In confirmation of these views, it is remarkable that other geological phenomena, besides that of the absence of the season rings in the trees, indi cate that there was no variation of seasons on our earth before the close of the carboniferous era. Temperature appears, up to that period, to have been tropical and uniform in all latitudes ; for the fossil remains testify that the animals and plants that lived and grew in the carboniferous and pre ceding eras, at the equator, were of the same species as those that lived and grew at the same period in the arctic regions—and the coal-measures are as abundant in the high latitudes as in the tem perate and tropical zones. These phenomena can only be accounted for by the continued prevalence of the central heat, and the consequent neutraliza tion of the effect of the sun's rays, the influence of which now operates to produce the variety of sea sons. The climatal condition of the earth in those ages must have been similar to those of a vast humid hothouse shaded from the direct radiance of the sun—and which would be eminently condu cive to the production of a prolific vegetation, such as that which has been stored up in our extensive coal-measures.
The zoology of this era furnishes us with the first undoubted traces of terrestrial animal life, in the form of insects of the beetle and cockroach tribes, scorpions, and reptiles of the batrachian order—creatures which were adapted by nature to live in the dull, hazy, tepid atmosphere that over spread our planet before the unclouded rays of the sun had visited its surface.
At the close of the carboniferous era, another commenced, during which the system of rocks which has been denominated ' the Permian' sys tem, was formed, the fossil remains of which in dicate that great changes must have taken place in the physical constitution and aspect of the earth. The exuberant vegetation which had supplied the material of the coal-measures of the preceding for mation had died away, and a vegetation of a higher order succeeded, sheaving by reasonable evidence that the clouded atmosphere of the car boniferous and previous systems had been suc ceeded by a transparent atmosphere, through which the unimpeded sunbeam had reached the earth's surface. The animals, too, which inhabited the Permian earth disclose an advance in organic life. The Saurian, or true reptile, here made its first appearance ; and the earliest traces of birds present themselves in the New Red Sandstone, a member of this system. The foot tracks of these birds, of immense magnitude, which stalked on the Permian sands and mud, are found impressed non the now hardened slabs of sandstone and shales of that formation, both in Scotland and in America.
The Permian was succeeded by the systems of the Trias and Oo]ite, whose fossil remains attest an advance in animal, as well as in vegetable, organization. Trees of the palm, pine, and cypress species were mingled with the diminished ferns, calamites, and conifers of the coal era ; and with this imdroved vegetation, a higher order of insects appears to have come into existence to feed on and enjoy the increasing bounties of Providence. But the peculiar and most striking feature of the age was the extraordinary increase, in number and magnitude, of the Saurian reptiles, which then peopled the earth. The Saurians were divisible into three distinct classes — the Terrestrial, or Dinosaurians ; the Marine, or Elaniosaurians ; and the Aerial, or Pterosaurians. They were all of them air-breathing creatures—amphibious, and more or less aquatic in their nature and habits ; and with the birds whose tracks have appeared in these same systems, have been aptly described, as regards their extent both in number and size, in the Mosaic account of the work of the fifth day of the creation. The Hebrew words, which are translated in our version the moving creature that bath life,' ought more properly to be rendered the reptile that hath the breath of life' (vide Gesenius on the word r7T); and the great whales' of the next verse is more correctly rendered in the margin of our Bibles great sea monsters ;' and the living creature that moveth ' ought to be rendered the `living creature that creepeth' (vide Sermons in Stones, p. 199 8th ed.) With these corrections of the text of the A. V., it is obvious that the Mosaic record of the creation of the fifth day, is a record of the creation of the reptilian race of great sea monsters (Elaniosaw'ia) —of the living creature that creepeth, which the waters brought forth abundantly (Dinosauria)— and of the winged fowl (Pterosauria, or Ptero dactyls and Birds). These are designated by Moses as great and abundant ; and the fossil re mains of the reptilian inhabitants of earth, ocean, and air of the Oolite world, more especially of the Lias member of it, have revealed them to have then swarmed out in such amazing numbers, and of such vast dimensions, that geologists have always dwelt on the scenes which the earth of those days must have presented with astonishment and wonder, and have named that era ' the age of reptiles.' In all this we have a most interesting confirmation of the truth and accuracy of the Mosaic record of the creation of the fifth day.