani- mal life are submarine. In considering the work of " the second day " we remarked upon the strange omission of the divine approval of it. A still more remarkable and seemingly more important omission occurs in the narrative of " the sixth day." When the Creator made the living creatures of " the fifth day," he not only saw that they were good, but, we read, " God blessed them, saying. Be fruit- ful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth." But after he made, on " the sixth day," " the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind," — notwithstanding " God saw that it was good," — he did not l)less them (so far as the record shows), nor command them to be fruitful and multiply. This seems very strange, when we consider that the animals created on "the sixth day " were the higher classes — the Mam- malia^ including not only the magnificent beasts of prey, but the animals which, when domesti- cated, have proved of great service to man; while the animals created on "the fifth day " were much inferior in beauty and structure, and, so 1 Chambers's Utiei/rhjmlia, article " Mollusoa." THE FIFTH DAY. 221 far as the reptiles are concerned, of apparently less importance in the creative plan. Why the divine benediction should have been pronounced on the lizard and the crocodile, but not on the coAv or the horse, we cannot exj^lain. It may be thought that verse 28 supplies this defi- ciency when, at the conclusion of the sixth day's work, we are told, "God blessed them, and God said unto them. Be fruitful, and multi- ply, and replenish the earth " ; but an examina- tion of the passage will show that the benedic- tion and command were for man only, for the verse continues, " and subdue it : and have do- minion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over ever 3^ living thing that mov- eth upon the earth." If, therefore, we find the omission, on " the second day," of the expression of the Creator's approval of the atmosphere or firmament, and, on " the third day," the omission of any reference to his creation of submarine vegetation, and, on " the sixth day," the omis- sion of his l)enediction and command to the mammals which he had made, it is less surprising to discover that there is an omission of a record of the creation of submarine animal life. As was said in the beginning of this discussion, the Bible is not intended to be a complete text-l)ook of science. All that we can reasonably demand is that it shall be consistent with science. I claim, and believe that I have thus far proved, that the first chapter of Genesis is scientifically 222 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. correct in its several statements. It would be absurd, however, to expect that every scientific truth should be found in the Bible. The Script- ures need not say everything, but everything they say must be true. It seems quite certain that there is another important omission in these annals of creation. Where is the record of the creation of insects? " Insects far outnumber all the other memljers of the animal kingdom combined. It is certain at the present time that eigh ty thousand presumably distinct species of beetles have been described, and it is safe to assume that the number of known species of other orders is greater, thus giving a total of about two hundred thousand ; and yet we are only on the threshold of a knowledge of the forms that actually exist in nature, many enor- mous groups of minute forms being still only par- tially studied. In fact it may be confidently an- ticipated that some day the number of known forms will not fall far short of one million." ^ It would almost seem that the insect form and mode of life are a favorite with the Maker. But where are we told of their entrance into life I If anywhere, in verses 20 and 21 : " Let the waters bring forth . . . fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created . . . every winged fowl after his kind." The word iov foivl is oph, which is sixty- one times in the Old Testament translated ^ Encydoimdia lirifaunica, article "Insects." THE FIFTH DAY. 223 " fowl," and nine times " bird." Mention of in- sects in the Old Testament is common. The following are specially named : the fly (Eccles. X. 1 ; Isa. vii. 18), the moth (Job xxvii. 18 ; Isa. 1. 9), the scorpion (Dent. viii. 15 ; Ezek. ii. 6), the beetle (Lev. xi. 22), the locust (Ex. x. 4; Pro v. XXX. 27), the grasshopper (Judges vi. 5 ; Lev. xi. 22 ; Amos vii. 1), lice (Ex. viii. 16, 17), the ant (Prov. vi. 6; xxx. 25), the spider (Job viii. 14 ; Prov. xxx. 28), the hornet (Ex. xxiii. 28 ; Josh. xxiv. 12), the bee (Deut. i. 44 ; Isa. vii. 18)^ and the flea (1 Sam. xxiv. 14). Insects are a class of Articulates, and worms are another class. We have references to worms in Job xvii. 14 ; Jonah iv. 7 ; to the palmerworm in Joel i. 4 ; Amos iv. 9; to the caterpillar in Joel ii. 25; Psalm cv. 34 ; and to the cankerworm in Naliuni iii. 15 ; Joel ii. 25. But none of these are men- tioned in the first chapter of (renesis. Dr. Hughes says that "the Hebrew noun which is translated 'fowl,' is derived from the ^Yovd f/noiip, which means fofli/. Gesenius gives n-un/ as the primary meaning of the word trans- lated 'fowl,' and says that the word means the n^mrjed tribes. Indeed in the twentv-first verse It IS expressly said that they were iriifc/ed fowl." ' It is true that in Leviticus xi. 20-23 the word oph is translated in one instance "fowl" and m another "flying creeping thing": "All fowls that creep, going upon all four"; "every ^ Genesis and Gcologi/, p. 107, 224 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. flying creeping thing that goeth upon all fonr, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth." As such, beetles, locusts, and grasshoppers are mentioned. The Revised Ver- sion translates the word "winged creeping creat- ure." This single instance of the translation of oph as meaning creatures other than birds might, upon purely exegetical grounds, justify the broader interpretation of the passage under review; but there are several reasons against including insects in the list of creatures called forth on that day. First, the general meaning and use of the word do not favor such interpre- tation, but the meaning of the word must be strained to include them. Secondly, in the suc- cession of creation there is a progression from the lower to the higher forms. The creatures called into existence on "the fifth day" were of a higher order than insects. Thirdly, the geo- logical record shows that birds, reptiles, and in- sects did not come into being at the same time, but while birds and reptiles are found in the Triassic strata, insects date back to a much earlier period. Six forms of winged insects have been found in the Devonian rocks of New Brunswick, and in the Carboniferous rocks are found tli(^ remains of seven orders, including scorpions and spiders. In a doubtful matter like this it would be unreasonable to enlarge the ordinary meaning of the Hebrew word to include insects, and then claim that the Script- THE FIFTH DAY. 225 ure record is untrue because the geological evidence proves that insects existed long before reptiles or birds. To many persons it will be an unwelcome thought that there are such omissions in the Bible record of the Creation, but the omis- sion of the divine approval of the work of " the second day " and of the divine benedic- tion upon the higher classes of animals, and the omission of reference to marine vegetation, are apparent to every careful reader, and can- not be gainsaid. While it may be practically impossible to find a sufficient explanation, still it may be looked for in this direction : " The scriptural history of Creation is a history of jiheuomena^^; appearances are given, not a state- ment of modes or processes; the progress of events is told as it would be seen by an on- looker. First there was a dark, formless mass. Then it moved. Then there was the grand out- burst of light. Not a word is said about com- bustion, but the phenomenon of light, where all before was dark, is noted. The characteristic phenomenon of " the second day" is the spread- ing apart of the waters to form the expanse or firmament. Nothing is said of condensation, but the appearance which resulted from the proc- ess is stated. On "the third day" the fiat was, "Let the dry land appear''^ {raah, "be seen"). Nothing is told why the dry land appeared ; we are simply informed that it did come into sight. 226 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. We read nothing about the cooUng, shrinking crust of the earth and its forming into folds and wrinkles, the uppermost portions of which rose above the level of the hitherto universal ocean. To the looker-on it seemed as if "the waters were gathered together unto one place," and that the dry land appeared, coming up out of the water. Soon it was seen that this land was covered with verdure, and so the record reads. On the sea there appeared no verdure, and, therefore, there is no record of any. The events of " the fourth day " are especially phe- nomenal. To persons upon the earth (had there been any) the apj)earance would have been that the sun was moved out of its accustomed place, and set in such a new position as to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. The appearance to one upon the earth would have been, not that the earth was moving, but that the sky was slipping. And so, in the narration of the work of " the fifth day," it is only the creatures that appeared, that were in sight, which are men- tioned. To this extent the so-called phenomenal theory (of Hugh Miller and thinkers of his class) is perhaps true. CHAPTER XIV. THE SIXTH DAY. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his land, cattle, and creeping thing,^ and beast of the earth after his kind : and it was so. 1 Dana says {Manual of GeoJogij, p. 7(58) that creej)- iiig is equivalent to iwouTuig, i.e., beasts of prey, the carnivora. The word is relimes. Delitzsch {Neiv Com- mentary^ vol. i., p. 96) defines relimes as " the smaller creeping animals which keep closer to the ground." Thomas Whitelaw {Pnlpit Commentary, vol. i., p. 29) says, " Eehmes, the moving animal, i.e., the smaller animals, which move either without feet or with feet scarcely perceptible, such as worms, insects, reptiles. Here it is land-creepers that are meant, tlie rehmes of the sea having been created the day before." The "beast "of the earth is chayyax, as to wliich White- law, commenting on the same verse, says, ^'CJiayyau, i.e., wild, roving carnivorous beasts of the forest." Hugh MUler {The Two Records, p. 43), who char- acterizes "the fifth day" as the time when o\dparous animals appeared, says of the sixth day's creation, " The 227 228 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. ''And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth npon the earth after his kind : and God saw that it was good. "And God said, Let ns make man in onr image, after onr likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth nj)on the earth. " So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him ; male and female created he them. "And God blessed them, and God said nnto them. Be frnitfnl, and mnltiply, and replenish the earth, and subdne it : and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth npon the earth. '' And God said. Behold, I have given yon every herb bearing seed, which is npon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the frnit of a tree yielding seed ; to yon 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 npon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat : and it was so. "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." creative fiat went forth and the mammiferons animals, cattle and beasts of the earth, came into existence." THE SIXTH DAY. 229 GrEOLOGY confirms the Biljle by declaring the creation of mammals last in order before man. The period of mammalian life is known as the Cenozoic age and is divided into two periods, the Tertiary and Post-tertiary. It is not necessary to comment upon the great variety of animal life which came into being on " the sixth day," but it is important to call atten- tion to the oft-repeated Avords " after his kind," spoken of each species of animals. This ex- pression is significant in view of recent theories. It shows that there was no blending of species, no growth of one out of another, but rather an original creation of each race, with its pecul- iarities which it cannot pass. Especially does this Scripture speak of the origin of man by a distinct act of creation. The creative words are not, as before, " Let the waters bring forth," " Let the earth Ijring forth," but, " God said. Let us make man in our image, after our Hkeness." " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."i Both the Bible and geology distinctly affirm the separate creations of the several orders, and disprove the theory that the higher orders of animals (including man himself) have been de- veloped from lower forms. When we remember how confidently a,t times some scientists have declared that spontaneous generation has been 1 Geu. ii. 7. 230 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. demonstrated, and again tliat the simple proto- plasmic cell not only can be, but actually hns been developed into the successive species of living beings which have peopled the earth (thus making life and even thought itself mere phenomena or attributes of matter), it is not strange that science has denounced religion, or that religion has suspected such science. True science does not seek to banish God from the universe of matter, but rather rejoices to trace more perfectly his woudrous works throughout the wide domains of nature. If it were true that one order or genus was de- veloped into another, and so on, in the progression of animate life upon the earth, there would appear the modified, intermediate forms which linked the old with the new, and we should find in the life-history of the world the species gradually blending into one another in an orderly, onward development. Dana well says : " The study of fossils has given no aid in this direction. It has brought to light no facts sustaining a theory that derives species from others, either by a system of evolution or by a system of variations of living individuals, and bears strongly against both hypotheses. There are no lineal series through creation corresponding to such methods of development. Instead of graduation from moUusks or articulates to the lower fishes, and so on upward, the fish-typo commences near its summit -level, or either between the level of THE SIXTH DAY. 231 the typical fish and that of a higher class of ver- tebrates. Were either of these plans the system in nature, examples of the blending of the sj^e- cies would be common through all the classes, high and low, and North America would afford them as successive stages between the old ele- phant or mastodon and earlier species, and so throughout the various tribes of life, animal and vegetable." The testimony of the rocks and the declarations of Holy Writ alike affirm the creation of distinct orders of animal life, and announce precisely the same succession in the Creation. Some of the lowliest forms of life, vegetable and animal, have remained unchanged from the time of their first appearance in the earliest stratified rocks to the x^i'^sent day, while whole races of animals have been ushered into being, multiplied into " swarms," thrived, and prevailed for long periods, but have become wholly ex- tinct, leaving no lineal descendants, even in modified forms. It is, however, true that a pro- gressive plan is observable in nature. Each successive order of beings has a more complex structure than the preceding and is endowed with new functions. When a new organiza- tion has been introduced in the creative work, it has usually been persisted in and developed. Even where new functions have been con- ferred, it has often been by adaptations of pre- viously existing forms of structure. Yet this 232 GENESIS AND MODEIIN SCIENCE. general progress of a method in creation does not prove the common origin of all the species, or an inherent power of a species to become a different species. The fact that there is a gen- eral nnity of design in the bony strnctnre of the vertebrates, and that the four locomotive ap- pendages of the reptile are essentially the same as the legs, toes, and wings of the bird and the legs, toes, arms, and fingers of man, does not prove or tend to prove that the reptile ever be- came a bird, or the bird a man; nor does the fact that the ape has a structure and organiza- tion similar to those of man afford any reason to believe that some family of apes has devel- oped into the human family. But while it is certainly true that the differ- ent species are distinctly separate, it cannot be doubted that great variations in species have been caused by climatic conditions, migra- tions, domestication, cross-breeding, and by the struggle for life, the survival of the fittest, and by the principle of natural selection, wliich Darwin and thinkers of his class have declared and demonstrated. A species, as defined by Buffon and Cuvier, is a succession of individuals capable of reproducing themselves. But to the very point of sterility the lineal descendants of common progenitors of any si^ecies may differ widely from them and from each other simply because of diffei'ent environment and the ac- cumulation and perpetuation of peculiarities THE HIXTII DAY. 233 by heredity, yet all be strictly of tlie same spe- cies. Darwin rejects Lamarck's theory of sponta- neous generation. He does not attempt to ac- count for the origin of life. He does not com- mit himself to the Lamarckian doctrine that all existing forms of life (including man) have descended by a true generation from pre-exist- ing and inferior organizations. He does not assert that any genus has been developed from a preceding one. His theory is not that of a variation of genera, but of species. Within proper bounds the idea of variation of si3ecies is not repugnant to reason or religion. The principal objection that can be made is the im- probability that the great variety of species could lia^^e been wrought out in the limited time heretofore allowed by the biblical chronol- ogy. If time enough for these changes is granted, they are reasonable. Of that phase of the subject consideration will be given in a sub- sequent chapter. An interesting inquiry now in place, and aris- ing from the jDremises stated, is this : At what time in the history of the earth did njan first appear? If these premises are true, it follows necessarily that man became an inhabitant of the earth not later than the Mesozoic age, and probably in the Triassic period, if not Ijefore; for l)y the Bible account he was created the next day after the introduction of reptiles and 234 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. birds, which we know first appeared in the Tri- assic. This is a time long anterior to the date usually assigned by geologists for the origin of human life. Let us briefly consider this sub- ject. The earliest period which has heretofore been assigned by standard authors to the introduc- tion of man is the Post-tertiary period of the Cenozoic age. But why is this? Was not the earth fully prepared for human life in the ear- lier periods, even as early as the TriassicI There can be no doubt of it. The sole reason for the earlier date rests upon the discoveries in paleontology. Human remains (so far as is stated in standard books) have not been found in any formation earlier than the Post-tertiary.^ Hence the paleontologist has concluded that man first appeared in that period. Such is the argument, but the reasoning is inconsequential. Let us first consider the facts as given in the books, and ask Avliere fossilized human remains have been found in stratified deposits. In France, Belgium, England, Ger- many, Italy, Spain, India, Egypt, and North and South America.- These facts simj^ly prove ' Recent discoveries and statements found in late pei'iodical and other literatnre will be subsequently mentioned. - In the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C, there is a fragment of woven sugar-cane matting, said to have been found in a deposit of salt at Petit Anse THE SIXTH DAY. ZoO that man had then reached those regions of the earth and perished there. They do not prove that he originated there and then. Ob- serve that all these places are in Europe and America, not one of them near or adjacent to the region where, by common belief, and, as it seems, by the declaration of Scripture, the hu- man race began its existence. Let us summa- rize the argument of Dana. Man is of one spe- cies only. He originated on only one of the two great continents. Among the higher mammals no species is known to have existed originally Avithin the tropics or the temi^erate zones, on l)oth the Oriental and Occidental continents (the former including Euroj^e, Asia, and Africa, and the latter North and South America). Now, in which of these two continents is it more prob- able that mankind originated?^ "The Orient has always been the continent of progress. From the close of the Paleozoic, its species of animal life have been three times as numerous as those of North America, and more varied in genera. In the earlier Tertiary its flora in the European portion had an Australian type, and there were marsupials and edentates there. In the middle and later Tertiary it represented re- cent North America in its flora. But from this Lslaud, Vermilion Bay, on the coast of Louisiana, 14 feet below the surface of the salt and 2 feet below the remains of tusks and bones of a fossil elephant. ^ Manual of Geohxju, Dana. p. 584. 236 GENESIS AND MUUEKN SCIENCE. condition it emerged to a higher grade. In the Post-tertiar}'^ it became the hind of the car- nivores, while North America was the conti- nent as distinctly of the herljivores, an inferior type ; Sontli America, of edentates, still lower ; Australia, of the low^est of quadrupeds, the mar- supials. In the closing creations Australia re- mained marsupial, though with dwindled forms ; South America was still the land of edentates, but of smaller species and with inferior carniv- ores and the inferior type of monkeys or quad- rumana; North America, of herbivores, also small, compared with the Post-tertiarj^ ; while the Orient, besides its new carnivores, received the highest of the quadrumana. Thus the Ori- ent had successively passed through the Aus- tralian and American stages, and leaving the other continents behind it, stood in the fore- front of progress. It was, therefore, in accord- ance with all past analogies that man should have originated on some i)art of the great Orient, and no spot would seem to have been better fitted for man's self-distribution and self-devel- opment than south-western Asia, the center from which the three grand continental divi- sions of Europe, Asia, and Africa radiate." ^ If this be tlie true birthplace of the human race, we may expect tliat discoveries will some- time be made in south-western Asia showing human fossils associated with Ti'iassic (or ear- ^ Mdiixal of GfoJofji/, Daua, p. 585. THE SIXTH DAY. 237 lier) forms, as well as with those of more recent date. Not until Asia has been explored and found to yield onl}^ results corresjDonding with those of European search can we safely say that man did not appear until the Post-tertiary period. If the human race originated in Asia, many centuries must have passed before man pene- trated to the confines of Europe. Men are naturally gregarious. When they were compar- atively few in number, dwelling together, speak- ing one language, and identified in simple, primitive life, there was no occasion for their straying away to remote regions. They would naturally dwell in their native land, for neither commerce nor conquest had, at that early age, become the active cause of the dispersion of the human family throughout the earth, as in later times. The Bible gives a simple, adequate, and evidently truthful account of the first dispersion of men, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary it cannot reasonably be doubted. By that history we are informed that this dis- persion occurred after the Noachian Deluge AVhen the earth, after the Flood, was again peo- pled with men, they made the audacious at- tempt to build a tower to reach to heaven and thus defy the power of God, whose promise never again to overwhelm the earth by flood they did not believe. Then it was that the Lord confounded their language, "and from 2'j8 genesis and modern science. thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth" (Gen. xi. 9). This event occurred (according to Archbishop Usher's chronology) in the year 224-7 B.C., or nearly eighteen hundred years after the creation of Adam. The human race, thus proceeding from one common center, gradually spread abroad as their wants or fancies dictated, but it is very evident that it might have been several centu- ries before they passed to the uttermost limits of Euroj^e — to France and England — or beyond the sea to America. Suppose we estimate that time as two hundred and fifty years after the dispersion (and surely this is not an unreason- ably long time), then we would fix the period of their residence in those remote regions as late as 2000 e.g. It would not be surprising if it were as late as 1500 b.c. What, then, would the discovery of their bones in Post-tertiary formations in those places prove f Simply this : that the Post-tertiary period, so far from being in prehistoric times, was actually far advanced into the period of human life upon the earth, and perhaps not more than three or four thou- sand years ago. Examining the character of these fossil evi- dences of the antiquity of man, we find that they consist of human skulls and bones, together with flint weapons and implements, discovered in caverns and in high drift-beds, and associated with the bones of the elephant, rhinoceros, THE SIXTH DAY. 239 hyena, and several extinct species of animals. The men whose relics are so preserved were the eontemjitoraries of the great mammals of the Post-tertiary. In view of all the facts Prestwich says, " The evidence from the occurrence of human relics with the bones of extinct animals, as it at present stands, does not seem to me to necessitate the carrying of man back in past time, so much as the bringing forward of the extinct animals toward our own times." ^ We may reasonably infer that these human relics are not of pre-adamites, as scientists have sometimes asserted, but that the extinct sf)ecies of animals are thus jirov^ed to have been more recent than supposed, and to have been for many centuries contemporary with mankind. So far from being disturbed by these revelations of geology, as tending to show that the human race antedates the time of Adam, the Christian lieliever should rejoice at such discoveries and confidently expect that in Asia there will yet be found human remains associated with animal fossils of a still earlier period, even as remote as the Triassic, thus proving that Adam existed prior to the time usually assigned. This last paragraph was first written several years ago,^ yet in the brief time which has since 1 Manual of Geology, Lyell, p. 581 ; Manual of Geol- ogy, Dana, p. 582; Chamhers^s Encyclopedia, article "Paleontology'." 2 188O. 240 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. elapsed the prophecy has been in progress of fnlfinment, and the appearance of man uj^on the earth has been dated back to the Pliocene, then to the Miocene, and there is an expectation of even more ancient traces of mankind. This item was in a Philadelphia newspajier of March 24, 1880 : " Fossil human remains are reported to have been found near Castenedolo, Lombardy. They were embedded in a stratum of corals and seemingly belong to the Pliocene period." In November, 1880, the following was pub- lished: "Professor Marsh observes that 'the evidence, as it stands to-day, although not con- clusive, seems to place the first appearance of man in this country [America] in the Pliocene,' adding that ' the best proofs of this are found on the Pacific coast.' " ^ "E. L. Berthoud reports the discovery of an- cient fire-places, rude stone monuments, and implements of stone in great number and vari- ety in several places along Crow Creek in Colo- rado, and also on several other rivers in the \dcinity. These fire-places indicate several an- cient sites of an unknown race, differing entirely from the mound-builders and the present In- dians, while the shells and other fossils found with the remains make it quite certain that the deposit in which the ancient sites were found is as old as the Pliocene, and perliaps as the ^ Popular Science Monthhj, vol. xviii., p. 34. THE SIXTH DAY. 241 Miocene."! If this be true, it shows that as early as the Pliocene, and perhaps the Miocene, the human race had wandered away from its original habitat, half the circumference of the earth ! Sir John Lubbock writes of bones found near the Dardanelles, engraved with figures of ani- mals. In the same strata were found flint-flakes and several bones split as if for the extraction of marrow. These were found in Miocene strata.- In WincheWs Pre-(fdcwutcs (p. 422 et seq.) are collected various proofs of the antiquity of man. With bones of the Elephas merhUouaUs — an elephant wliicli, from the frequency of its re- mains, is known to have ranged from the later Pliocene to the beginning of the Tertiary — were found at St. Prest, in France, bones marked as if by flint implements. "In shell-marls at Leognan, near Bordeaux, are bones of an extinct manatee and of certain chelonians and cetaceans, which bear marks apparently made by human implements. The manatee in question is known to be of Miocene age. " At Tlienay, France, flints beheved to be the work of human hands were found in lower Mio- cene limestones. "A human skeleton was found in volcanic 1 Popular Science Monthly, vol. ii., p. 638. 2 Nature, March, 1873. 242 GENESIS AND ]M0DEIIN SCIENCE. breccia near Le Pny-eii-Velay, France, inclosed by the same ernptions which buried, in tlie same neighborhood, the remains of the Pliocene IlIc- plias meridionalis. The eminent anthropologist Topinard {AntliropoJogy^ p. 436) maintains the Pliocene age of these remains. He also recog- nizes human shell-heaps of late Miocene age at Pouance, and affirms that man's existence in the lower Miocene epoch is ' a clearly revealed sci- entific fact.' Caspari also associates these human remains with, the Miocene mannnoth {Urc/e- schichte der Menschheit, vol. i., p. 184). " A human skull and numerous bones of the same skeleton were exhumed from the Colle del Yento in Liguria. Tliese were reported by Issel to be associated with extinct species of oysters of Pliocene age {Congres InternatiojiaJ, 1867, pp. 75, 156). " Professor J. D. Whitney, late director of the Geological Survey of California, says that during the Pliocene and previous epochs the surface of western California had become deeply eroded by the rivers. ' Duriug the Pliocene, California and Oregon became the theater of the most tremendous volcanic activity that has devastated the surface of the globe. The valleys of the rivers in the Sierra were filled, and much of the country, particularly toward the north of California, was entirely buried in lava and ashes. Since then the rivers, seeking new channels, have made for themselves deep canons, leaving THE SIXTH DAY. 243 their old beds deeply buried under the lava. These old buried river-gravels are very rich in gold, and extensive tunneling into the sides of the mountains and under the old lavas has been done. In one of these old river-bottoms, vnder the solid basalt of Tahle Mountain, many works of human hands have been obtained, as well as the celebrated human skull of the Plio- cene. . . . Chemical aualysis shows that it is a true fossil, its organic matter being almost entirely lost and the phosphate of lime replaced by carbonate of liuie. So far as human and geological testimony can go, there is no ques- tion but that the skull was found under Table Mountain and is of Pliocene age.'" " M. Franyois Lenormant, an eminent archae- ologist and historian, freely recognizes the exist- ence of man even in middle Tertiary time, and that, not an undeveloped savage, but such an exalted being as Adam is pictured in the Bible. Subsequent savagism was the consequence of Adam's sin, which called down the 'divine curse'; and 'the appearance of cold, intense and permanent, which man was scarcely able to support, and which rendered a great part of the earth uninhaljitaljle,' was one ' among the chas- tisements which followed this fault of Adam.' " ^ "The investigations in the caverns of Brix- ham and Torcpiay proved the existence of man in the early Quaternary period. But new evi- 1 Les Premieres Civilisations, pp. 11, 18, 49, 50, 53, 63. 244 GENESIS AND JIODERX SCIENCE. dences came in, showing a yet greater antiquity of man. Animal remains were found with hu- man remains, which showed not only that man existed in times more remote than the earlier investigations proved, but that some of the early periods of his existence must have been of im- mense length, embracing climatic changes be- tokening different geological periods ; for with the remains of fire and human implements and human bones were found not only bones of the hairy mammoth and cave-bear, woolly rhinoce- ros and reindeer, — which could only have been deposited there in a time of Arctic cold, — l)ut bones of the hy-ena, hippopotamus, saber-toothed tiger, and the like, which could only have been deposited when there was in these regions a torrid climate. The conjunction of these re- mains clearly showed that man had lived in England early enough and long enough to pass through times when there were great ghiciers stretched far down into that country, and indeed into the continent, and times when England had a land connection with the European con- tinent and the European continent with Africa, allowing tropical animals to migrate freely from Africa to the middle regions of England. " The discoveries at Trenton, New Jersey, and at various places in Delaware, Ohio, ]\Iinne- sota, and elsewhere, along the southern edge of the diift of the glacial epochs, clinched the new scientific truth yet more firmly, and the state- THE SIXTH DAY. 245 ment made by an eminent American authority is that ' man was on this continent when the cHmate and ice of Grreenhmd extended to the mouth of New York harbor.' " On the Pacific coast both the actual remains and works of man found deep under the lava- flows of Pliocene age show that he existed in the New World at least as early as in the Old. " Human bones had been found, under these circumstances, as early as 1835 at Canstatt, near Stuttgart, and in 1856 in the Neanderthal near Diisseldorf ; but in more recent searches they Lave been discovered in a multitude of places, especially in Germany, France, Belgium, England, the Caucasus, Africa, and North and South America. But comparison of these bones showed that even in that remote Quaternary period there were great differences of race, and here again came in an argument for the yet earlier existence of man on the earth ; for long previous periods must have been required to develop such racial differences. Considerations of this kind have given a new impulse to the l)elief that man's existence dates back at least into the Tertiary period. The evidence for this (>arlier origin of man has been ably summed up not only by its brilliant advocate, Mortillet, Init by a former opponent, one of the most conserv- ative of modern anthropologists, Quatrefages, and the conclusion arrived at by both is that man did really exist in the Tertiary period. 24G GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. The acceptance of the conckision is also seen in the recent work of that most able investigator, Alfred Russel Wallace, who, cautious and con- servative as he is, places the origin of man not only in the Tertiary period, but in an earlier stage than most have dared to assign, even in the Miocene y ^ A recent writer, in closing an essay upon this subject, hints at an earlier period still for the appearance of human life." " Where, then, must we look for primeval man ? Was the oldest homo sapiens Pliocene or Miocene or yet more ancient f''"' S. Laing, in his latest book, Human Orifjins^^ says: "Recent man has given place to Quater- nary man ; post-glacial to interglacial and pre- glacial; and now the evidence for the existence of man, or of som3 ancestral form of man, in the Tertiary period has accumulated to such an extent that there are few competent anthropolo- gists who any longer deny it."^ " Quatrefages, in his Histoire des Baces IIu- 7naines, published in 1887, and containing tlie latest summary of the evidence generally ac- cepted by French geologists as to Tertiary man, says that, omitting doubtful cases, the ^ Andrew D. White, Fopulai- Science Monthhj, vol. xxxvii., p. 299. - Popular Science Monthly^ vol. xxxviii., p. 514. ■■ Published iu 1892. ^ Unman Origin.'i, p. 421. THE SIXTH DAY. 247 presence of man has been signalized in deposits undoubtedly Tertiary in five different localities ; viz., in France, by the Abbe Bourgeois, in the lower Miocene of Thenay, near Pontlevoy (Loir- et-Cher) ; by M. Rames, at Pny Gournay, near Aurillac (Cantal), in the upper Miocene; in Italy, by M. Capellini, in the Pliocene of Monte Aperto, near Sienna, and by M. Ragazzoni, in the lower Pliocene of Castelnedolo, near Brescia ; in Portugal, by M. Ribiero, at Otta, in the val- ley of tlie Tagus, in the upper Miocene." ^ There are "six cases in the Old Woi'ld, rang- ing from St. Prest in the upper Pliocene to Thenay in the lower Miocene, in which the prej)onderance of evidence and authority in support of Tertiary man seems so decisive that nothing but a preconceived bias against the antiquity of the human race can refuse to ac- cept it."- " Human origins must be pushed back at least as far as the Miocene and probably into the Eocene j^eriocL" ^ " M. Fraissent says : ' From the data now ob- tained, it is i:)ermissible to believe that we shall be able to pursue the ancestral type of man and the anthropoid apes still further, perhaps as far as the Eocene, and even Jjeyond.^ " ^ "The caverns in wliich these human bones have often been found have, we believe, been 1 Human Origins, p. 354. - Hjid., p. 356. ^ Ihid, p. 420. 4 xii^i^ p 330. 248 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. always in the Secondary and hiver Cretaceous rocks." 1 If, as President Warren has forcibly argued in his learned book, Paradise Found, the human race originated in the north polar regions, ^Ye may look to that portion of the earth for yet more ancient relics of man. " Was the Miocene period, on the whole, a better age of the world than that in which we live ? In some respects it was. Obviously there was in the northern hemisphere a vast surface of land under a mild and equable climate, and clothed with a rich and varied vegetation. Had we lived in the Miocene we might have sat un- der our vine and fig-tree equally in Grreenland and Spitzbergen and in those more southern climes to winch this privilege is now restricted. We might have enjoyed a great variety of rich and nutritive fruits, and, if sufficiently muscular and able to cope with the gigantic animals of the period, we might have engaged in either the life of the hunter or that of the agriculturist under advantages which we do not now possess. On the whole the Miocene presents to us in these respects the perfection of the Neozoic time, and that in its culmination, in so far as the nobler foi'ms of brute animals and of i)lants are concerned. Had men existed in those days, however, they should have been, in order to suit 1 Popular Science Monthli/, vol. xlviii. (189G), p. 22. THE SIXTH DAY. 249 the conditions snrrounding them, a race of giants." ^ And so they were, for Moses wrote concern- ing those early races of men, " There were giants in the earth in tliose days" (Gen. vi. 4). We have no means of ]DOsitive knowledge to determine at what chronological date in the history of the earth mankind originated. This problem has ever baffled the curiosity of the antiquary. Chevalier Bnnsen, in his elaborate work on ancient Egypt, claims that monument- al evidence shows that Menes reigned in Egypt as early as 3640 B.C. But Egyptian chronology is confessedly'" bewildering, and so uncertain is it that there are two great classes among stu- dents of Egyptian antiquities, the one contend- ing for a long chronology and the other for a short chronology. From this source, therefore, we have not as yet been able to derive reliable information. Tradition has declared that Noah settled in China after the Flood. Chinese history begins with a mass of fables of no historical value. " The historical period may be said to commence with the Hia period or dynasty, begun by Yu the Great about the year 2200 B.C., although a great infusion of the fabulous still continues." - With reference to Babylonian chronology we 1 The Story of the Earth and Man, Dawson, p. 264, 2 Chanihers^s Encyclopedia, article '* Chinese Empu-e." 250 GENESIS AND MODEllN SCIENCE. are informed : " No legends have yet been found among the cuneiform inscriptions l>y which we may ascertain tlie date of the commencement of the earlier Chaldean empire, which preceded the Assyrian, but proljably the traditional date 2234 B.C. is historic." ' The close agreement of these dates in Chinese and Chaldean chronology with the date given for the dispersion of mankind from Babel, 22-1:7 B.c.,2 is very significant. " As to post-diluvian man. Canon Rawlinson has pointed out {Leisure Hour, 187()) the re- markal^le convergence of all historic dates toward a time between 2000 and 3000 B.C." On review of the facts we must conclude that there is no trace whatever in history of a race of men before Adam, and certainly the association of human fossils with those of extinct species of ^ Cliamhers's Encijdopedia^ article '' Babylon." 2 This date is fixed according to Archhishop Usher's chronology of the Bible, which is almost exclusively used by Bible students. There are, however, other systems of chronology, which differ from it somewhat. " While the Hebrew text reckons 4,000 years from the Creation to the birth of Christ, and to the Flood 1,056 years, the Samaritan makes the former mueli longer, though it counts from the Creation to the Flood oidy 1,307 years. The Septuagint Version differs from both. It removes the Creation of the world to 0,000 years before Christ, and 2,250 years before the Flood. These differences have never been reconciled." THE SIXTH DAY. 231 animals, as already described, does not, by the present theory, contradict the statement of the Bible that Adam was the first man. Moses' record is also confirmed by the modern science of ethnology, or anthropology, as it may more properly be called. The Bible history of man reveals that he is a separate creation of God, and not a development from a prior and lower creation, and that the human race sprang from a single pair. " The human race in every country and age have been the offspring of the first pair. Amid all the varieties found among men, some black, as negroes, others copper-col- ored, as well as white, the researches of modern science lead to a conclusion, fully accordant with the sacred history, that they are all of one species and of one family (Acts xvii. 2G)." ^ Pro- fessor DaAvson observes that the sacred record " does not say, ' Let the earth bring forth ' man, but. Let ?/6' form or fashion man. This marks the relative importance of the human species and the heavenly origin of its nobler, immate- rial part. Man is also said to have been 'created,' implying that in his constitution there was something new and not included in previous parts of the work, even in its material." 2 There was not a gradual growth of some infe- rior genus or species into manhood, but man ap- peared at once, complete ; and from one pair of human beings ("male and female created he ^ Jamiesou, - Dawsou, Orif/in of the World. 252 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. them") has proceeded all the human race. Adam was the common progenitor, and since the universal Deluge destroyed all the inhabi- tants of the earth, save those who were shel- tered in the ark, all the present human family descended from the three sons of Noah, — 81iein, Ham, and Japheth. The best authorities in eth- nology have concurred in this conclusion, and have declared that mankind have sprung from one stock and have constituted but one species. Cuvier has classified man into three subdivi- sions. Dr. Pritehard, in his well-known Natural Histonj of Man ^ commences with a description of the three divisions of the human race, and Dr. Latham, one of the chief exponents of the science of ethnology in England, makes the threefold division. So also does Jacquinot. Pritehard and Latham argue not only from physiological premises, but also from the scien- tific basis of comparative philology.^ If the Bible be not of divine authorship, it is simply incredible that Moses, without so much as a single error, should have correctly stated and anticipated hy thirty-three hundred years the 1 It is proper, however, to remind the reader that ethnologists are divided into two classes, the nionoge- nists, who claim the origin of mankind fi-om one stock, and the polygenists, who contend for the diver- sity of the origin of man. The American school of polygenists was founded by Dr. Morton, of Pliihulel- phia, and includes such a philosopher as Agassiz. THE SIXTH DAY. 253 patient research and study of modern scholars in pliysiology and philology, as well as in geol- ogy and paleontology, sciences wholly unknown in his day. It ai)pears reasonable from the narrative in Genesis to l^elieve that the animals created on " the sixth day " were in one locality or neighbor- hood, and in the course of time were dispersed. In an earlier chapter the migration of plants from the north to the south, and the " current of vegetation from Scandina\da to Tasmania" have been considered. In like manner the migra- tions of animals have been from north to south. Passing around the earth on any isothermal line, at the equator, or in any latitude south of it, or in any latitude north of it until we come to the Arctic zone, we find, as we pass from land to land, that the animals are specifically unlike, but in the Arctic zone we everywhere meet with the same species. If, however, we pass around the earth on the circles of longitude we find a1jun- dant fossil evidence that the prehistoric move- ments of the animal world were fi'om north to south and never from south to north.^ Profes- sor Orton saj's {Comparative Zoolor/f/, -p. 08^): " Only around the shores of the Arctic sea are the same animals and plants found through every meridian, and in passing southward along the three princii^al lines of land, specific identi- ties give way to mere identity of genera; these ^ Paradise Found, p. 93. 25-4 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. are replaced by family resemblances, and at last even the families become in a measure distinct, not only on the great continents, but also on the islands, till every little rock in the ocean has its peculi ar inhaljitants." Professor Packard says: "It should also be observed that in the beginning of things the con- tinents were bnilt up from north to south — such has been, at least, the history of the North and South American and the Europeo-Asiatic and the African continents ; and thus it would ap- pear that north of the equator, at least, animals slowly migrated southward, keei^ing pace, as it were, with the growth and southward extension of the grand land-masses which appeared above the sea in Paleozoic ages. Hence, scanty as are the Arctic and temperate regions of the earth at the present time, in former ages these regions were as prolific in life as the tropics now are ; the latter regions, now so vast, having through all the Tertiary and Quaternary ages been undis- turbed by great geological revolutions, and meanwhile been colonized by emigrants driven down by the incoming cold of the glacial period." ^ The surface features of the globe are pecul- iarly favorable to the southward migration of plants and animals. The earth is corrugated from pole to pole by alternate continents and deep-sea channels. From the Arctic zone al- ^ Zoolnyi/, }). i\(jO. THE SIXTH DAY. 255 most to the Antarctic the continents stretch with unbroken land connections. The great air- and ocean-currents are north or south in their courses. All the mountain-ranges of the New World and many of those of the Old World are north and south in their direction. Nearly all the rivers of the northern hemisphere flow to the north or south. All these corrugations, channels, and currents are favorable to a south- ern migration of plant and animal life, while they present barriers to an east or west migra- tion.^ 1 Paradise Found, p. 106, quoting G. Hilton Scrib- uer, Where did Life Begin f pp. 26, 29. CHAPTER XV. THE DELUGE. The exegesis of the history of " the sixth day," with which the first chapter of Genesis closes, is now completed. The discussion might proj)- erly end at this point. But there still remains a chapter in the " great stone book of nature," the history of the Tertiary (or Cenozoic) age ; and as there are strange and startling coincidences found in Genesis and geology with reference to this period, still further vindicating the verac- ity of the revealed record, and as without some mention of these matters my purpose would not be fulfilled, I will continue in this place the dis- cussion concerning them. In reviewing the events of "the fourth day," it has been said tliat the axis of the earth's I'olation l^robably did not then rise to its pi-osent inclina- tion to the ecliptic, but to an intermediate angle, say of 45°. We have already noticed the evi- dence, stated l)y Dana, that " the transition from Paleozoic to Mesozoic time was strongly marked 256 THE DELUGE. 257 in geological history, mieqnaled, in fact, by any of earlier date, after the Azoic revolution, in which the Laurentian rocks were folded and crystallized, and by any in later ages, wHli the single exeeption of that from Mesozoic to Ceiiozoic timey We will consider more at length these later changes and their cause. Dana says : " The close of the Mesozoic era (or that of the Creta- ceous period) was a time of disturbance, un- equaled since the close of the Paleozoic. Its effects are apparent in the destruction of life.^ . . . Moreover this era of disturbance was con- tinued through the Tertiary period, during which the Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, Hima- layas, and other mountains reached nearly to their present altitude above the level of the ocean, and the continents attained in general their full extent.^ . . . The complete extermi- nation of species at the close of the Cretaceous period has not been fully explained. It was probably connected with the great changes of level which took place at this time, as has been shown, over the entire eastern and western conti- nents? ... In North America there are no Tertiary beds known north of southern New England, and none in the Arctic, indicating ap- parently that the whole area was above the sea then as now. . . . It is therefore most probable that the destruction of life was due (1) to the 1 Manual of Geology, p. 502. 2 Ihkl., p. 503. 3 ii^ifi^ p 504. 258 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. more or less emergence of the continents and accompanying elevation of mountain-ranges; and (2) to a change in the climate and oceanic temperature, both the air and oceans being rendered colder than in the Mesozoic era." ^ As to climate he says : "In the Tertiary, Eu- rope passed through a series of changes in its climate from tropical to temperate. . . . The Miocene flora of the vicinity of Vienna, Yon Ettiijghauser pronounces to be subtropical. The temperature of North America was not cooler than that of Europe."" By examining the figure opposite page 175, in which the axis of the earth is shown at an inclination of 45°, we see that Vienna would be in the tropical zone. The fos- sils of the hippopotamus in England would in- dicate a tropical climate, as would also the teeth and bones of crocodiles found there. In the vicinity of London, in the clay-beds, are depos- ited fossil remains of the fruits and seeds of palms and other tropical plants. Let us now inquire what was the climate of the Arctic regions in the Mesozoic. By examin- ing the figure just referred to, we see that, under the conditions there shown, it would not be frigid, but temperate. Turning again to Dana, w^e read: "There is no reason to believe that there was any Alpine or subf rigid vegetation at Melville Island, or that the plants differed essentially from those of Pennsylvania. This 1 Minutal of Geolofjif, p. 504. 2 jj/^/.^ p. 534. THE DELUGE. 259 warm climate of the poles was hardly less strik- ing in the middle Mesozoic, for while reptiles are esj^ecially characteristic of the tropics, there were ichthyosaurs and telosaurs in the Arctic. Sir Edward Belcher found an ichthyosaur on Exmouth Island, in latitude 77° 16' north and longtitude 96° west, 570 feet above the present sea-level; and Captain Sherard Osborn found two bones of a species allied to the telosaur on Bathurst Island, in latitude 76° 22' north and longitude 101:° west." Another writer says, " In tlie Miocene period luxuriant vegetation cov- ered the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and the cli- mate was like that of Virginia." What is the climate of those regions now? "Ilumljoldt remarks that near the mouths of the Lena a considerable thickness of frozen soil may be found at all seasons, at a depth of a few feet ; so that if a carcass be once embedded in the mud and ice of such a region and in such a climate, its putrefaction may be arrested for in- definite ages." Hence the remarkable preser- vation of the flesh of those Siberian animals already mentioned. "According to Professor ^"an Baer, of St. Petersburg, the ground is now frozen permanently to the depth of 400 feet at the town of Yakutsk, on the west bank of the Lena, in latitude 62° north, 600 miles distant from the polar sea. Mr. Middendorf, an eminent Russian naturalist, says that in 1843 he bored in Siberia to the depth of 70 feet, and after pass- 260 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. ing through much frozen mud mixed with ice, he came down upon a solid mass of pure trans- parent ice, the thickness of which he did not ascertain." ^ The luxuriant vegetation of the Arctic lands in the Miocene period shows that while the Paleozoic temperature was reduced at the open- ing of the Mesozoic era, the climate still contin- ued temperate. The shaggy fur coat upon the Siberian mammoth, already alluded to, would tend to show that while the temperature was lowered, it was not sufficient to destroy or drive away this species of animal, but that nature provided an additional protection by the length- ening and thickening of the hair. " The old Russians living in Siberia were of opinion that the mammoth was an animal of the same kind as the elephant, and that before the Flood, Siberia had been warmer than now, and elephants had then lived in numbers there ; that they had been droAvned in the Flood, and after- ward, when the climate became colder, had frozen in the river mud."- Now, having learned the facts and the charac- ter of the change, how can we account for it I Easily, and in the same manner as before: by the simple operation of the law of gravitation. The northern side of the earth was now more 1 Lj-ell, Principles of Geology, p. 84. 2 Paradise Found, p. 299, quoting Nordeiiskjold, Voyage of the Vega, p. 305. POSITION OF THE EARTH IN THE CENOZOIC AGE. THE DELUGE. 261 evenly balanced by the southern side, and the axis of rotation rose to a higher angle, no longer inclined to the ecliptic at 45° (or thereabouts), but at (^6^'^, its present inclination — that is, a deflection of 23^° from the perpendicular. This change, instead of giving one wide tropical zone and two narrow temperate zones, as before, gave one tropical zone, two temi:)erate and two frigid zones. As the animals then inhabiting the north polar regions could not endure the increase of cold, they perished. But why did the axis of the earth's rotation rise again ? For a reason like that before stated : the increase of the leverage of the southern hemisjihere. Bj" this is not meant an increase in the mass of the earth, but a new distribution of the mass, effecting a change of the center of gravity and causing the southern side of the earth more nearly to counterbalance the north- ern side. This was done by the emergence of lands in the southern ocean and by the uplifting of the bed of the South Pacific Ocean. But is there any evidence of such changes at that period ? Yes ; abundant evidence, in Aus- tralia and South America. A standard writer saj's of Australia : " The geology of tliis vast region has not been fully explored, but is sup- posed to be remarkably simple. It consists of a great, central Tertiary formation, surrounded on all sides by plutonic and metamorj^liic rocks." *' xVn immense, roughly quadrangular and com- 262 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. paratively flat district in central Australia, ex- tending from the southern shores in latitude 33° south, where it forms a coast-line of somewhat bold cliffs, to 18° south latitude, and having for its eastern and western limits 124° and 138° east longitude, is composed of Tertiary rocks." ^ " The Tertiary formation occupies a large amount of the surface of South America. From Patagonia to Venezuela it can be traced occupying the space intervening between the Andes and the Azoic rocks of Brazil and Guiana. The older Silurian and Carboniferous deposits are not found in the position they occupy in the north- ern continent; the gneiss, etc., dip diyecthj under the Tertlaries.'''''^ Charles Darwin, who \dsited Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in 1831-36, in H. M. S. Beaejle, has written v' " The geology of Patagonia is interesting. Different from Eu- rope, where the Tertiary formations appear to have accumulated in bays, here along hundreds of miles of coast we have one great dej^osit, in- chiding many Tertiary shells, all ai»|)ar(nitly ex- tinct. . . . Everything in this sonthcrn conti- nent has been effected on a gi-and scale. The land from the Rio Plata to Tieri-a del Fuego, a distance of 1,200 miles, has been raised in mass (and in Patagonia to a height of between 300 and 400 feet) within the period of the now exist- 1 (linmhet's's Enrj/clopcdia, article "Australia." - Infeniaf tonal Cijrlojx'dia, article " America." 3 NaturalisVs Voyage Hound the World, p. 170. THE DELUGE. 263 ing sea-shells. ... I may add tliat witliiii the period when icebergs transported bowlders over the upper plain of Santa Cruz, the elevation has been at least 1,500 feet. Nor has Patagonia been affected only by upward movements ; the extinct Tertiary shells from Port St. Julian and Santa Cruz cannot have lived, according to Pro- fessor E. Forbes, in a greater depth of water than from 40 to 250 feet ; but they are now cov- ered with sea-deposited strata from 800 to 1,000 feet in thickness ; hence the bed of the sea, on which these shells once lived, must have sunk downward several hundred feet to allow of the accumulation of the superincumbent strata. "What a history of geological changes does the simply constructed coast of Patagonia reveal ! " Dana says that the " Tertiary movements along the Andes affected half — at least — of South America,"^ and again, "In South America the region of the Andes through the length of the continent underwent at the same time [Tertiary] an elevation of many thousands of feet." 2 Accompanying this emergence of the large portions of Australia and South America was doubtless the emergence also of some or all of the Australian chain of islands, and perhaps of the Antarctic lands, thus overcoming still fur- ther the superior gravity of the northern hemi- 1 Manual of GeoJogi/, Dana (fourth edition), p. 365. 2 Ibid., p. 935. 264 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. sphere and Iningiiig the axis of the earth more nearly toward the perpendicular direction. It was in this manner, probably, by the action of gTavitation, that the Arctic region, once the torrid zone, now became the frigid zone, and from this new region, now of perpetual ice and snow, descended those glaciers or masses of ice wdiicli have left their debiis, and marked with their groovings and scratchings the north tem- perate zone around the earth. In Europe this drift is confined to that portion lying north of the parallel of 50° north. In North America the glacial drift covered Canada and New Eng- land, including Long Island, and extended across the country, beyond the Mississippi, hav- ing its southern limit near the parallel of 39°, in southern Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. The period of the glacial drift in the southern hemisphere was probaljly not contemporaneous with that of the northern, but, as already indi- cated, was rather at the beginning of the Meso- zoic epoch. The glacial drift in South America is met with from Tierra del Fuego as far tow^ard the equator as the parallel of 41° south, and, as stated in a former chapter, it appears in the Amazon Valley the whole width of Brazil and into Peru. With reference to the complete extinction of species which, Dana says, occurred over the en- tire eastern and western continents at the close THE DELUGE. 265 of the Mesozoic eiDOch,^ Darwin writes as fol- lows — making queries which he is far from an- swering satisfactorily: "The greater number, if not all, of these extinct quadrupeds lived at a late period, and were the contemj^oraries of most of the existing sea-shells. Since they lived no verj' great change in the form of the land can have taken place. What, then, has exterminated so many species and whole genera ? The mind is at first irresistibly hurried into the belief of some great catastroi^he ; but thus to destroy animals, both large and small, in southern Pat- agonia, in Brazil, on the Cordillera of Peru, in North America, up to Behring Strait, we must shake the entire frame-work of the globe. It appears from the character of the fossils in Eu- rope, Asia, Australia, and in North and South America, that those conditions which favor the life of the larger quadrupeds were lately co- extensive with the world. What those condi- tions were no one has yet even conjectured. It could hardly have been a change of tempera- ture, which at about the same time destroj^ed the inhabitants of the tropical, temperate, and Arctic latitudes on botli sidos of the globe. In North America we positively know, from Mr. Lyell, that the large quadrupeds lived subse- ([uently to that j)eriod, wlien bowlders were brought into latitudes at which icebergs now never arrive ; from conclusive but indirect rea- ^ MaiUKtl of Grologij, p. 50-1. 266 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. sons we may feel sure that in the southern hemisphere the Macrauchenia, also, lived long subsequently to the ice-transporting bowlder period. Did man, after his first inroad into South America, destroy, as has been suggested, the un wieldly Megatherium and other Edentata f We must at least look to some other cause for the destruction of the little tucu-tucu at Bahia Blanca, and of the many fossil mice and other small quadrupeds in Brazil. No one will imag- ine that a drought, even far severer than those which cause such losses in the provinces of La Plata, could destroy every individual of every species from southern Patagonia to Behriug Strait:' 1 If man were living upon the earth as early as the Triassic period, it is a pertinent question to ask, " How did he escape the complete extermi- nation of life upon the earth at the close of the Cretaceous period!" My answer is a startling one, altiiough it is not necessarily a part of my previous theory. But it is not any more difficult, under any circumstances of my hy- pothesis, to answer the question of the re-ap- pearance of animal life than for geologists in general. Indeed, it would require, according to the prevalent theories, an entirely new creation of animals throughout, to repeople the earth in the Tertiary j^eriod. It is a significant fact that this is the last geological record of the universal ' NaturalisVsVoyage Round the }\''orld, p. 173. THE DELUGE. 267 extinction of life upon the earth. As my an- swer to the question just propounded does not call for any new creation, it seems the simplest, and, therefore, the most probable theory which can be offered. If such an extinction of life upon the earth occurred in historic times, the record of so wonderful and awful an event would certainly have been preserved, if an historian of it could have survived. It seems probable that the cause of this com- plete extermination of life over all the world was the Noachian Deluge, and that the earth was re- populated by those animals and human beings saved with Noah in the ark. The Scriptures narrate, with much detail, when and how the Flood occurred, and the con- tinuance of the waters upon the earth. In Genesis vii. 10 to viii. 14 we read as follows: "And it camie to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the sec- ond month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day icere all the fountains of the great deep broken uj),^ and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. . . . And the flood was forty days upon the earth ; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. And the w^aters prevailed, ^ Cleft ihrow'^h—haf/a. 1268 GENE8IS AND MODEllN SCIENCE. and were increased greatly upon the eartli ; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth ; and all the higii hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail ; and the mount- ains were covered. And all flesh died that moved vpon the earth, both of fowl, and of eattle, and of beast, and of ever)/ creepuig thing that ereepeth upon the earth, and evert/ ma)i : all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living sub- stance was destroyed v,diich was upon tlie face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven ; and they were destroyed from the earth : and Noah only remained alive, and they tliat were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days. . . . And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and tlie waters asswaged. The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was re- strained. And the iraters returned'^ from off tlie carfJi eontinnalli/: and after the end of the Imn- d red and fifty days the waters were abated. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on th(^ seventeenth day of tlie month, ui)oi) the mount- ains of Ararat. And tlir waters decreased con- tinually until the tenth month: in the tenth ^ Tunieil ]nwk-.sJi,d}. THE DELUGE. 269 nioiitli, ou the first day of the mouth, were the tops of the mountains seen. . . . And it came to pass iu the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth : and Xoah removed tlie covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry. And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried." Assuming that this flood occurred at the close of the Cretaceous period, or about that time, let us observe the remarkable coincidence of the facts stated in the Scripture narrative with Avhat we may fairly infer from the geological record. I have said that it was at this juncture, as proved by a study of the rocks, that the larger part of Australia and a large portion of South America and probably the entire chain of the Australian islands were lifted out of the sea, and possibly the archipelagoes of Polj^nesia in gen- eral. Lyell says, " Sudden elevations of large continents from beneath the waters of the sea have figain and again produced waves which have swept over vast regions of the earth." Like results would be produced also by the lifting of the sea-bottom. Hugh Miller says, " Several of our first geologists hold that some of the for- midable cataclysms of the remote past may have been occasioned by the sudden upheavel of vast 270 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. contiiieut.s, wliicli by disjilacing great bodies of water and rolling them outward in the eharac- ter of successive waves, inundated wide re- gions." ^ Suppose, now, that these lands emerged from the South Pacific Ocean at that time. As they rose they would cause great waves of the sea to spread out in every direction. These waves, rushing toward the east and north-east, would overwdielni the American continent, and toward the west, north, and north-west, would sweep over Africa, Asia, and Europe. The continuance of tbis rising would cause wave after wave to follow in the course of de- struction. Notice how particularly, first of all, we are given, as the cause of the Flood, all the fountains of the great deep were broken iq'^^ thus showing the Deluge to have been mainly an in- vasion of the land l)y the sea, accompanied with continuous rain. What more simple yet accurate language could have been employed to describe this event!'-' Tbe waters rose higher and higher, until every hill that was under the whole hcav- 1 The TesfiDioiii/ of the llorls, p. 3(i0. - The words "fountains of the great deep" are re- inarlctibly well chosen to describe the phenomenal ap])earance of the sea thus eansed. The l)()iliiig np of Ihe water in certain definite i)h-i('es and tlie out- S})r('adiiii; waA'es tlierefroin would readily .suggest to a beholder the idea of fountains in the deep. THE DELUGE. 271 ens was covered. This shows unmistakably that the Deluge was not local, but universal. Finally the mountains were covered. In this connection we must remember that it was not until afterward, in the Tertiary, that the mount- ains attained their present height.^ Unless physical conditions were very differ- ent four thousand years ago (and there is no proof whatever of any difference), the Deluge could not have been caused wholly by a rain- fall. The atmosphere in its present condition could not contain a sufficient quantity of water in the form of vapor to cover, when precipitated as rain, the entire surface of the globe to a depth exceeding the height of the mountains of the earth. " There is a very great difference in the quantity [of rain] which is deposited on differ- ^ The elevation of the mountains was not caused by an upheaval of the earth's crust in a radial direction, but rather by a lateral force, occasioned by the shrink- ing or contraction of the earth's crust, which resulted from the cooliug of the globe. This can be familiarly ilhistrated by means of a stiff table-cloth upon a table. If the cloth is moved sidewise upon the table, by the hands, in two opposite directions, the intervening por- tion of the cloth is raised in ridges, though the force applied is lateral. '' After the Jurassic period, or near its close, tlie lofty ranges of the Sierra Nevada, on the eastern boundary of California and the western of the Great Plateau or Basin ; of the Wahsatch, on the eastern 272 CENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. ent parts of the earth. Most rain falls where hilly or elevated coasts are exposed to the inflow of warm ocean-winds, and least where prevalent w^inds drift in from cold, dry regions to low- lying, sunny lands. Bat over and above this there are circumstances connected with the sculpturing and exposure of the land which make the difference very great within very nar- row limits of territory. Thus in Cumberland there are i)laces within 2 miles of each other, at one of which the average annnal rain-fall is 47 inches more than it is at the other. The annual fall at any one place also differs materi- ally in different years, according as warm and moist or as cold and dry winds have been pre- dominant. On account of the great diversity which attains in the amount of rain deposited boundary of tlie same i)lateaTi, just east of Great Salt Lake; and of the Humboldt rauges over this plateau, besides other ranges, were made. Triassic and Juras- sic fossils have been found in the rocks of the Sierra Nevada, while Cretaceous f ossiliferous beds lie uncon- formably over tlie upturned strata of the mountains ; the latter fact proving that the mountain-making oc- curred before the Cretaceous era. Tlie ejections of trap in the Triassic-Jurassic areas of the Atlantic bor- der occurred previously to the Cretaceous period, and perhaps contemporaneously with the making of the mountains on the Pacific border" {Text-hook of Geology, Dana, p. 183). As to European and Asiatic mount- ains, see post, p. 287 et seq. THE DELUGE. LM) Oil different parts of tlie earth, it becomes very difficult to ascertain what the sum total over the whole earth must be. If the amomit of water that is throAvn up into the air from seas, rivers, moist ground, and living vegetation conld be measured, that, of course, would give a fair estimate of the rain-fall of the earth, be- cause it may be safely assumed that all the water which is raised in the air as vapor is ultimately thrown down again to the ground as rain. Com- modore Maary, the distinguished meteorologist of the United States, calculated that about 16 feet of water, assumed to be of the same area as the surface of the earth, are evaporated into the air within a year. More recent authorities con- sider, however, that this estimate must be largely in excess of the truth, and that if all the rain which falls upon the earth were allowed to accumulate in a basin of the same area as the terrestrial surface, it would amount to a col- lection 8 feet deep at the end of a j-ear."^ As stated in the chapter concerning " the second day," the average quantity of water held in the air, if precipitated at once, wonld cover Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South Amer- ica to the depth of oidy 3 feet. From these considerations it seems certain that the Deluge, if universal, or, indeed, if only local, could not have been caused wholly or principally by a rain-fall. 1 Robert James Manii, F. R. A. S. 274 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. The language of the Bible is not consistent with tlie theory of a j^artial delnge. ^^ All the high hills, that were lo/dcr the irhole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail ; and the mountains were covered." The theory of a partial deluge is one adopted under a supposed necessity; but wliile it avoids one difficulty, it raises another, and violence is done to the divine word, without any advantage. But to resume the discussion. We know that huge waves are raised in the sea by the oscillations of the earth's crust caused by earth- quakes, and that these vast waves tra\'erse the ocean from shore to sliore. The great earth- quake at Lisbon sent a monstrous wave across the Atlantic, not less than 20 feet in height when it reached the West Indies, and which also produced marked effects in the harbors of Boston and New York. In like manner waves pro2)agated by earthquakes in Japan have crossed the Pacific and reached the shores of California. From a description of the earthquake in Peru in 1868 ^ I make the following abstract and quotations. At 5.05 p.m., August lo, 1868, an earthquake occurred in Peru, which was the most severe in the memory of man, destroying tens of thousands of lives and property of the value of many millions. Wliile other earth- quakes have been accompanied with oceanic dis- 1 Frazer''s Magazine, July, 1870. THE DELUGE. 2(0 turbance, "in no instance has it ever before been known that a well-marked wave of enor- nious proportions should have been propagated over the largest ocean tract on our globe, by an earthquake whose direct action was limited to a relatively small region, and that region not situated in the center,^ but on one side of the wide area traversed by the wave." The earth- quake shock lasted but a few minutes. The swaying motion changed to a vertical upheaval. In about twenty minutes the sea retired, but soon returned with tremendous force, over- whelming towns. The incoiuiug wave was 50 feet high, and the sea thus flowed in repeatedly. The wave swept swiftly away on every side from the scene of the earthquake, near the Peruvian Andes. Its width varied from 200 to 1,000 miles, and iu mid-Pacific its length was not less than 8,000 miles. It swept on at the rate of 300 to 400 miles per hour over the larger part of the Pacific. Striking the shores of southern Cali- fornia it was GO feet in height. This was fully 5,000 miles distant from the center of disturb- ance. It inundated the Sandwich Islands, some of the smaller islands being wholly sub- merged. It reached Japan, more than 10,500 miles from Peru, on August 14. A distance about two-fifths of the circumference of the earth, which our swifter ships could not trav- erse in less than six or seven weeks, had been ^ As is Australia. 276 GENESIS AND IMODEEN SCIENCE. swept over by this enormous undulation in a few hours. In the southern Pacific some of the Marquesas and Tuamotu islands wore sub- merged by it. The Navigator's Islr.nds, New Zealand, and Australia were likewise visited by the great sea wave in the morning of August 14. "When we remember that had not the effects of the earth-shock on the water been lim- ited by the shore of South America, a wave of disturbance, equal to that which traveled west- ward, would have swept toward the east, we see that the force of the shock was sufficient to have disturbed the waters of an ocean cover- ing the whole surface of the earth ; for the sea waves, which reached Yokohama in one direc- tion and Port Fairy ^ in another, had each trav- ersed a distance nearly equal to one-half the earth's circumference, so that if the surface of the earth were all sea, waves setting out in op- posite directions would have met each other at the antipodal point of their starting-place." This result, though so vast and far-reaching, was produced by a slight vertical movement of a small portion of the earth's crust, during a "few minutes." The limit of the actual move- ment of the disturbed portion of the earth's surface, as observed in some recent earthquakes, has been found not to exceed 3 inches, although the shock has been felt over hundreds of miles. "What, then, must have been the effect upon ^ South Victoria. THE DELUGE. 277 the sea occasioned by the bodily upheaval of continental masses of land, like the great Ter- tiary expanse in Australia, measuring in round figures 950 by 1,050 miles, and the Patagonian uplift, 1,200 miles long, " raised in mass," as Dar- win says, to the height of between 300 and 400 feetfi This idea of successive waves invading the land corresponds well with the reiterated de- scription of how the waters prevailed more and more. It also accounts, best of all theories, for the rapid subsidence of the waters. We are told that the waters prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days and then abated, and, two hundred and twent3-five days later, "was the earth dried." If so much water as to have covered the hills and mountains had been added to the volume of the sea, and so have covered the whole glol^e to this additional degree, it is simply impossible that the volume of water so added could have been wholly disposed of in so short a time. It could not have evaporated away, neither could it have been absorbed by the earth. Where did it all go! But if the Flood was caused by the vast waves of the sea ^ Lyell remarks that the instantaneous formation of a shoal, where before was a deep ocean, would dis- place a vast body of water, which, being heaped up to a great height, might roll over a continent and even permanently submerge a large portion of it {Princi- ples of Geologii, p. 156). 278 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. overwhelming the land, the waters, as soon as the disturbing cause ceased,^ would flow back to their former level ; or, in the marvelously ac- curate words of Scripture, "the waters returned from off the earth continually." Then, again, if these tidal waves swept in from the direction of AustraUa, they would have borne away the ark in a north-westerly direction (as- suming that the former dwelling-place of Noah was near the Euphrates or in that general divis- ion of Asia), and the ark would Lave drifted up into Asia Minor, under the impulse of the currents setting in from the south-east toward " the mountains of Ararat," as we are told it actually did. All these things seem to be so exactly as they naturally would have been, if the Flood occurred at this period, that I cannot repress the belief that this was the time of the universal Deluge. We find traditions of the Flood in nearly all lands, even those remote from each other, and these traditions essentially agree. Thus we find them in Peru and Chili, in Greece, Asia Minor, and in the Baltic region. Berosus, the Chaldean historian, who wrote at Babylon in the time of Alexander, speaks of a universal deluge Avhicli he places immediately before the reign of Bel us, the father of Ninus. Until lately this was the ' ** The fountains atso of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained " (Gen. viii. 2). THE DELUGE. 279 only version of the Babylonian story known to ns. It relates that " the god Kronos appeared to Xisnthnrus, tenth king of Babylon (cf. Noah, tenth patriarch), in a dream and warned him of the coming Deluge. The details remind ns a good deal of the biblical narrative, except that Xisnthnrus is accompanied by a steersman and by his near friends. Even the thrice-repeated letting ont of the birds is mentioned. At last the ship (as it is called) grounded ' on a certain mountain,' where Xisnthnrus erected an altar and sacrificed; after which both he and his companions disappeared (cf. the translation of Enoch). The duration of the Deluge is not stated, and its cause is left to be inferred from the special commendation of Xisuthurns for piety. Berosus has evidently drawn from the cuneiform sources, but those sources have not yet been discovered. Our most valuable au- thority for the Babylonian Deluge story is that portion of the eleventh lay of the great mytho- logical epic discovered by Mr. George Smith. It came from the library of King Assurbanipal, and dates from about GGO b.c. ; but the Accadinn original, from which it is translated, mny well (says the cautious Assyriologue, Dr. Schrader) have been composed between 1000 and 2000 B.C., while the myths themselves will, of course, l)e much older. The hero of the Deluge l)ears the name of Tam-zi (the ' sun of life,' cf. Tamnuz), for so, with Mr. Sayce, the signs should most 280 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. probably be read, fie is called the son of Ubara- tntii, an Accadian name, meaning the ' splendor of sunset ' (Lenormant, Sayee). This version of the story differs in several respects from that of Berosus. The deity who warns Tam-zi is Hea (god of knowledge and of the waters), who orders him to bnild a ship and to put into it his household and his wealth and the beasts of the field. All this is related by Tam-zi to the (solar) hero ' Izdubar.' He tells how he coated the ship within and without with bitumen (cf. Gen. vi. 14), how he intrusted all to a ' seaman ' ; how Samas, the sun-god, and other gods (Hea is not now mentioned) sent rain, and how the rain-flood 'destroyed all life from the face of the earth.' (Why the Deluge was sent is a little uncertain, owing to the mutilated condition of the tablets.) On the seventh day there was a calm and the ship stranded on the mountain Nizir. Another seven days and Tam-zi let out a ' dove ' ( ?), then a swallow, both of which returned, and a raven, which did not return. Then he left the ship and made a libation. Mr. Smith's ' altar' is un- certain. Finally Hea intercedes with Bel that there be no second deluge, after which Tam-zi and his wife and the people were carried away to be like the gods." ^ In Greece we have the Flood tradition of Deu- calion (Pindar), who with Pyrrha landed on 1 Encydopa'dia Britannka (ninth edition), article " Deluge." THE DELUGE. 281 Mount Parnassus, and like Noah made a sac- rifice. Mr. Catlin says tliat among one hundred and twenty different tribes which he visited in North, South, and Central America, not a tribe exists that has not related to him distinct or vague traditions of a flood, in which one, three, oveigld persons were saved above the waters on the top of a high mountain. " Shrewder intel- lects (e.g., among the Tahitians and some of the American Indians) even clutched at phenomena like those of fossil shells found on hills to prove the literal truth of their deluge. All through Polynesia we find a flood tradition of a ship standing on a mountain-top. The Vedas, or sacred books of the Hindus, supposed to have been written a.m. 3300, fix the date of the Deluge about fifteen hundred years before their epoch, thus substantially agreeing with the Bible chronology. The Ghebres place the same event at about the same date. In China, too, we find traditions of a great flood, in the period of Yaou, more than two thousand years before our era, and which scholars have identified as the Noa- chian Deluge. CHAPTER XVI. THE DELUGE (Concluded). Many discussions have arisen concerning the reasonableness of the Bible history of the Del- uge. These were formerly carried on with more zeal than in modern days. Among others was the question as to the capacity of the ark to contain its living freight and the necessary food. The ark was designed, not to sail, but to float. Assuming the cubit to be 21.8 inches, the ark was 547 feet long, 91 feet wide, and 51 feet high — that is, three times the length of a first-rate man-of-war in the British navy. Sir Walter Ealeigh, who had more practical knowledge of stowage than any other writer who has dis- cussed the subject, computed that the space was ample to contain all the animals which the Bible declares entered the ark; bnt modern critics have denied his conclusions, because in his time the true number of species was not defi- nitely known as now, and say that consequently liis computation was based upon insufficient in- 282 THE DELUGE. 283 formation. Eev. Dr. Eobert Jaiiiieson, however, says tliat the iiiunber of animals would not be so large as might at first thought be imagined. "It has been calculated," he says, "that there are not more than three hundred distinct spe- cies of beasts and birds, the immense varieties m regard to form, size, and color being trace- able to the influence of climate and other cir- cumstances." Another standard problem, which is a favor- ite objection with skeptical persons, is the query how the animals of different climes and of re- mote regions could have assembled at the ark m soutli-western Asia or elsewhere. I am not aware that any natural method of rendezvous has ever been suggested, although the theory of a "mother region" within the^ Arctic circle to which reference has already been made, seems to reduce the difficulties of the question. Surely the evident procession of animals from a com- mon center in the Arctic regions to the south is of great significance. Not oiilv are the inferior animals found in the extreme parts of the south- ern continents, but the lowest types of mankind are also found there.^ 1 Geikie says, -The higher fmma of Australia is more nearly akin to that which flourished in Europe far back in Mesozoic time than to the hving fauna of any other region of the globe" {Geohx/i,, p. 619). "The extreme. southern points of the three conti- nents are occupied by races which came originally, 284 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. But the difficulties are not all on the side of the believer of the Bible. How can we account (except on the basis of its truthfulness) for the universality of the tradition of the Flood ? How- ever varying as to details and however modified or colored by the various religions which have embalmed it in human memory, it is everywhere essentially the same story. Its antiquity, its uni- versality, its essential harmony, all impress it with the seal of truth. Other events, not rest- ing on a hundredth part of such testimony, are accepted as true, without so much as a shadow of doubt. What event of ancient history is more fully proved ! Besides the Old Testament narrative, we are assured of the historical char- acter of this event as an actual fact in human without doubt, from somewhere else, and which are ranked in Tierra del Fuego, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in Tasmania among the lowest of the species. These races, advancing in front of the others, have preserved the visible stamp of the relative inferiority of the stock from which they were prematurely de- tached. We have to believe, in effect, that these three branches, Fuegians, Bushmen, and Tnsmanians, so little elevated in their physical, intellectual, and moral traits, have gone and planted themselves so far away only because the unoccupied space opened out before them. Scouts for the rest of mankind, they have reached, stej) by step, the extreme limits of the habit- able land" {Paradise Found, p. 442, quoting Marquis G. de Sapor ta). THE DELUGE. 285 history by the writings of St. PauP and St. Peter," and even by the words of " the faithful and true witness," our Lord Jesus Christ.^ What other historical event of antiquity is equally vouched for ! We may leave to the cu- rious the problem of determining of how many tons burden the ark was. As to the assembling of the various animals from distant lands, we may remark that the scientist has essentially the same problem to solve, with some additional difficulties, to determine how the present Arctic species of animals ever reached their habitat, and whence they came. We have seen that the indubitable proof, spread upon the geologic page, is that the Arctic zone was once torrid, and it is evident that these animals did not then inhabit that region of the earth. Where did they then live? From whatever countries of the earth they first proceeded, it is obvious that they must have traversed a tropical clime to reach their present dwelling-place. If the skej)- tic, who, of course, accepts geological truth, will explain this remarkable and apparently impos- sible migration, he doubtless will thereby afford sufficient material to the Christian believer to explain that earlier migration. And, lastly, we may (if the Flood occurred in the Tertiary period) call attention to the fact that some of the species of animals peculiar to the Secondary 1 Heb. xi. 7. 1 Pet. iii. 20 ; 2 Pet. iii. 4-6. 3 Matt. xxiv. 37-39 286 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. or Mesozoic age did not appear or survive in the Tertiary, and were possibly swept out of ex- istence because they were not preserved by Noah, as other species were. But whether or not we can so accurately fix the time of this flood by the testimony of the rocks, there is no doubt that the Deluge was caused in some such manner as described, even if at a later period. The fact that such oscilla- tions and movements of the earth's crust ha^^e occurred within the human period, and even within historic times, shows that it is entirely possible and probable that the Tertiary and Post-tertiary formations have been made since the advent of man upon the earth. The geological evidence is "conclusive for the greater elevation of land during the period of greater glaciatiou, as well as for its depression during the interglacial period. American geol- ogists estimate that a large part of eastern Canada, with adjacent regions, must have been at least 2,000, and may have been as much as 3,000 feet above its present level during the first great glaciation, while the Champlain ma- rine beds show that it was some hundreds of feet below the present sea-level during part of the interglacial period. Scandinavia stood at least 2,000 feet higher than at present during the climax of the glacial period, as proved by the dei>th of the fiords, and afterward 500 or GOO lower, as proved by the raised beaches. In THE DELUGE. 287 Great Britain and Ireland we have conclusive evidence both of higher elevation, and depres- sion of at least 1,300 feet, and probably more than 2,000 feet, below the present sea-level, as proved by the marine shells on the top of Moel-Tryfen. "But these elevations and depressions are small in amount as compared with the mount- ain-building which is known to have occurred in Asia in comparatively recent geological times. Here the Himalayas, stretching for 1,500 miles from east to west, and rising to heights of from 20,000 to 29,000 feet above the sea, have been formed in great part during this period." In the Eocene and Miocene formations " the Alps were certainly 10,000 feet lower than their present level, and the Himalayas more so." ^ " Many of the great mountains of the globe, as the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians, Himalayas, etc., received then [in the Eocene] a large part of their elevation, as is proved by their con- taining Eocene rocks in their structure, or by their bearing them about their summits. Thus it is learned that the elevation of the Pyrenees, though commenced before the close of the Cre- taceous, was mainly produced in the middle or Liter part of the Eocene, as also that of the Julian Alps, the Apennines and Carpathians, and that of heights in Corsica. The HimalayaSj in their western part about Cashmere, have nummulitic or Eocene beds at a height of 16,500 ^ Human Origins, p. 306. 288 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. feet; so that even this great chain, although earlier elevated to the east, was not completed before the middle Eocene ; and even later than this it received a considerable part of its eleva- tion, as later Tertiary beds at lower levels show. The elevation of the Western Alps, including Mont Blanc, is referred by Elie de Beaumont to the close or latter part of the Miocene period, and that of the Eastern Alps, along the Bernese Oberland, to the close of the Pliocene. An ele- vation of 3,000 feet took place in Sicily after the Pliocene. Many parts of the region of the Andes were raised 3,000 to 5,000 feet or more in the course of the Tertiaiy period."^ " Man clearly existed in the preglacial period, and was already widely spread and in consider- able numbers in the early glacial. ... To this must be added an indefinitely long period be- yond, unless we are prepared to disprove the apparently excessive strong evidence for the hu- man race in the Pliocene and even in the Mio- cene periods — evidence which has been rapidly accumulating of late years, and to which, so far as I know, there has been no serious and un- biased attempt at scientific refutation, . . . and, if Professor Ameghino's discoveries . . . are confirmed, in the vastly more remote period of the early Eocene." - The earth even now has not become fixed in 1 Text-hook of Geology, Dana, p. 218. 2 Human Oriyins, p. 316. THE DELUGE. 289 its condition. In recent times islands have risen suddenly from the ocean, and volcanoes have towered above the waters, while in other places islands have sunk beneath the waves. Many- instances are known of these great changes in level. Beds of recent shells have been found in many places elevated from 100 to 700 feet above the sea. Portions of Sweden are subsiding. Greenland has been subsiding continuously for the past four hundred years. Hence it is entirely credible that during the lifetime of the early patriarchs in Asia, vast changes were going on in all parts of the earth, and the later deposits and formations were then m ade. Nor is it a valid objection that such vicissitudes of climate could not have occurred in the human period, for, as we have seen, it has been demonstrated that men survived the horrors of the ice age, and human bones have been found beneath the glacial drift. Figuier attributes the Flood (which, however, he claims was only local) to an nplieaval of a part of the long chain of mountains which di- verge from the Caucasus. He says that the earth opened, and from the fissures volcanic matter escaped, as also watery vapors and steam (accompanied with lava), which dissipated and fell as rain, and the plains were deluged with volcanic mud.^ This theory, however, does not agree in any respect with the Bible narrative, 1 The World before the Deluge, p. 429. 290 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. and seems untenable as an explanation of the Noachian Deluge. Under the supposed exigencies of the subject there has been a strong disposition to consider the Flood as partial rather than universal. One has written : " There can be no doubt that the Flood was universal so far as man was con- cerned; we mean that it extended to all the then known world. The literal truth of the nar- rative obliges us to believe that the whole hu- man race, except eight persons, perished by the waters of the Flood. ... But the language of the Book of Genesis does not compel us to sup- pose that the whole surface of the globe was actually covered with water, if the evidence of geology requires us to adopt the hypothesis of a partial deluge."^ The very emphatic lan- guage, " all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered," should be limited in meaning, it is thought, because elsewhere we read that " all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn," and that " there went out a decree from C^sar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." But such a forced in- terpretation by no means relieves the problem from difficulty. If the Flood were partial, — that is, local, — it must have occurred in one of two ways : either the water rose above the highest mountains of the flooded region, or that region, with its liigh- 1 The Old Testament History, Smith, p. 47. THE DELUGE. 291 est mountains, sank below the level of the sea. So much as this is certain, if the high hills and mountains anywhere were entirely covered with water. First, did the waters, either from the ocean or the clouds, or from both sources, ever rise to a level higher than the summit of the highest mountain of the ill-fated region (wherever it may have been), and " fifteen cubits upward " ? Then, as surely as water seeks its own level, it must have overflowed into the adjacent regions, unless, by a miracle more stupendous than that at the Red Sea, "the floods stood upright as an heap,^'' and " the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left," and be- fore and behind as well. For illustration, sup- pose an inland region such as the four-sided State of Colorado, having, among other high hills, a mountain (Pike's Peak) whose altitude is more than 14,000 feet.^ Now, if water could be poured ujion Colorado until the water-level rose higher than Pike's Peak, it is certain that, unless there should be a miracle performed, or a sufiiciently strong and high retaining-wall built on all four sides of the State, the water must overflow into the neighboring regions un- til a barrier could be reached; otherwise the flood could not stand above the mountain-peak for months. The crossing of a comparatively shallow arm of the Red Sea by the children of ^ The height of Mount Ararat exceeds 17,000 feet. 292 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. Israel upon a dry path cleft through the waves was so grand and so wonderful a miracle that it is many times referred to in the Bible ; and yet that miracle continued only a few hours, and, in part at least, was caused by " a strong east wind all that night," which " made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided " ; while the miracle above invented to obviate the diffi- culties of the Noachian Deluge requires that a mass of water thousands of miles long and thousands of miles wide and above 17,000 feet high should be maintained in position for one hundred and fifty days by means which cannot even be imagined. If, to avoid this absurdity, the skeptical reader of the Pentateuch seizes the other horn of the dilemma, and concludes that the land, with its high hills and mountains, sank so that the wa- ters of the sea overwhelmed and submerged them, the difficulties of the problem do not van- ish, but a more amazing and unprecedented miracle is required. To have the advantage of a specific illustration, we will take the theory born in " the vast reveries of Hugh Miller " — surely a reverent student of "the two records. Mosaic and geological." He says,^ " Let us see whether we cannot originate a theory of the Deluge free from at least the palpable monstros- ities of the older ones." This is the theory: There is a remarkable portion of the globe, ^ The Testimony of the EocJcSf p. 357. THE DELUGE. 293 chiefly in Asia, but extending into Europe where the rivers do not flow into the ocean, but are all "turned inward," losing themselves in the lakes of a rainless district toward the east, and into seas such as the Caspian and the Aral in the west. In it are extensive districts still under the level of the ocean. The shores of the Caspian Sea are more than 83 feet beneath the shores of the Black Sea, and the steppe of As- tracan is about 30 feet below the Baltic. In this depressed region is Mount Ararat. " Let us suppose that, the hour of judgment having at length arrived, the land began gradually to sink ; . . . further let us suppose that the de- pression took place slowly and equably for forty days together, at the rate of about 400 feet per daij, a rate . . . which would have rendered it- self apparent as but a persistent inward flowing of the sea ; and further suppose that a volcanic outburst coincident with that depression af- fected the atmosphere so as to cause heavy rains to fall during all that time, which, though they could not add more than 5 or 6 inches per day to the actual volume of the Flood, yet seemed to constitute one of its main causes. The depres- sion, extending to the Euxine Sea and the Per- sian Gulf on one hand, and to the Gulf of Fin- land on the other, would open up by three separate channels the fountains of the great deep, and which included, let us suppose, an area of about 2,000 miles each way, would, at 294 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. the end of the fortieth day, be sunk in its cen- ter to the depth of 16,000 feet — a depth sufficiently profound to bury the loftiest mountains of the district ; and yet, having a gradient of declina- tion of but 16 feet per mile, the contour of its hills and i^lains would remain apparently what they had been before. The doomed inhabitants would see but the water rising along the mount- ain-sides, and one refuge after another swept away, till the last witness of the scene would have perished and the last hill-top would have disappeared. And when, after a hundred and fifty days had come and gone, the depressed hol- low would have begun slowly to rise, and when, after the fifth month had passed, the ark would have grounded on the summit of Mount Ararat, all that could have been seen from the upper window of the vessel would be simply a bound- less sea, roughened by tides, now flowing out- ward, with a reversed course, toward the distant ocean, by the three great outlets which, during the period of depression, had given access to the waters. Noah would, of course, see that ' the fountains of the deep were stopped,' and ' the waters returning from off the earth continually' ; but whether the Deluge had been partial or uni- versal he could neither see nor know." Nothing in all geological history, full as it is of cataclysms and vast movements of the earth's crust, approaches the stupendous miracle which Hugh Miller has thus conjured up. He soberly THE DELUGE. 295 asks us to believe that as recently as 2348 B.C. the crust of the earth was in so plastic a condi- tion (although there was in the very locality affected a human population "amounting to several millions ") that a region of about 4,000,- 000 square miles, with many high hills and a mountain-peak 16,000 feet high, besides other lesser mountains, sank steadily for forty days at the rate of 400 feet a day (or about 17 feet an hour — about 3f inches a minute), and this so evenly and smoothly as to preserve the con- tour of the hills and plains and to present merely the phenomenon of arising sea ; that this remark- able subsidence continued until the highest point of the highest mountain sank just below the level of the water, thus drowning the last survivor of mankind and the last animnl — whereupon this vast region, after one hundred and fifty days, began to rise again slowly and steadily until it resumed substantially its former height. This remarkable movement — which, however, would not have accomplished the expressed purpose of God — he calmly asks us to believe instead of the " palpable monstrosities" of the Bible narrative ! Here is a vertical movement of 32,000 feet — 16,000 downward and 16,000 uj)ward — accom- plished in comparatively a few days, at a time far advanced into the human period. Where and when was there any geological event to compare with it in magnitude ? Who can be- lieve it? 296 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. Supposing that the whole human race inhab- ited this submerged country, it is indeed evi- dent that all mankind would have perished in this catastrophe, except those who were in the refuge of the ark ; but would such a flood have been the fulfillment of the threat of God, " Be- hold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, tvherein is the breath of life, from under heaven ; and every thing that is in the earth shall die " 1 ^ Could it be true that, as the result of such a flood, " all flesh died that moved uf)on the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man : all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven ; and they were destroyed from the earth : and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark"!^ How could such a flood have destroyed all brute life in North America, South America, Africa, and Australia ? Or shall we say that life in those portions of the earth was not destroyed at all I It is a forcible argument of Dr. Kitto ^ (Hugh Miller to the contrary notwithstanding^) when 1 Gen. vi. 17. ^ Qen. vii. 21-23. ^ DaUy Bihle Tllnsfrations. 4 The Testimony of the Rocks, p. 307. THE DELUGE. 297 he wiites, " If the Deluge were but local, what was the need of taking birds into the ark, and among them birds so widely diffused as the raven and the dove! A deluge which could overspread the region which these birds inhabit could hardly have been less than universal. If the Deluge were local, and all the birds of these kinds in that district perished (though we should think they might have fled to the uninundated regions), it woidd have been useless to encum- ber the ark with them, seeing that the birds of the same species which survived in the lands not overflowed would speedily replenish the in- undated tract as soon as the waters subsided." And following out the same line of thought, why should Noah have taken the troul)le to preserve alive the lions, the elephants, the snakes, the toads, and those undomesticated animals which are not only useless to man, but hostile to him ? Why could he not, after the subsidence of the Flood, import all these ani- mals from the countries round about — from Asia, Europe, and Africa ! The Scriptures plainly assert that Noah was commanded to take with him into the ark and that he did take " two of every sort," " of every living thing of all flesh," " of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth." ^ This broad statement evidently relates to a 1 Gen. vi. 19 ; vii. 8. See, however, Gen. vii. 2, 3. 298 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. world-wide deluge and cannot fairly be con- strued as applicable to merely a local flood. Yet some one may say that it refers to such animals as were indigenous only to the con- demned district. If that interpretation, how- ever, were true, such animals must have been very few, small, or feeble, and Noah need not have provided so enormous an ark. Finally, we may inquire, if the Flood were only local, why need Noah have built an ark at all f It is certainly very amusing to read Mr. Miller's pathetic description of the pair of sloths which crept by inches from South America to Asia, starting on this fearful journey at about the time when Noah laid the keel of his famous vessel, and arriving one hundred and twenty years afterward — just in time to embark with him upon the perilous voyage — and, after being shipwrecked on the top of Mount Ararat, re- tracing their weary steps to South America, to repopulate the slothless hills and valleys of their native land ! But a much more sensible journey would it have been (if the Deluge were only a local affair) for Noah and his family to leave the bad neighborhood where they had lived so uncomfortably, and remove to the country, although far off, which was not doomed to be flooded. Instead of laboring so hard for one hundred and twenty years, amid the jeers and sneers of his ungodly neighbors, he might easily have reached the land of safety, if he had THE DELUGE. 299 walked but one mile a month. By so doing he would have spared himself great trouble and expense, and also would have saved succeeding generations much difficulty in striving to solve the many perplexing problems of the Noachian Deluge. CHAPTER XVII. OBJECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. At the very outset in this discussion I frankly acknowledged that my theory is not faultless. It is fairly open to criticism in several directions, and may ultimately require some modification, or, at least, restatement in more exact language. It is, however, inexpedient at present to attempt to forestall all criticism, and I will content my- self with an allusion to what I anticipate as the main objection. My theory differs much from the prevalent opinion in that it greatly shortens geological time and brings certain of the geological epochs well into the human period. It asserts the ap- pearance of man as far back as the very begin- ning of theTriassic, and suggests that the Deluge occurred at the beginning of the Tertiary age. As to this matter I think that in the current theories there is error in two directions : first, that the human period has been shortened, and secondly, that the geological period has been 300 OBJECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. 301 lengthened. If the time of man's existence upon the earth could be proved to be of a longer duration than hitherto estimated, and the time for the later geological formations could be diminished by a reconsideration of the proofs, harmony could be reached where now is almost hopeless discrepancy. Let us see whether com- promise in these respects is possible. First as to chronology. In many Bibles there appears in the margin, upon nearly every page, a date B.C. or a.d. ; and to some readers these dates seem to be a part of the divine revelation and to be necessarily true. They are, however, no more a part of the record than are the divis- ions into chapters and verses. All these are purely human contrivances of comparatively recent origin — well enough for purposes of con- venient reference or comparison, but of no exe- getical value, and sometimes actually hurtful to a true comprehension of the subject-matter. The dates thus appearing in the margin are those of Archbishop Usher (1580-1656), the ad- vocate of the shortest of the systems of Hebrew chronology. His date for the Creation is 4:004: B.C., and for the Flood 2348 B.C., as against 20,000 B.C. and 10,000 b.c. respectively, as argued by Bunsen. As soon as we begin to study Hebrew chro- nology we encounter difficulties. Dr. William Smith says :^ "The technical part of Hebrew ^ Dictionary of the Bible, article " Chronology." 302 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. chronology presents great difficulties. The his- toricul part of Hebrew chronology is not less difficult than the technical. The information in the Bible is, indeed, direct rather than inferen- tial, although there is very important evidence of the latter kind, but the present state of the numbers makes absolute certainty in many cases impossible. Three principal systems of biblical chronology have been founded, which may be termed the Long System, the Sliort, and the Rabbinical. There is a fourth, whicli, although an offshoot in part of the last, can scarcely be termed biblical, inasmuch as it de- pends for the most part upon theories not only independent of, but repugnant to, the Bible; tliislast is at present peculiar to Baron Bunson. The principal advocates of the Long Chronol- ogy are Jackson, Hales, and Des Vignoles. Of the Short Chronology Usher may l)e considered the most able advocate. The Rabbinical Chro- nology accepts the biblical numbers, but makes the most arbitrary corrections. For the date of the Exodus it has been vii-tually accepted by Bnnsen, Lepsius, and Lord A. Horvey. The nuni])ers given by the LXX. for the antodilu- vain patriarchs would place the creation of Adam 2,2G2 years before the end of the Flood, or B.C. cir. 5361 or 5421." " Of sacred chronology there have been vari- ous systems. In these the epochs are the Crea- tion of the world and the Flood ; but the chief OBJECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. 303 copies of the Bible do not agree as to the dates of these events. While the Hebrew text reckons 4,000 years from the Creation to the birth of Christ, and to the Flood 1,656 years, the Samar- itan makes the former much longer, though it counts from the Creation to the Flood only 1,307 years. The Septuagint version differs from both. It removes the Creation of the world to 6000 be- fore Christ and 2,250 years before the Flood. These differences have never been reconciled." ^ Although the origin of the Septuagint is " shrouded in deep obscurity," yet its great value seems well established by the fact that the New Testament quotations from the Old Testament are almost invariably given from the Septuagint. Considering the subject in view of these facts, it is apparent that there are two sources of diffi- culty, one as to the version, and another as to the interpretation. Still another theory of chronology is set forth by Professor Winchell, with hearty approval, in his Prc-adamites,- as follows : " The unsatisfactory brevity of the popular chronology confers great interest and impor- tance on the attempt recently made by Eev. T. P. Crawford {The Fatriarchal Dynasties) to show that the Genesiacal language, when properly in- terpreted, expands the patriarchal periods to more than four times the accepted length. I ^ Cliambers's Encyclopedia, article '' Chronology." - Page 449 et seq. 304 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. deem it an appropriate sequel of this discussion of the antiquity of man to explain Mr. Craw- ford's method. " The fundamental position assumed by the author is a reformed reading of the genealogical tables contained in the fifth and eleventh chap- ters of Genesis, the first of which traces the pos- terity of Adam to Noah, and the other traces the posterity of Noah to Abraham. For the purjiose of giving an intelligible explanation of Mr, Craw- ford's reformed reading, I here reproduce the biblical paragraph touching the family of Adam. "'And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: and the days of Adam after he had begotton Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: and all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.' " A similar paragraph is recorded respecting each of the antediluvian patriarchs. Now the author maintains that the word Adam is em- ployed above in a jyersonal., and afterward in a family sense ; that the first clause denotes the ii'lwle life of Adam, and not his age at the birth of Seth ; that yolad, translated ' begat,' signifies rather ' appointed,' and refers to Adam's desig- nation of Seth (in place of Abel) to be his suc- cessor ; that ' likeness ' and ' image ' refer, not to personal appearance, but to character and office, the name Seth itself signifying ' the appointed ' OBJECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. 305 (Gen. iv. 25 ; Seth seems to be from sifh, to 'set,' to * place,' to ' replace ') ; that Adam in the next clause refers to the tribe or family of Adam ; that the Adamic family continued to be ruled over by successors not in the line of Seth for a i:)eriod of nine hundred and thirty years ; that thereafter the representatives of the Sethic line acceded to the kingship for nine hundred and twelve years, when the family of Enos assumed government, and so on. " These positions are argued with much abil- ity. That the first clause expresses the whole life of Adam is maintained on the following grounds: (1) The Hebrew never employs the verb lived with definite numbers to indicate the age of a man at the birth of a son, but it invari- ably says such a one was a sou of so many years u'hen his son was born, or some other event took place. Many passages are cited, of which see Genesis xxi. 5; xvi. 16; xvii. 24; xxi. 4; Joshua xiv. 7 ; 1 Kings xiv. 21. On the con- trary, the verb Jived denotes the whole term of a man's life. See Genesis 1. 22 ; xxiii. 1 ; xxv. 7 ; xlvii. 28; v. 5; xi. 11; ix. 28; 2 Kings xiv. 17; Job xlii. 16. (2) Antediluvian life is substan- tially asserted to have been one hundred and twenty years on an average (see Gen. vi. 3: ' yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years '). (3) There is nowhere in the Old Testa- ment any allusion to so enormous ages as eight hundred and nine hundred years. On the contrary, Abraham, who was promisoh Prestwich (lS9o), pp. 1-18. 332 GENESIS AND MODEllN SCIENCE. been estimated. Changes in the distribution of the earth's crust have, as we have seen, caused a redistribution of tlie waters of the sea; and this vast shifting weight, taken from one pohir hemisphere to the other, laas, in the early history of our globe, made it sway to and fro in its equi- poise, though in more recent times the earth's crust, by its continued refrigeration and con- sequent thickening, has become comparatively stable and fixed, so as not to change the direc- tion of the earth's poles within historical j)eriods, except at tlie time of the Deluge.^ In the foregoing pages I have sought to solve perplexing questions b)^ construing together the natural and supernatural evidences of the Crea- tion and the development of the earth. I have endeavored to interpret God's word by God's works. If we had perfect knowledge of both we should find no discrepancies, but only perfect harmony, between them. All physical science ' " Some evidence lias recently been addneed that some very slight changes in latitude are going on at the observatories of Dorpat and Greenwich ; but, if confirmod, these can only be of very minute amount. (I rising from sliglif chunges in the position of the earflt's center of gravity, owing to j)artial elevations and depres- sions. The latest researches seem to show that these slight variations in latitude do not exceed 2" or 3", and are periodical, with a period of no longer than three hundred to three hundred and ten days" {TTu- man Origins, 1892, p. aOO). OBJECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. 333 has not yet been perfect]}- aseertained. Kew discoveries await us, as grand, doubtless, as those ah-eady made, and perhaps even more grand ; and along with this enlargement of scien- tific knowledge will also come a larger under- standing of the Christian 8criptures,\vhich are studied in these latter days by more scholars, with more enthusiasm, and with more loving faith than ever before in the history of the world. "The pretense that the Bible must be interpreted grammatically and Hebraically, without scientific aids, is an implicit denial of its divine inspiration, and is one of those self- destructive claims which a blind faith is ever setting up against the demands of common sense. If the Bil)le is a purely human production, then we must seek its meaning by the literal inter- pretation of its language. We have no right to seek for anything beyond that which is actually expressed. If the Bible is the expression of an infinite mind through finite, falhble, and often unconscious human agents, it is certain that the literal phrase can seldom rise to the full idea which it adumbrates. There is always some- thing beyond, an infinite something beyond, which the langange but faintly shadoNvs forth' or fails totally to reach. This something beyond,' this test and prerogative of inspiration, is the realm of universal and eternal truth ; and there is nothing which can bring us into apprehensible relations to this, which eludes verbal expression, 334 GENESIS AND MODEEN SCIENCE. except attahiahle, related truth. Whatever aids, therefore, bring lis into possession of trnths cor- related to these expressed or faintly shadowed or snbliinely subsumed in the text of the divine revelation, it is not only legitimate, but our bounden duty to summon. The more devoutly we hold to the inspiration of the Bible, the more devoutly shall we recognize the atmosphere of thoughts wliicli transcended all power of ex- pression in the language of a rude age, and the more gladly shall we seek to rise to the highest summits of modern thought for the purpose of catching glimpses of the divine light which had not risen on the Hebrew mind." ^ This subject is so fascinating that with reluc- tance I lay down my pen as I close my discussion and comparison of the Hebrew and geologicnl hieroglj'phs of the Creation, The simple ideas which I have endeavored to elucidate have, I trust, proved to be a clue which has led us, some- times in the dark and along dangerous ways, safely through the mazes of the laljyrinth out into the clear shining of the day. 1 Pre-adamiteSy Wiucliell, p. 45G. CHAPTER XVIII. THE SABBATH. Jekusalem has been many times besieged and often destroyed. The valleys between its four hills have been filled up with the accumulations of the debris of its successive ruins, so that but little inequality of surface is now observable. Its historical places, however, are easily identi- fied (among these the area of Moriah, where have stood the temples of Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Herod, heathen altars and the mosques of the Mohammedans), while, doubtless, proper exca- vations would bring to light relics of the various periods in the long and eventful history of the Holj^ City. A journey to these historic scenes, a personal examination of the manj- points of interest, the actual sight and touch of the old foundation-walls of the first temple and of that remnant of an arch of the bridged highway which in ancient times spanned the Tyropoeon Valley, are proofs of the actual Jerusalem that 335 336 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. now is and that lias been. These constitute one record of its existence and history. But another and more complete record is its written history, found not only in the sacred Scriptures, but also in profane writings. Here, with great particularity, we read of the marvel- ous events, the mighty heroes and their exploits, the magnificence and glory, which fill up its annals. By this historical literature we learn of the manners and customs of the inhabitants of the city, their laws and religions, and the suc- cessive events in the progress of its career. We look in vaiu for the magnificent temj^le which, at the beginning of the Christian era, rose in splendor from the summit of Moriah ; but in the written history we are infoi'med of its appear- ance, its architecture, its apartments and courts, its sacrifices and festivals, and we even know of its furnishings, its golden seven-branched can- dlestick, and all its sacred and symbolical para- phernalia. This constitutes the second record ; and while it cannot satisfy the actual test of the senses, it is upon this record that we mainly rely, and by means of it the first record is made more intelligible and interesting. ]\Iore than 1,500 miles northwest of Jerusalem, the ancient Holy City, in the modern holy city, Rome, to-day stands, and for more than eighteen centuries has stood, another record. It is the arch of Titus, who destroyed Jerusalem in the year 70, in fulfillment of the prophecy of our THE SABBATH. 337 Lord. Upon the inside of the arch are reliefs representing the trinniphal procession : on the one side Titus in his chariot, and on the other soldiers bearing the golden candlestick, the trumpets, and the table for the show-bread. This constitutes the third record, the monu- mental, independent of the others, yet corrob- orative of them, and in some respects the most convincing of all. Thus we have three distinct classes of evidence concerning the temple,— the topographical, the historical or literary, and the monumental, — and these three agree. By any one of them we can corroborate and interpret the other two. Tills is a parable, intended to illustrate and enforce the far greater fact that there are also tljree records of tlie Creation. The first is the geological, the rocks themselves, wherein, pile upon pile, are the different strata which repre- sent the various stages in the Idstory of the earth, where the ruins or relics of one age are found overlaid with those of another. Tliese bear the closest scrutiny and satisfy the senses. They are the real record, the real things themselves, though they were not understood nor even rec- ognized a hundred years ago. The second record is the scriptural, the writ- ten history. This is the most complete, and it informs us who was the Creator of these things, and unfolds the wonderful narrative of the Creation itself. 338 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. The third is the monumental, the inscription graven on stone. This is commemorative in its character, as are all monumental records. More- over, it is made the basis of hiw and the founda- tion of a religion. Tiiese three records attest the same fact, each in its own independent manner. Each corroborates the other two and interprets them. The first is God's liandiwork itself, the effect produced by the "first great Cause " ; the second is the story of his work re- vealed by the Creator himself to his servant Moses, whose hand wrote it for our learning; but the third was " written with the finger of God " upon " two tables of testimony, tables of stone." ^ " He wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments." ^ Surely the third record is the most inii)ortant of all and commands a greater respect than either of the other two. What is the record which God thus inscribed in human language upon tablets of stone! Surely it is in strict agreement with what he in- scribed in hieroglyphics upon the rocky tablets of the crust of the earth. " Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work : but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor tliy dauglitor, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy 1 Ex. xxxi. 18. - Ex. xxxiv. 28. THE SABBATH. 339 stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in tliem is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."^ This is the Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue. The commandments were first spoken to Moses,- but after God had made an end of communing with him the Lord inscribed them upon the tables of stone.^ During the time that Moses was upon the holy mount the Israel- ites degenerated into idolatry. "And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his liand: the tables were written on both their sides ; on the one side and on the other were they \vritten. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.^ . . . And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing : and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount." '^ Some time afterward the " Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon those tables the words that were in the first tables, which tliou brakest.*^ . . . And he hewed two tables of 1 Ex. XX. 8-lL 2 Ex. XX. L 3 Ex. xxxi. 18. " Ex. xxxii. 15, IG. ^ Ex. xxxii. 19. ^ Ex. xxxiv. 1. 340 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the Loed had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.i . . . And he was there with the Loed forty days and forty nights ; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments."" An ark was made, of which a description is given in Exodus xxxvii. 1-9 ; and Moses " took and put the testimony into the ark."^ "^here was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Loed made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt." * There was no object held more sacred by the Jews than " the ark of God." Here, be- tween the two golden cheruljim of the mercy- seat, God specially dwelt and shone forth. Here he received the homage of his people and dis- pensed his living oracles. The great yearly sacrifice of expiation was offered here by the high-priest in the Holy of Holies. During the journeying in the wilderness the ark was borne by the priests under a purple canopy and with great reverence l)efore the hosts. Before it the Jordan was divided, and behind it the waters flowed on again. The walls of Jericho fell down before it. It was carried into battle. Solomon ^ Ex. xxxiv. 4. - Ex. xxxiv. 28. 3 Ex. xl. 20. 4 I Kiugs viii. 9. THE SABBATH. 341 bronglit it at last into the temple at Jerusalem. The ark appears to have been destroyed at the captivity, or perhaps concealed by pious Jews in some hiding-j^lace afterward undiscoverable, as we hear nothing more of it ; and the want of it made the second temple less glorious than the first.^ The first temple was destroyed by Nebuchad- nezzar, the king of Babylon. The account of it given by Josephus - is as follows : " And now it was that the king of Babylon sent Nebuzaradan, the general of his army, to Jerusalem, to pillage the temple, who had it also in command to burn it and the royal palace, and to lay the city even with the ground, and to transplant the people into Babylon. Accordingly he came to Jeru- salem in the eleventh year of King Zedekiah, and pillaged the temple, and carried out the vessels of God, both gold and silver, and particularly- that large laver which Solomon dedicated, as also the pillars of brass and their chapiters, with the golden tables and the candlesticks; and when he had carried these off, he set fire to the temple in the fifth month, the first day of the month, in the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah, and in the eighteenth year of Nebu- chadnezzar : he also burnt the palace and over- threw the city. Now the temple was burnt four hundred and seventy years, six months, and ten ^ Dictionary of the Hohj Bible, p. 37. 2 Antiquities of the Jews, Book X., chap, viii., sees. 5, 7. 342 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. days after it was built. . . . When the king was come to Babylon, he kept Zedekiah in prison until he died, and buried him magnificently, and dedi- cated the vessels he had pillaged out of the temple of Jerusalem to his own gods, and planted the people in the country of Babylon, but freed the high-priest from his bonds." It is true that Josephus does not here mention the ark of the covenant, which was really the principal object among all the holy furnishings of the temple. But if the temple was plundered of its gold and silver and even its brass, surely the ark of the covenant was not sj^ared, with its plates and rings of gold and its golden mercy- seat and golden cherubim. That it was then taken seems to be clearl}^ understood from the Books of Esdras. "Wherefore against him [Joacim] Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon came up, and bound him with a chain of brass, and carried him into Babylon. Nabuchodo- nosor also took of the holy vessels of the Lord, and carried them away, and set them in his own temple at Babylon." ^ " They took all the holy vessels of the Lord, both great and small, with the vessels of the ark of God, and the king's treasures, and carried them away into Babylon. As for the house of the Lord, they burnt it, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem, and set fire upon her towers : and as for her glorious things, they never ceased till they had consumed 1 1 Esd. i. 40, 41. THE SABBATH. 343 and brought tliem all to nought : and the people that were not slain with the sword he carried into Babylon : who became servants to him and his children, till the Persians reigned, to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremy: until the land had enjoyed her sab- baths, the whole time of her desolation shall she rest, until the full term of seventy years." i "How many are the adversities of SionI be comforted in regard of the sorrow of Jerusalem. For thou seest that our sanctuary is laid waste, our altar broken down, our temple destroj^ed; our psaltery is laid on the ground, our song is put to silence, our rejoicing is at an end, the light of our candlestick is put out, the ark of our covenant is spoiled, our holy things are de- filed, and the name that is called upon us is almost profaned : our children are put to shame, our priests are burnt, our Levites are gone into captivity, . . . our righteous men carried away, our little ones destroyed, our young men are brought in bondage, and our strong men are be- come weak ; and, which is the greatest of all, the seal of Sion hath now lost her honour ; for she is dehvered into the hands of them that hate us."- "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song ; and they 1 1 Esd. i. 54-58. -' 2 Esd. x. 20-23. 344 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth ; if I prefer not Jerusalem above mj chief joy. Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem ; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed ; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketli and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." i It is probable that these tables of stone have been demolished; yet as God has often inter- posed his providence for the preservation of his Holy Word, it is entirely possible that they may yet come to light in the exploration of the ruins of Babylon, or even in some part of the Holy Land itself.- At present, however, they are ^ Ps. cxxxvii. 2 A similar tlionglit is expressed by General Lew Wallace, in Ben Rur, p. Ill : " Oh, I see now why the Greek outstripped us/' said Judah, intensely interested. ^' And the ark ; ac- cursed be the Babylonians who destroyed it ! " "Nay, Judah; he of faith. It was not destroyed, only lost, hidden away too safely in some cavern of the mountains. One day— HiUel and Shammai both say so— one day, in the Lord's good time, it will be THE SABBATH. 345 certainly lost, and hence secondary evidence is admissible to prove what inscriptions they bore. If in the destruction of Eonie the barbarians had destro3^ed the arch of Titus, as many other structures were laid in I'uins, its value as monu- mental evidence would be none the less, because its existence and an accurate description of it could be shown by history, and when these were ascertained it would, as testimony, be precisely as valualjle as before. In respect to the Decalogue the secondary evidence is fully as strong as the tables of stone themselves w^ould be, and even more so. The Jews have made it the foundation of their religion for nearly thirty-four centuries. This peculiar people, for more than half of the period of its existence without a country and without government, has maintained its national iden- tity. It has outlived the empires of Babylon, of Persia, of Grreece, and of Rome. It has kept its religion intact and its i:)ure monotheism has survived the ancient m5'thologies and polythe- isms. Its Sabbath observance has been no less conspicuous and characteristic than its worship of the one living and true God. This institu- tion, preserved through a hundred generations, found and bronglit fortli, and Israel dance before it, singing as of old." For traditions about the hiding of the ark of the covenant and when it will be found again, see Giekie's Life of Christ, vol. i., p. 364. 346 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. and resting always upon the religious obligation of the Fourth Commandment, is a more signifi- cant fact than could be the stone tablet itself on which that commandment was written. No less significant is the Christian observance of the Lord's day; for although the holy day has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, the Christian church has trans- ferred to the first day all the sanctity which formerly belonged to the seventh, and, equally with the Jewish church, invokes in its defense the Fourth Commandment. It is not my pur- pose to explain or justify this change of the holy day. The literature on the subject is abundant and easily accessible. But whether the reasons are satisfactory or not, the fact re- mains that both Jews and Christians for many centuries have observed and halloVed one day in the week for the worship of Grod and for rest from labor. Moreover, it is broadly claimed — and, I think, with sufficient reason — that the institution of the Sabbath day long antedated the Decalogue. The words " Ren] ember the sab- bath day " indicate plainly that the Sabbath was already well known. The giving of the manna fi'om heaven every day for six days in succes- sion, but the withholding of it on the seventh, proves the Sabbath custom. "This is that which the Lord hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord : bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that THE SABBATH. 347 ye will seethe ; and that which remaineth over lay np for you to be kept until the morning. . . . And Moses said, Eat that to day ; for to day is a sabbath unto the Loud: to day ye shall not find it in the field. 8ix days ye shall gather it ; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none." ^ Noah sent forth from the ark a raven, and seven days later a dove, and seven days afterward a dove.- The Passover and tlie Feast of Tabernacles were prolonged for seven days after their initiation.^* " There is no doubt about the gi-eat antiquity of measuring time by a period of seven days. It was done by the Arabs, Hindus, Assyrians, Per- sians, and Egyptians, and later l)y the Greeks and Romans. This hebdomadal division of time was known from the earliest times among na- tions remote from one another in Europe, Asia, and Africa. This observance is so wide-spread, and it occupies so important a place in sacred things, that it must be thrown back to the crea- tion of man. The week and the 8abbath are as old as man himself. Like the institution of mar- riage, it was given to man for the whole race." The observance of the Sabbath is an essential part of the religion of all nations which worship Jehovah, and distinguishes them from the wor- shipers of gods. The Sabbath was originally appointed to commemorate the completion of 1 Ex. xvi. 23-26. 2 Qen. viii. 7-12. ^ Ex. xii. 15-20. 348 GENESIS AND MODEKN SCIENCE. the creative work, but to this the Christian re- ligion has added the celebration of the resurrec- tion of Jesus Christ from the dead. These two great events are celebrated once every week, from generation to generation, century after century. All other events are celebrated, if at all, only by anniversaries. It has been my purpose in these images not only to demonstrate the literal truthfulness of the first chapter of Genesis by showing its en- tire agreement with the modern science of geol- logy, but also, if successful in this endeavor, to connnend the observance of the Sabbath by re- storing to it the reasonableness of its original sanction. I could not, if I desired, add anything of value to the vast amount of argument and thought already spent uj^ton the Sabbatarian con- troversy, neither shall I review nor restate the reasons in favor of obedience to the Fourth Commandment. It is evident that this time- hallowed institution is waning in its influence upon the consciences of men, and is losing its hold upon the affection and reverence of almost every connnunity. Sabbath desecration is rap- idly and steadily increasing, and each year brings ncnv forms and modes of sacrilege and a larger license. I cannot refrain from the thought that among the various causes which have conduced to this lamentable result is the wide-spread unbelief of the strict truthfulness of the Bible account of the Creation — the earliest and highest sanction THE SABBATH. oJ:9 of this liol}^ institution, of which the Fourth Oomniandmeiit is only declarative. Science has attacked its statements, and has claimed to prove them untrue ; and believers in the Chris- tian religion — under the supposed urgency of the case — have been largely disposed to concede the claims of scientists and to seek refuge in sym1)olical interpretations, which have placed the commandment in a false and unreasonable light. Professor Tyndall has written concern- ing the Sabbath question, and says, after allud- ing to this new position assumed by religious teachers : " The Mosaic account was thus reduced to a poetic myth, a view which afterward found expression in the vast reveries of Hugh Miller. But if this symbolic interpretation, which is now generally accepted, be the true one, what be- comes of the Sabbath day! It is absolutely without ecclesiastical meaning; and the man who was executed for gathering sticks on that day must be regarded as the victim of a rude legal rendering of a religious epic." Such a con- clusion is unavoidable from the denial of the literal truth of the Bible history of the Creation of the world and the institution of the Sabbath. The sole reason given in the Decalogue for keep- ing the Sabl)ath day holy is thus destroyed, and the religious observance of the Sabbath no longer rests on divine sanction. But over against this confusion of human wisdom stand — clear, majestic, inviolable, and 350 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. awful — the words which the infinite and holy God, who inhabiteth eternity, himself spake, amid grand and terrible glories on Mount Sinai : "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work : but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work : . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." Imagine, if possible, Moses standing in the divine presence and replying unto God, "But thou didst not create the world in six days ! " Yet thus stands Science and denies the solemn declaration of him who alone knows the secrets of the uni- verse ! It is not strange that the mild and gentle Cowper should have winged his keen shaft of sarcasm when he wrote :^ " Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata there Extract a register, by which we learn That He who made it and revealed its date To Moses was mistaken in its age." "The reasons annexed to the Fourth Com- mandment" (to borrow the quaint expression framed by the Westminster Assembly of Di- vines) are that God labored for six days in the work of creation, and rested on the seventh day ; 1 The Tasl; Book III., '' The Garden." THE SABEATII. 351 tlierefore he requires man to perform Lis laljor ill six days, and hallow the seventh day. It' the reason given had been, as in the Fifth Com- mandment, that by so doing man should enjoy long life (which would have been a very strong and rational one), Science would have sanctioned the commandment and loudly proclaimed the healtliful influence ui^on body and mind result- ing from this periodical rest. But the com- mand contains no such intimation ; and even if it had been based upon considerations of health and longevity, mankind would have disregarded it. The loss of more than fourteen per cent, of our lifetime in Sabbath-keeping has aroused the indignation of would-be reformers, and in the demands of business, and the eager strife for wealth, men would have found a justification fo]' neglecting a command resting solely on such a reason ; while the Sabbath-breaker would calmly refute the reason itself by showing that a very large fraction of the human race has not devoted one-seventh of its time to rest, yet has attained the average age of men living in Chris- tian lands, and by insisting that the necessities of modern civilization cannot yield to such a law. But when God claims for himself one-seventh of our time, and bases his requirements on his own example, every one who bears him alle- giance recognizes the right, the reasonableness, and the importance of the command. If the commandment read, as Science has 352 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. hitherto interpreted it, " for in millions of years the Lord made the world and then rested, there- fore shalt thou labor six days and rest on the seventh day," the reasoning would not be perti- nent or consequential. Neither would it be so if the commandment read, " for in six days Moses saw in a series of visions the work which the Lord had done in millions of years, therefore shalt thou labor six days and rest on the seventh day." The only interjoretation which is reason- able is the one plainly stated in the command- ment itself : that as the Lord in six days created the world, and on the seventh day rested from his labors, so must we work six days and keep the Sabbath day holy. It may be said that the theory set forth in these pages is quite as hostile to the literalness of the Fourth Commandment as are those which I have so sharply criticised. If so, — if it cannot bear the test of God's Word, — it is unworthy of acceptation. I think, however, that the theory is not fairly exposed to such criticism. If it V)e objected that the first three days by tliis hy- pothesis w^ere thousands of years long, still it is true that each was strictly and literally hut one dai/ — each had but one alternation of darkness and light. Two of them did not relate to animate life. All were days of God's existence, and not days of human life. The days of eternity are not measured by hours. To a Being who is from everlasting to everlasting, " having neither be- THE SABBATH. 353 ginning of days nor end of life," all whose time is " an eternal now," the passing of twenty-four hours is not a day, as with men. " Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thou- sand years as one day." ^ " A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past." 2 What do these solemn words mean, if not that God is not limited by our little standards and measures of time ! What though that long third day, a time perhaps equal to many centuries of our present reckoning, passed away ere the sun even once touched the western horizon — was it to God more than one day? But when God enjoins upon us the observance of each seventh day of our lives upon earth, days of twenty-four hours each, and commands us to use six days for ourselves and sanctify the seventh to him, and pr(Hlicates his commandment upon his own example in the Creation of the world in six days and his resting on the seventh, he signifies a literal coinjiliance with his command, and gives a reason which, until the present century, has never been denied nor explained away by any Christian believer. Let us, then, restore the ancient command- ment to its jnistine glory, and receive it in child- like simplicity in our faith and practice, and keep as holy time each seventh day the Lord shall give us upon the earth, reniend^oring his promise: ' 2 Pet. iii. 8. ^ Ps. xc. 4. 354 GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. " If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words : then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." ' 1 Isa. Iviii. 13, 14. INDEX OF BOOKS AND AUTHORITIES. Adhemar, 86. Agassiz, 118, 119, 125, 202, 328. American Encyclopedia, 185. American Journal of Science, 135. Anaximander, 43. Anaximenes, 44. Antiquities of the Jews, Jose- phus, 300. 341. Apocryplia, 342, 343. Autobiogi'apliy of the Earth, Hutchinson, 321. Babbage, 317. Ball, 102. Ben Hur, Wallace, 344. Berosus, 278. Bi1)el und Astronomie, 9. Biblical Repository, 10. Birth and Growth of Worlds, Green, 24. Boardman, 9. Bridgewater Treatise, 326. Buckland, 10, 217, 326. Buffon, 232. Bunsen, 249, 302. Bushmen Folk-lore, 146. Catlin, 281. Causes of an Ice Age, Ball, 103. Century, 3. Century Magazine, 26. Challenger's Reports. 113. Chambers's Encyclopedia, 31. 94, 95, 10.3, 104, 111, 146, 160, 161, 164, 182, 220, 239, 249, 250, 262, 303, 316. Ciel et Terre, 138. Climate and Cosmology, Croll, 129, 130. Climate and Time, Croll, 22, 87, 102, 119, 130. Commentary, Jamieson, Fans- set and Brown, 35, 39, 67, 251, 283. Commentary, Lange, 37, 38, 59, 214. Comparatiye Zoology, Orton, 253. Compend of Geology, Le Conte, 325, 326. Concordance, Young, 38, 40, 155, 213. Congi'es International, 242. Controverted (Questions of Ge- ology, Prestwich, 331. Cooling Globe, Winslow, 83, 85, 318. Cornhill JMagazine, 199. Cosmos, 143. Cowper, 350. Crawford, 303. Creative Week, Boardman, 9. Croll, 22, 87, 102, 103, 119, 128, 129, 130. Cuvier, 232, 252. Daily Bible Illustrations, Kitto, 296. 356 INDEX OF BOOKS AND AUTHORITIES. Dana, 10, 78, 79, 86, 122, 134, 149, 150, 166, 181, 182, 183, 185. 195, 2U3, 227, 230, 235, 236; 239, 256, 257, 258, 263, 264, 272, 288, 323, 324. Darwin, C, 116, 232, 233, 262, 265. 313. Darwin, G., 91. Darwin, G. H., 26. Dawson, 11, 12, 219, 249, 251, 316, 324. De Blainville, 160. Delitzseh, 227. Deluge, Klee, 330. Desor, 313. Dewey, 162. Dictionary of the Bible, Smith, 301. Die Schopfungsgeschiehte nnd Lehre vom Paradies, 105. Dorman, 141. Earth's History, Roberts, 320. Edinburgh Review, 103. Elements of Geology, Lyell, 326. Empedocles, 44. Eiicyclopfedia Bi'itanniea, 78, 86, 87, 92, 101, 121, 123, 137, 167, 185, 195, 203, 222, 280, 316. Essay on Probabilities, A. de Morgan, 48. Evidences of Christianitj^, Sears, 44. r^ansset, 67. Figuier, 64, 108, 147, 182, 289. Flora Aretica Fossilis, Heer, 199. Flora of Australia, Hooker, 198. Fraissent, 247. Frazer's Magazine, 274. Geikie, A., 192, 195, 283. Geikie, V., 345. (ienesis and Geology, Hiiglies, 39, 78, 156, 167," 171, 206, 210, 211, 212, 213, 223. Geology, Geikie, 192, 195, 283. Geology and Physical Geog- raphy of Brazil, Hartt, 119, 123. Gesenius, 39, 155, 210, 211, 213. Glaciers, Agassiz, 328. Gray, 100, 152, 162. Green, 24. Guillemin, 137. Hartt, 119, 123. Heavens, Guillemin, 137. Heer, 199. Helmholtz, 22. Herodotus, 146. Herschel, 19, 165. History of Warfare of Science with Theology, Wliite, 310, 311. Holmes, 161. Hooker, 115, 198. Hough, 14. Hughes, 39, 78, 156, 166, 167, 171, 206, 210, 211, 212, 213, 223. Human Origins, Laing. 246, 247, 286, 287, 288, 332. Humboldt, 111, 166, 259. Hutchinson, 321. Hutton, 190. Huxley, 192. Illustrated Astronomy, Smith, 97. International Cyclopedia, 20, 122 262. Island Life, Wallace, 198. Jacqninot. 252. Jamieson, 35, 39, 251, 283. Johnson's Encvclopedia, 19, 114, 118, 119, "121, 12.3, 192. Josephus, 308, 341. Jonrney in Brazil, Agassiz, 118, 119, 125. Kant, 19. Keerl, 105. Kepler, 178. INDEX OF BOOKS AND AUTHORITIES. 357 Kingslev, 148. Kitto, 296. Klee, 147, 330. Korau, 47. Kurtz, 9. Laino., 246, 247, 286, 287, 288, 332. Lamarck, 233. Lange, 37, 38, 59, 214. Laplace, 14, 19, 96. Latham, 252. Le Conte, 19, 166, 325. Leibnitz, 19. Leisure Hour, 250. Lenormant, 243. Les Premiers Hommes et les Temps Prehistoriques, 105. Les Premieres Civilisations, 243. Lessons in Botany, Gray, 152, 162. Lewes, 161. Life of Christ, Geikie, 345, Linnaeus, 157. Literary Digest, 28, 143, 145. Lowell, 144. Lubbock, 241. Lvell, 8, 100, 101, 108, 113, '239, 260, 265, 269, 277, 313, 326, 331. Maodler, 93. Mangin, 147. IMnnn. 271. Manual of Geologv, Dana. 78, 79, 87, 122. 123, 149, 181, 184, 185. 196, 203, 227, 235, 236, 239, 256, 257, 258, 263, 264, 265. Manual of Geology, Lyell, 239. [Manual of Zoology, Tennev, 218. Mattison, 28. Maver, 21. Middendorf. 259. Miller, 216, 227, 269, 292, 296, 325. Milton, 39, 330. Mohammed, 47. Moon : Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite, Nasmvtli and Carpenter, 22, 72, 74", 95, 96, 165. Moon and the Conditions and Configurations of its Surface, Nelson, 96. Morgan, A. de, 48. Mosaic History of the Creation of the World, Wood, 34, 38, 68, 327, 328. Murchison, 185. Nadaillac, 104. Nasmvth and Carpenter, 22, 72, 74, 95, 96, 165. Natural History of Man, Pritchard, 252. Naturalist's Voyage Round the World, Darwin, 262, 265, 266. Nature, 115, 241. Neison, 96. Nordenskjold, 103, 110, 260. Gibers, 28. Old Testament History, Smith, 33, 38, 290. Old Volume of Life, Holmes, 161. Origin of Species, Darwin, 315. Origin of the World, Dawson, 11, 251. Orton, 253. Packard, 254. Paradise Found, Warren, 105, 110, 114, 115, 133, 135, 141, 146, 198, 199, 248, 253, 255, 200, 284, 330. 331. Paradise Lost, Milton, .39. .330. Patriarchal Dynasties, Craw- ford. 303. Patrick, 39. Patterson, 28. Popular Astronomy. 145. Populiire Astronomic. 93. Po])ular Science Monthly, 8, 106, 127, 128, 13.3, 138,' 201, 240, 241, 246, 248. 358 INDEX OF BOOKS AND AUTHORITIES. Pre-adamites, Winchell, Go, 241, 303, 334. Prestwich, 239, 331. Primitive Superstitions, Dor- man, 141. Principles of Biology, Spencer, 160. Principles of Geology, Lyell, 8, 100, 108, 113, 260, 277, 313. Pritehard, 252. Proctor, 137, 190. Pulpit Commentary, White- law, 227. Quatrefages, 245, 246. Raleigh, 282. Rawlinson, 250. Reclus, 106. Reconciliation of Science and Religion, Winchell, 36, 321. Revolutions de la Mer, 86. Revne des Deux Mondes, 133. Richerau44 246, 288. ' Man, longevity of, 303-307. Mars, 30, 138. Mars, satellites of, 14, 30 Mercury, 138-143, 144-146. Mesozoic time, 181, 185, 189 H)6, 256-258, 260, 264, 265,' Migration of animals, 253-'^o5 283, 285. Miocene period, 103 '^41 ''40 246-248. 287, 288. ' ~ "' Modern sciences, 45. Mollusks, 219, 220. Moon, 30, 71-74, ' 94-98, 136 165. ' jMoon, libration of, 94. Mosaic cosmogony compared with others, 46. IVfoses, 42-44, 46-50. Mother region of plants and animals, 197, 198. Mountain building, '>7l 070 286-288. ^> -'-, Mythology, 329, 330. Nebula, photograph of, ex- plained, 24. Nebula', 23, 24. Nebular hypothesis, 14 19- 31, 45, 50, 79, 80, 136, 'l37 JNeozoie time, 182. Neptune, 26. Night, 93, 175. Pennian period, 181, 182, 184, Plienogamous plants, 157 Phenomena, description of tlie <-reation by, 225 2''6 Philology, 252. ' Plants, 152-159, 162, 166. 315. Flants, lUstribution of 1«)7 198. ' ' Pliocene period, 240-''4'{ -n-i 247, 288. " ' " ' Polar ice, 86. Polar regions, north and soutli, 99-115. ^"gj^^'tiaiT «gc, 229, 234, Pre-adamites, 239. Probabilities, theory of, 48, 49. Quaternary man, 243. Radiates, 219. Rain, 65, 71, 165, 271-273 Reptiles, 206, 208-21" "^r? ' 01 7 219, 221, 224. ' " " ' Rotation of the earth, 55 59 175, 177. ' Rotation of nebular mass 03 55. ' " ' Ocean, 65, 69. Oceans, shifting of, 8,5-91, 314 Origin of species, 229-233. Paleontology, 99-111 1"0-1'>3 155, 158. "hSl-ls.j, ' m~'^0l' 216-219, 2.34-247, 261-267. ' i'aleozoic time, 117, 149 18'? 184, 1S9, 196, 256. ' Parallelism of the earth's a.xis, Patagonia, 262, 263, 266. Sabbath, 335-354. Sandstones, 316 Satellites, 26-28', 136, 146 Saturn, 20, 27, 137. Sain-ians, 217, 326. Schiaparelli, discoveries by, Sea-level, changes of 86 87 90, 183, 315, 318. ' ' ' Sea soundings. 127. Seasons, alternation of, 94 17.3-177. Secondary age, 100, 185, 199. 200. 248, 285, .321. Sedimentation, 65. 190 191 Seeds, 1.56-158, 164. ' Septuagint, 303. Serpents, 209, 210. Silurian age. 149, 151, 153, 154 I'l, 219, 262. ' 362 GENERAL INDEX. South America, 261-2G3, 264, 266, 269. Southern hemisphere, cold of, 87, 112-116, 183, 186. Southeru liemisphere, greater density of, 134, 183, 186. Species, numljer of, 282, 283. Species, origin of, 229-233. Species, variation of, 231, 232, 283. Spectroscope, 25, 27, 35, 45. Spheroidal shape of the earth, 55, 59. Spirit, 38-42. Stars, 34, 35, 173, 174. Strata, origin of, 65, 153, 317, 321, 322. Stratified rocks, thickness of, 17, 150, 323. Stratigraphy of northei-n and southern hemispheres, 124, 125. Sun, 30. Surface of ocean-bed, north and south hemispheres, com- pared, 126. Tacchini, 143, 144. Tertiary age, 100. 229, 235, 243, 245-247, 257, 261, 262, 266, 271, 323-325. Theory of interpretation, local ci'eation, 12. Theory of interpretation, re- arrangement, 10. Tlieory of interin-etation, vis- ion, 9. Tidal waves, 269, 270, 274-277. Time measiire, 59, 173, 174. Traditions, 141, 146, 249, 260, 278-281, 284, 329, 330, 331, 344, 345. Triassie period, 181, 182, 184- 186, 226, 266, 272, 323, 324. Uranus, 26, 137, 138. Uranus, satellites of, 14, 20, 26. Vegetation, 151-159, 162, 166, 197, 198, 199. Venus, 137, 143-146. Vertebrates, 218. Vision theory of interpreta- tion, 9. Void, 37. Voltaire, theory of, about fos- sils, 8. Waters, 38. Worms, 209, 223. Zodiac, 176. Zodiacal light, 20. Zoology, 209, 215, 253, 254. Date Due 9