The consistency or harmony of these two records of the creation—that of Moses and that of the geologist—has, in the foregoing interpretation of the word day,' been traced and vindicated by the late Hugh Miller in a lecture delivered by him to the ' Young Men's Christian Association' in the year 1855, and afterwards republished in The Testimony of the Rocks, and also by Dr. M`Caus land in his Sermons in Stones. The former traced the consistency between the facts of geology and the events recorded by Moses as having occurred on the third, fifth, and sixth days or periods of creation, stating, that as a geologist, he was only called on to account for those three of the six days or periods, inasmuch as geological systems and formations regard the remains of the three great periods of plants, reptiles, and mammals, and those only ; and ' that of the period during which light was created—of the period during which a firmament was made to separate the waters from the waters—or of the period during which the two great lights of the earth, with the other heavenly bodies, became visible from the earth's surface, we need expect to find no record in the rocks.' But the author of the latter work (Sermons in Stones) has proceeded further, to spew that geology confirms and establishes the truth of every statement in the record of Moses, from the beginning down to the creation of man—the ori ginal state of the globe `without form and void'— the first dawn of light--the formation of the firma ment, and the separation of the waters below from the waters above it—and the first appearance of the sun, moon, and stars, on the fourth day, inter mediate between the creation of the vegetable world on the third, and the creation of the creeping things and birds on the fifth day.
A succinct sketch of the state of our knowledge of the physical structure of the earth, and of the progressive introduction of the animal and vege table creations with which it has, from time to time, been furnished, will enable the reader to satisfy himself of the harmony that exists between the word and the works of the Almighty Creator and Governor of the world. But for the more ample details of geological science, he must con sult the following works :—Lyell's Principles of Geology; Bucklands.thiagewater Treatise; Murchi son's Siluria ; Ansted's Practical Geology; Man tell's Medals of Creation ; Miller's Old Red Sand stone; dikes' Manual of Geology; Page's Advanced Text Book of Geology, and the several other works to which reference will be found in the foregoing books.
The crust of the earth is composed of rocks, which have been formed, some by the action of fire, such as granite, basalt, porphyry, and green stone, which are termed igneous rocks, and some by sedimentary deposit at the bottom of water, such as sandstone, limestone, shale, etc., which are known as aqueous or stratified rocks. Igneous
rocks were first formed ; and on these, from time to time, through the long ages of our planet's existence, were deposited the many successive layers of sedimentary stratified rocks, in which are found the fossil remains of the animals and plants which were in existence during the several periods of deposition. These layers of rocks have been frequently and extensively, throughout these eras of their formation, broken up and distorted by volcanic action, and the protusion of igneous rocks from beneath, upwards, and through them ; and by which the mountain ranges, in all parts of the earth, have been elevated, and those diversities of land and sea which the face of our planet pre sents, have been formed.
The first aspect of the globe which the investiga tions of the cosmogonist have enabled us to realize, present to view a viscid igneous ball revolving on its axis, and wheeling its annual course around the sun, its centre of attraction. Its present oblate spheroidical form, flattened at the poles and ele vated at the equator, is the exact form that a liquid sphere of the size and weight of the earth, revolv ing on its axis in twenty-four hours, would assume ; and the still prevailing central heat, which is indi cated by the gradual increase of temperature as we descend in mines from the surface in the direction of the earth's centre, reveals the igneous origin of the mass. The gradual cooling down of this fiery sphere, by radiation into space, would result in the formation of a crust of granite or some other igne ous rock on the surface ; and as the cooling pro gressed, the gases which are the constituents of water, and which are kept asunder by intense heat, would naturally combine, and thus the crust, in process of time, would be covered with an ocean. Thus we have all the elements requisite fur the pro duction of the first series of sedimentary rocks, which were formed out of the disturbed particles or detritus of the igneous crust at the bottom of the waters which encircled the globe. The lowest of our sedimentary rocks, gneiss and mica schist, which rest on the primordial granite, or some other rock of igneous origin, are found, on inspection, to be composed of the debris or broken particles of granite, and so far the foregoing theory of their origin is confirmed. This series of rocks has been styled metamorphic,' from the great change that has been wrought in their structure by the action of the intense heat to which, at the time of their formation, they must have been exposed, and by which they have been partially crystallized, and their lines of stratification obliterated. They form a portion of that vast pile of the bottom rocks which have been termed the Cambrian,' and which have been calculated to be 25,00o feet, or nearly five miles, in depth or thickness.