EXPOSITOR AND UNIVERSALIST REVIEW. ARTICLE I. The Mosaic Account of Creation. Gen. i. VARIOUS are the strange theories which have been invented to account for the existence of the heavens and the earth. The imagination has been followed, hypotheses have been substituted for facts, the only record has been rejected upon which any considerable reliance can be placed; and, without history or evidence, a multiplicity of causes has been assigned for the origin of the solar system, all of which are without true foundation, though they are dignified with the name of philosophy. Denying the existence of that Intelligence which reigns over matter, in its varied and varying forms, some speculators, from the time of the ancient Peripatetics, have and do hold that the world is eternal in existence; some, from the time of Democritus and Epicurus, that it attained creation and beautiful arrangement from an accidental union of innumerable atoms; while at least one philosopher has supposed that the earth is a piece of the sun, struck off and thrown out into space, by a comet, during its wanderings. In fact, from the days of the Grecian philosophic schools, there has been a continued series of systems to explain the origin and arrangements of nature,-systems which have been advanced but to be exploded. But, notwithstanding the speculations of men, there is no theory which, for simplicity, candor, and philosophy, approaches the Mosaic account of the creation of the solar system. Moses ascribes that creation to an adequate cause, viz. to a Being infinite in wisdom, power, and goodness, who "created the heavens and the earth." Every reflect ing mind will admit that it is far more reasonable and philosophic to attribute the matter of the solar system, and the innumerable forms into which it is fashioned, to a Being capable of producing them, than to suppose that chance, or laws without a lawgiver, were the originating causes. It is true that we cannot comprehend the mode by which Deity created the matter of the world; but this circumstance affords no objection, in the mind of the rational thinker, against the proposition that he did create it. For we are ignorant of many of the most common objects in nature, and yet our ignorance of them does not militate with their existence. Hence the conclusion of Buckland and Bakewell is sound, that "the matter of the universe is not eternal and self-existent, but was originally created by the power of the Almighty;" and that "the only proper answer to the question, How was the world made? is briefly this: By the almighty power of its Creator." 2 Therefore, the basis of this article is the declaration of Moses: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." When this instruction is forsaken, we fall into speculation, hypothesis, uncertainty. In illustrating the creation as described by Moses, the first and second verses should be particularly observed: "1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. "2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." It is demonstrated, by the clearest facts in geology, that Moses must have had reference to two distinct periods of time in these verses. In the first verse, he must have had reference to the time when the matter of the solar system was created. In the second, he must have had Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 25. 2 Bakewell's Geology, p. 2. reference to the time when God gave to the solar system its present order and arrangement. Between these two periods, long and indefinite ages elapsed, of whose duration, as well as their events, Moses makes no mention, because they were foreign from his subject. It is evident, however, that those indefinite ages must have embraced a great duration of time, as existing facts on the surface of the earth prove. Perhaps no greater light has been cast upon the secrets of that long duration of time, than the geological system of Dr. Buckland, contained in his treatise on geology and mineralogy. His system is, that, when God created the matter of the earth, it was a mere melted mass of "metals and metalloid bases of the earths and alkalies." Over this melted mass he thinks that granite was formed from these bases, which was "subsequently broken into fragments, disposed at unequal levels above and below the surface of the first-formed seas."3 There is much that is sublime and awful in the consideration that the matter of the earth, when created, was a melted mass, and that, as existing facts are developed, there is reason to believe that the central mass of the earth is now in a melted state of fire. From the account of experiments made in mines, as given in an essay on the temperature of the earth, by L. Cordier, professor in one of the philosophical schools of Paris, it appears that the deeper the earth is penetrated, the greater is the warmth, That there is immense internal heat, is demonstrated by the existence of hot, boiling springs and vast volcanoes, dotted in great numbers on the map of the earth. What but the most intense and overpowering heat could throw from one of the volcanoes of Iceland, in 1783, a mass of melted lava fifty miles in length, twelve to fifteen miles in breadth, and of an average depth of one hundred feet! And what but inconceivable and very durable heat could vomit a mass of volcanic matter from Jorullo in Mexico, 1759, which retained its heat so long, that, twenty-one years afterwards, a cigar could be lighted by opening the lava a few inches from its surface! The system by which the results of internal heat, as they are exhibited 4 Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 48. 4 Lyell's Geology, vol. i. pp. 344, 345. on the surface of the earth, may be accounted for, is very rational. Volcanoes are openings through lands and rocks. into the central mass of melted matter. When water gets into this mass, vapor is generated, which, being pent up, causes earthquakes; and, when the pressure becomes in tense, lava is thrown out at volcanoes. The pressure is thus removed, and peace restored to the surface of the earth. We may obtain a faint idea of the arrangement on the surface of the earth, by the coats of an onion the different strata of rocks lie one above the other, in something of the manner in which the coats of an onion lie around its centre; with this difference, however: the coats of an onion are uniform; but the strata of rocks are broken up into masses by internal convulsions, sometimes rising into hills, mountains, in rude confusion. But yet there is sufficient order to demonstrate which class of rocks belongs above the other. The first rocks which occur are the primary rocks, in which no animal remains are found. These rocks are called primary, because it is supposed that they were formed prior to animals. The next class is the transition rocks, whose strata are principally formed of limestone, slate, sandstone, and conglomerate. Organic remains of the lowest order of marine animals are found in this series. These rocks are denominated transition rocks, "from the supposition that they were formed when the world was passing from an uninhabitable to a habitable state." Over the transition series, the great coal formations occur. These formations are demonstrated to be of vegetable origin, from plants and trees discovered in them. Coal never occurs in the lower transition rocks, except rarely and in very thin lamina. Over the coal is found the secondary series, whose strata are principally composed of limestone, with beds of clay, shale, and sandstone. the upper secondary strata, the remains of lizard-shaped animals, of immense size, are found. Next in order is the tertiary series, composed of various rocks, with clay and marl, in which are many animal remains. Lastly, diluvial and alluvial occur, composed of gravel, sand, clay, and fragments of rocks. In the examination of these various series of strata, it is very evident that parts of them have |