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diff --git a/old/66153-0.txt b/old/66153-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 928334e..0000000 --- a/old/66153-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2633 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Neptunian, or Water Theory of Creation, -by J. M. Woodman - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Neptunian, or Water Theory of Creation - -Author: J. M. Woodman - -Release Date: August 27, 2021 [eBook #66153] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Bryan Ness, David King, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEPTUNIAN, OR WATER THEORY OF -CREATION *** - - The Neptunian or Water Theory of Creation - - - - - The Neptunian or Water Theory of Creation. - - By - Rev. J. M. Woodman, - Professor in Natural Science, Chico Academy, Cal. - - Author of “God in Nature and Revelation,” “The Song of Cosmology,” - “Star Dates of Human History,” “The Song of the Morning - Stars in Creation’s Grand March.” - - “_If they speak not according to thy word it is because - there is no truth in them._” - - San Francisco: - Bacon & Company, Book and Job Printers, - Corner of Clay and Sansome Streets. - 1888. - - - - - Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year A. D. 1888, - BY J. M. WOODMAN, - In the office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. - - - - - TABLE OF CONTENTS. - - -CHAPTER I. - -THREE THEORIES OF CREATION REVIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF ADMITTED FACTS 9 - -SECTION 1. - -The Plutonic or fire theory stated 15 - -Centro-centrifugal theory 16 - -Heated Nebulous theory 17 - -The increase of heat in mining shafts no evidence of a hot center 19 - -The admitted sedimentary nature of primitive granite destroys the -Plutonic theory 22 - -The theories of metamorphic rock not sustained 23 - -Mining shafts increase in heat according to chemical action 25 - -Causes of volcanoes and geysers explained 26 - -Geologists dissatisfied with the fire theory. Submarine volcanoes 28 - -Diatoms found in the earliest stratified rock 31 - -SECTION 2. - -The Neptunian theory stated 32 - -All matter created at once in cold gas. God’s power needed to move -matter. The first cosmological division 33 - -Probable length of it. The first condition of our globe in form 35 - -SECTION 3. - -The facts of science support the Neptunian theory. In quantity, order -and constituent elements of rock 36 - -The three ways that gases combine into rock 36 - -How rock can swim in water 38 - -Explorations made of the Atlantic 39 - -We once had a hemisphere of land, and one of water 40 - -The climate was tropical, as attested by shells, coral, coal, and -saurians 41 - -Also by tropical animals, flowers, and tropical vegetation 42 - -Water raised the mountains 45 - -Sea bottom seen there 46 - -Rise and depressions of earth. Cause of glacial epoch 48 - -SECTION 4. - -Such a world physically adapted to man 50 - -The accumulating evidence that our earth is essentially a ball of water -53 - -The reasons the Antediluvians had no rainbow 54 - - -CHAPTER II. - -THE NEPTUNIAN THEORY WAS FIRST BROUGHT TO LIGHT IN THE BOOK OF JOB, -DATED IN THE STARS. EPIDRAMATIC ORATORIO 55 - -Orient the place for such a poem 57 - -First question established 58 - -The indictment against piety amended 59 - -The prologue ended with Satan confounded 59 - -These persons all representative characters 60 - -Starting the drama of history. Piety endures the trials of all ages 61 - -Job rewarded on the field. Flood passed 64 - -Surrounded by universal idolatry 65 - -Certain chapters Messianic 66 - -Resurrection reached 68 - -The enemies boast of the secular arm of law 69 - -The Reformation reached 70 - -The voice of space 72 - -Dead organic matter, as fossils, speaking 73 - -An explanation of the story of Joshua’s miracle. The three friends -silenced. Secular education personified 75 - -True loyal prayer, against unsupported illegal faith, and prayer without -faith 77 - -The Copernican system seen by Job, with the sedimentary nature of -granite 79 - -The rotundity of Earth with the inside water 81 - -The birth-place of ancient icebergs 83 - -The telegraph seen and dated 84 - -Description of certain fossils 85 - -The grand future of the church of the living God 86 - - -CHAPTER III. - -ALL THE SCRIPTURE REFERENCES TO COSMOLOGY ARE IN HARMONY WITH THE BOOK -OF JOB. EARTH STANDING IN WATER. FLOOD CAUSED BY OVERFLOW OF THE SEA. -ONCE IN A RING OF GASES. ABOVE THE WATERS 87 - -Moses gained his first ideas of Creation here 88 - -Power born in the hand of God 88 - -Gravitation accounts only for centripetal power 89 - -A steam world born but not yet swaddled 92 - -It is swaddled in gathering and condensing 93 - -Tracing gases into rock 95 - -To what days the Mosaic time is unadapted 96 - -What the Mosaic days of creation do mean 96 - -General and Special Providence 99 - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE SIX DAYS OF MOSES FULL OF SCIENTIFIC SUGGESTIONS SHOWING THE WORK OF -GOD TO THE END OF TIME 100 - -SECTION 1. - -The work of the first day 101 - -Meaning of deep 102 - -Figures of speech. A ring of waters in fluid gases first called -firmament 103 - -These days are not literal 104 - -SECTION 2. - -The work of the second day 105 - -Meaning of create. Must be read in the light of scientific facts 107 - -Moses’ point of observation. First firmament tangible 107 - -Moses, in vision, confined to the history of our globe. The history of -other planets not given 109 - -SECTION 3. - -The work of the third day. The steam world commences to liquify 110 - -The scientific problem of a probable pole-changing solved 112 - -One end only in sunshine 112 - -Why it did not rain on the earth 113 - -The cause of the first chilled climate. When it turned to torrid 115 - -SECTION 4. - -The account of the fourth day in figure of metonymy 116 - -Recent coal periods 119 - -SECTION 5. - -The work of the fifth day. Contrasts are found in the sea, diatoms begin -in the Gneiss rock 121 - -The whale of the Miocene is the contrasting animal, as morning 122 - -The order of the existence of animals by Moses agrees with facts 123 - -Science and the Bible claim substantially the same thing in reference to -Special Providence 125 - -SECTION 6. - -The work of the sixth day. Beasts are the evening. Man is the morning -127 - -Our race sprang from Adam 128 - -The cleansing of the air was essential to the introduction of man 129 - -Recent volcanoes argue the correctness of the Mosaic account 130 - -We have not even yet reached the climax of good breathing 132 - - - - - INTRODUCTION. - - -The question as to what kind of reading shall yield us the most -exquisite enjoyment, largely depends upon our ability for -self-development. Taste in reading, as in eating, is often an educated -faculty. The relish that we now have for many kinds of food, we had to -acquire. We all have faculties for intellectual, moral and spiritual -enjoyment, in lines of thought corresponding. These must be developed by -use. Reader, you have the ability, if you will allow it to be developed, -of enjoying a perusal of this sublime subject. Mere sensational reading -like emotional religion has its field of enjoyment, its rills of -happiness; but it is changeable and uncertain. Songs of praise and -devotional reading have a higher place in the human soul, lasting in -their nature. - -Observation and historical research open another field of enjoyment. -Language and location of places may become a passion in the mind. The -study of causes in nature, at best but secondary, may hold the mind in a -sweet revery of delight; but these are mere rills of comfort compared to -an open sea, to the ability of reading and comprehending first causes, -in the light of prophetic declarations. - -We are thrilled in the presence of relics of ancient history. The sight -of a mummy, known to be an ancient person of historic note thrills us -with admiration and agreeable wonder, as in the case of Rameses II. -Three thousand years seems a long time; yet it is easy to obtain almost -any where a fossil, fish or shell, representing as many million of -years. No where else are the “Footprints” of God so plain, measuring the -long ages of time, as seen in the Bible. - -The fact that you have not been accustomed to read on this subject is no -reason why you should not begin at once, and experience the increased -reverence for God, the captivating engagement of thought, and the -exquisite enjoyment of soul, as a result. Do you still ask what -practical benefit will this knowledge be to you? Let us rather ask what -harm will come from a general impression that the cosmological -utterances of the Bible are so tangled up in a network of scientific -suppositions, as to cause even good men to drop them, as parts of God’s -inspiration to man. Such results are already produced all over the land. - -The Bible has been assailed on its cosmological sayings. Shall it be -defended? If you are so fortunate as to be entrenched in the belief of -the inspiration of the Scriptures, while you are unable to give a reason -for the hope within, your friends may not be so fortunate. Your -children, it may be, will return from school, intent upon showing you -the discrepancies with the established teachings of science. If these -things are, as they purport to be, given by inspiration of God, they can -never be made to harmonize with an illogical and untruthful cosmology. -How important, then, that we should have the right theory. - -The disciples of Jesus were asked, “Have any of the rulers of the Jews -believed on him?” Perhaps before you purchase you ask, Have any men of -scientific notoriety endorsed these views? Of the many scores of good -words given by editors, lawyers, doctors, ministers, teachers, and -professors in colleges, I have room only for a few. Prof. David Swing of -Chicago said: “The Neptunian theory of creation, as presented in Dr. -Woodman’s book, is the most logical presentation of cosmology that I -ever read. He writes in a calm and truthful style.” The late Prof. -Norton of the Cal. State Normal said: “You have chosen an opportune time -for the presentation of your book, for the theories of cosmology are on -the eve of a mighty revolution, in which the water theory is likely to -come to the front.” Prof. Reid, President of the State University, said: -“The subject, as you present it, is wonderfully in accordance with what -we see in Nature; and it is still more wonderful that you should find it -so beautifully set forth in the Bible.” Prof. LeConte, of the same -University, said: “Your theory is a wide departure from everything -hitherto written upon the subject. I will say this of it; it accounts -for more unexplained phenomena than any theory before presented. I will -give you this item, which I know to be correct. The Magnolia tree in the -Tertiary period, grew and blossomed as far as 80 degrees north.” - -Numerous bodies of clergymen have endorsed the theory as a just and -beautiful presentation of Scripture; many as the “only theory with which -Moses’ Genesis of Creation can be reconciled.” The say-so of others may -satisfy the indolent and careless, but to enjoy the subject you must -read and digest these grand truths for yourself. - - - - - CHAPTER I. - Three Theories Reviewed in the Light Of Scientific Facts. - - -In the study of Nature, aided only by natural phenomena, effect, -suggesting cause, is everywhere apparent. These effects variously -compounded point with accuracy only to secondary causes. First causes -are hidden far behind all existing appearances. - -Unaided nature leaves man to seek first causes only by hypotheses. As -might be expected, on the same subject scientists widely differ in -theory. Such reasoning must ever leave a large margin for opinion. - -Notwithstanding the uncertainty of all such modes of reasoning, still -that hypothesis must ever possess the greatest weight, that best accords -with the largest number of existing facts. Reasoning _a priori_, from -the providing care of nature’s God, as seen in stores of coal, oil, -iron, copper, and various kinds of precious metals, we might reasonably -conclude that he who created the intellectual as well as the religious -nature in man would carefully provide for the full gratification of -both. Knowing God’s nature, reason would suggest that what is wanting in -nature must somewhere be supplied by special revelation of God. - -The book of nature coupled with the Bible would be a necessity; not only -for a complete worship, but for a full cosmology. We should expect the -two volumes, when rightly rendered, to correspond. A noted atheistical -lecturer upon cosmical changes stated in a series of lectures in Chico, -Cal., that the “Bible theory of creation is decidedly watery. By the -statements of this book, we should conclude that the center itself is -one vast body of water, holding upon its bosom a crust of earth.” As a -believer in the Plutonic theory, and having no reverence for the Bible, -he added, “What fool does not know better?” What he gave as a “Bible -Theory,” we will assume as a scientific hypothesis; and rest the proof -of the same upon the facts in nature which scientists, in advocating the -Plutonic theory, have given us. - -It will be the object of this chapter to show that the more recently -developed facts in geology point unmistakably to the Neptunian theory of -Creation. This will be done by comparing the three theories, and each -with lines of facts which have been well established. It will be -necessary - - - Section 1 - To State the Plutonic Theory of the Schools. - - -1. That all matter existed, or was created in a primeval state of heat. -One hypothesis is, that all matter of our system was concentrated in one -heated ball as a central sun. - -2. That planets are portions of this matter, thrown off by a rapid -rotary motion of the sun. Properly named, this theory was the -centro-centrifugal theory, now quite out of date. That this theory might -be true, the sun must have turned upon its axis with a velocity -sufficient not only to destroy gravitation at its surface, now -twenty-seven times that of the Earth, but with a force capable of -throwing Jupiter, fourteen hundred times the size of the Earth, out into -space four hundred and seventy-five million of miles, and Neptune over -two billion of miles. When we consider that our sun now turns on its -axis only once in twenty-seven days, we conclude that a vivid -imagination must have supplied the machinery necessary for such -astounding results in the very face of forbidding facts. This theory -made no provision for the encircling waters, sufficient to wrap the -entire surface of the globe three miles deep, nor for the enveloping -atmosphere. Gradually this ancient theory has been modulated into the -Nebulous Theory. - -3. The more popular teaching of today is, that matter existed in a -highly heated state in the form of a diffused cloud. Steel, in his -“Fourteen Weeks in Geology,” suggests that “From unknown causes, this -cloud-matter began to revolve about a center or sun. This nucleus drew -matter direct to itself from all parts of our system. Other portions -revolving were thrown off, and formed new centers for planetary -gathering, as they respectively took up their orbicular march about the -sun. This fiery mist is supposed to have come together in a heated -state. The planets, at least, have since been cooling, though as yet -having but a thin crust.” To this theory of primeval heat, in some form, -all our text books conform. A theory so long and so universally accepted -might be supposed to have some solid facts upon which to rest. But -really it has less to sustain it than had the Ptolemaic theory of -Astronomy: that, at least, had observation in its favor, but this fails -even here. It is a curious circumstance in this guess work of results, -that whether heat is made to increase on an average one degree in fifty -feet, as given by many geologists, or one degree in one hundred feet, as -given by others, precisely the same results are reached, viz., fifty -miles crust, and intensely heated matter beyond. This assumption is -based upon the supposed fact that the internal heat traverses the rock -by conduction. If this were true, then the degree of heat gained in any -one hundred feet of rock, as you descend into the Earth’s crust, would -be the approximate measurement of any other hundred feet in the same -shaft; but the reverse of this is true. No two measurements seem to be -alike. The miner, as a practical geologist, in this regard knows that -this heat is generally caused by chemical action of the rock upon which -you have let in air or water, or both. This heat is found to vary -according to nature of the rock which you expose. If the rock is rich in -pyrites of iron or lime, in any of its numerous forms, then -disintegration is abundant and much heat is generated; but, on the other -hand, where all disintegrating elements are wanting, there is no -perceptible increase of heat. - -4. The theory of the continued increase of heat, according to the ratio -noticed as you sink a shaft a few hundred feet into the Earth’s crust, -if it proves anything proves too much, and is therefore false. -Experiments extensively made in the Virginia mines of Nevada, and -particularly in the Foreman Shaft, show the increase to be very uneven; -differing from one degree in twelve feet to one in two hundred feet. It -even grows colder as you descend some kind of rock, a degree in one -hundred feet. The degree of heat is always regulated and gauged by the -rock you pass. If the rock will disintegrate readily, it gives out more -heat; but if the rock may lie exposed in the sun and rain without -disintegration, it throws out no heat in the shaft. Yet from experiments -made in the Foreman Shaft, notwithstanding these varieties of rock, yet -at the 2,100 foot level it is found that the average increase is one -degree in twelve feet. At this rate, at twenty-five miles towards the -center you would encounter heat above 4,300 deg. Fahr. Chemists will -admit that, after due allowance for pressure at such a depth, yet the -granite with all known substances would fuse at this heat. The Plutonic -hypothesis makes the crust in Nevada less than twenty-five miles, -perhaps the weakest on the continent. - -Experiments in Mexico, upon this line of reasoning, would make the crust -twice as thick. Now from a well established law in philosophy, a -pressure upon liquid on the inside of a cylinder imparts its pressure to -every part of the cylinder at the same time. A pressure capable of -breaking the crust in any place should, at least, cause all the openings -to emit lava at the same time. But this is not the historic action of -volcanoes; one emits while another sleeps. - -It is a historic fact observed within the present century, that a -volcanic mountain rose up from a comparatively level plane in Mexico, in -one night, to the height of 1,695 feet. On the assumption that lava -comes from the center of the earth, why should not the above pressure -have found the weaker crust, and Nevada have been the place of eruption -instead of Mexico? and why should not the three hundred open vents of -Earth have emitted lava at the same time? The theory will not bear -philosophic tests. - -The Russian report of the increase of heat is only one-fourth that given -in Nevada. Who believes, therefore, that the crust there is four times -as thick as in Nevada? The whole subject shows that the increase of heat -in the shaft proves nothing as to the interior of Earth, and nothing as -to the thickness of its crust. - -5. To establish the Plutonic theory, it is at least necessary to -demonstrate that the granite, which all hold to be the under rock, is -the unstratified Plutonic foundation of all stratified rock. Recent -facts have demonstrated that the granite is a sedimentary rock, or rock -deposited in water. This being admitted, although contradicting the -teachings of all the older text books, some writers, among them is -Steel, in order to harmonize the Plutonic theory with these stubborn -facts, have assumed that the primitive granite, which by the theory must -have been trap or lava, has all been worn away by disintegration of -water and ice, or both; and again, by water deposited as we now find it. -But what was a white-hot globe of lava doing, while water and ice were -tearing and grinding its lower crust to powdered sand? We have secondary -granite, but its structure is very different from primitive granite. -Besides containing hard pebbles and boulders of other stone, it is -friable, and easily disintegrated under exposure. It is a bad theory -that is driven to such unheard-of suppositions for its support. Nothing -is more evident, if the granite is the under rock, and sedimentary, as -represented and known to be, than that the Plutonic theory is completely -without foundation. - -6. The modern theory of metamorphic rock, occasioned by internal heat, -is also false. This theory maintains that the granite, slates, and -marble existed so near to the great body of internal heat that they must -have been metamorphosed. Facts demonstrate that these rocks, as a rule, -were never in heat equal to 700 deg. Fahr. Such a heat will readily -disintegrate any of these formations. Any one can demonstrate this by -melting a little lead upon a piece of slate, marble, or granite. The -furnace is found to be the best general test of the origin of rock. -Lava, having been in a melted state, will not disintegrate up to the -melting point, but, as a rule, will readily melt at the white heat. -Granite, the slates, marble, and rock in general, of a sedimentary -formation, will disintegrate at a comparatively low heat, but they will -not melt, except with alkaloids, or flux, and then only at a very high -degree of heat. This test shows all the primitive rock, including -injected seams, to have been formed in the sea, with no heat to change -their structure since. There are a few exceptions to the rule of -disintegration, as clay rock. - -7. If the granite were not sedimentary, we could not account for the -great quantity of sedimentary rock this side. Among the authors of our -text books there seems to be a general vagueness concerning the origin -of stratified rock, except in regard to coal, which all admit came out -of the air. If we should assume that the granite was lava, but all the -stratified rock since, until you reach the region of conglomerate, came -from the air, how shall we account for the close similarity in -appearance and structure of the gneiss and granite? Theory has piled -thirty or forty miles of this sedimentary, stratified rock above the -granite; whence did it come? Any openings in the granite would let up -only lava. Whence the material for sediment? We shall, farther on, show -that all primitive rock, like the coal, came from the gases of the -atmosphere once enveloping this globe. - -8. Our best scientists now readily unite with the keen sighted miner in -accounting for this increase of heat as you pass down the shaft, on -entirely different principles from those stated in the text books. Prof. -Joseph Le Conte says that “Chemical action of air and water upon the -rock, as you descend into the Earth’s crust, is undoubtedly the cause of -the increase of heat.” Again he says, “This heat is regulated and gauged -by the constituents of the rock that you pass.” Now admitting that the -rock, as a rule, would show an average increase of heat down to the -Carboniferous system, or even to the Devonian, yet there is rock enough -beyond that contains so much less carbon, as to show such a decrease of -heat that must more than counteract all the increase above. Whether we -follow up the old hypothesis, with the laws regulating heat by -conduction or chemical action, the theory is utterly without foundation. -The late Prof. Norton, of the California State Normal, said in a lecture -at Pacific Grove, in 1883, “Every living geologist that I know of in the -world will admit, for he _knows_, that the granite was a sedimentary -rock.” This sentiment of his speech being reported to Le Conte, he -replied, “In this position Prof. Norton is undoubtedly right.” It is -thus seen that the Plutonic theory in our text books is at variance with -modern experiments, and is proved to be utterly false. - -9. Volcanoes and geysers were formerly supposed to settle the question -in favor of the old theory. The phenomena of both are such as to -strongly argue against it. Most geysers are known to be caused by -chemical action of rock. We instance those in Hot Spring Valley, Cal., -near Lassen Buttes. No one, having noticed the various colored mud-pots -and mounds of pulpy rock thrown up by these boiling cauldrons, can come -to any other conclusion. A few geysers may be exceptions, having been -caused by water trickling over heated rock in proximity to volcanoes. -These prove nothing as to the center of the earth, until it can be -established that this body of lava is in the center of the earth. A -multitude of facts in connection with volcanic action demonstrate that -lava does not proceed from a common center. - -A few we will here give. (1.) Lava varies in color according to the -color of the stratified rock found in the vicinity. Thus, between Reno -and Wadsworth, Nevada, may be seen a red ledge of sedimentary rock. -Close by are found quantities of red lava, being the same shade of red -found in the sedimentary. Pieces of rock may be seen, one side showing -the sedimentary strata, and the other partially melted. Lava everywhere, -probably, is only sedimentary rock melted. (2.) Volcanic disturbances -are local, which they could not be if they proceeded from a common -center. (3.) The existence of great quantities of ashes, so light as to -float on the surface of water, argues the consumption of some burning -material, as of coal. Nothing of this would exist in matter that had -primarily been collected in liquid, and had ever been in a fused state. -Something must have been burning to produce the ashes. (4.) The fact of -all the great upheavals of plateaus and mountains having been this side -the Carboniferous system of deposit, where the burning material, -sufficient to produce volcanic effect, was extracted from the air and -laid down as rock, argues in favor of a power much nearer than force, -generated from a primeval sea of lava. Burning coal as a source of heat, -and steam as a power, are ample to account for every volcanic -disturbance, however it may have been modified by electric forces. - -10. Most geologists are dissatisfied with the fire theory, and are -looking about for a revolution in the teaching of the science. Professor -Norton said, “We are upon the eve of a perfect revolution in the science -of geology.” Agassiz said, “The Plutonic theory loses ground as soon as -brought to scientific tests.” Again he uttered with decided emphasis, -“If the center of our earth were molten lava, as hot as represented, a -crust of rock fifty miles thick would melt, and, in the space of a few -hours, fall into the great sea.” - -A teacher of geology in one of our large colleges, who had just finished -a lecture upon the Plutonic theory, said, “I have given that theory -because it is the teaching of all our text-books; but I do not believe -it. Many facts now coming to light show that the Water theory is -destined to come to the front.” - -11. The fact that submarine volcanoes happen, without letting the ocean -into the great sea of lava, shows that no such sea is there. But for the -money and reputation invested in school books upon this defunct theory, -it would have been, before this, consigned to the Plutonic hell of the -Greeks, from whence, it is more than probable, it originated. - -12. Many admitted facts are utterly inconsistent with this theory. We -will stop to notice but two. - -(1.) It is a generally admitted fact, that the entire land portions of -the explored earth, including Greenland to the 80th parallel, were -either in a tropical or semi-tropical climate, from the beginning of -sedimentary rock, up to and far into the so-called Alluvium deposit, and -even to the historic age. “The climate of England was warmer than any -now known on the earth.” Sir Chas. Lyell stated, that the only -exceptions breaking in upon this uniformly warm climate were temporary -changes during the great glacial epochs. This uniform heat could not -result from the present auxiliary motion of the earth, nor with any good -reason can we assert that the internal fires ever modulated the surface -climate so much as one degree. Scientists are a unit in affirming that, -for the last four thousand years, there has been no perceptible -influence from this cause, upon our climate. A rupture of the earth’s -crust, and a change of pole three thousand miles, and a complete change -of pole-pointing, resulting in our present alternating seasons, has -probably happened within the “historic age,” and probably within five -thousand years. This could not be upon the Plutonic basis. Our earth -could not part, and swim off upon a globe of melted lava. - -(2.) Diatoms are now known to have existed, coequal with the deposit of -all stratified rock. This is a well verified fact, but utterly -inconsistent with the Plutonic theory. Upon this theory, the early crust -of Earth must have remained at a white heat. Water could not lie upon it -at all. Hence, both deposits in water and animal life would be out of -the question. The fact of both, to say nothing of the well established -fact of the sedimentary nature of granite, must ever brand the theory as -contradicting the plain facts of nature. These facts equally refute the -more modern notion of metamorphism of rock. The very waves of the sea -unite in a chorus with the rocks, “The Plutonic foundations of the -earth’s crust exist only in the imagination of man.” - - - Section 2. - We will State the Neptunian Theory as a Hypothesis. - - -1. All matter was created at once, and is correlative. - -2. In its primary condition it was in cold gas; diffused in equilibrium -in that portion of space now occupied with systems: it follows that -gravitation, heat, form, motion and power would in this state be -wanting. - -3. A power, outside of created matter, must transform this substance -from the inertia of rest to that of motion. No sooner was a center of -matter gathered, than gravitation acted upon all parts of the universe. -The centers of all systems must commence at the same time, or one system -would tend to blend with another, and nature would be thrown out of -equilibrium. The entire period of gathering must have been with relative -exactness. It follows that, at the beginning of motion, all matter must -be put in motion. Such gases as were destined to constitute the sun -would move directly for it; and such gases as were destined for globes -would move in a circle around the center. Such order must have formed -the poetic choir of suns, “When the morning stars sang together.” - -4. The shaping of systems, sending forth light, heat, gravitation and -power, may well be called the first cosmological division of matter. -This included the heavens, and prospective planets, as yet without form, -and floating in a ring of chaotic gases. - -5. At the close of this division, our sun had been gathered out of a -field of space, extending each way more than twenty trillion of miles. -If these light gases had moved in a straight line at the rate of thirty -miles per hour, it would take ninety million of our years to reach the -center. Poetically speaking, there existed a condition of matter when -force, light, gravitation, motion and form were sleeping in the inertia -of rest. This was followed by a period of motion to and about a central -sun. Geologically speaking, the earth, as yet, had no form. The matter -that would form planets was all floating in a revolving ring about the -sun. - -The objective view of this ring, with reference to the gathered center, -would be a solar firmament. The fluids above had not yet been separated -from fluids below, hence the firmament was continuous. Earth, without -form, was yet sleeping in chaos. It awoke in form when a second division -of matter, with no measured duration as yet, had been accomplished. - -6. A vast field of hydrogen united with its equivalent of oxygen; and, -in super-heated steam, evolved out into space, and took shape as a -globe. These divisions antedate geologic time. Geology must begin with -sedimentary rock. The globe of steam must liquify and pass back to the -ring, and through it toward the sun. In doing so, it took an atmosphere -with it that shows the source of all our rock. When taking its true -orbit about the sun, it was a vast globe of cold water, holding, by -gravitation, a dense atmosphere in its embrace, rich in material for -submarine rock. For a while the deposits were very rapid, and a great -quantity of pulp of rock was formed, before any hardening took place. -This accounts for the unstratified condition of granite. All the first -rocks would be submarine, hidden deep in the sea. Nearly eighty miles -depth of deposits took place before dry land could appear. - -7. Contrasts marked the beginning and close of the first two divisions. -If we follow this order in this third division, we must wait until the -Devonian forests showed the renewed touch of the creative hand, giving -life in contrast to inorganic matter, with which the globe started into -form, and took its position as a planet of our system. Such is the -Neptunian theory in part, touching first causes in cosmology. - - - Section 3. - The well established Fact of Science look toward, and defend this - Theory. - - -1. In the relative quantities of sedimentary and lava rock. By far the -greater portion of rock of all lands is sedimentary. Lava is the -exception. If the source of supply is an internal sea, 7,880 miles in -diameter, the reverse of this would most likely be true. - -2. In the relative order of the two kinds of rock. Except in very -restricted locations, sedimentary rock is at the bottom, in the middle, -and at the top of the earth’s crust. Lava has never been found as an -integral part of the supposed bottom rock. - -3. The constituents of all rock indicate the water theory. All rock is -known to be a combination of gases. The coal is admitted to have been -gathered from the air, through the agency of vegetation. There are three -ways gases may be combined into rock: - -(1.) Through the agency of water alone. Such was the primitive granite; -and such are the modern stalactites. - -(2.) Through the agency of diatoms living in the water. These creatures -are absorbents. They absorb the minerals of the water, and form stone. -Such are lime, chalk and coral. - -(3.) They may be absorbed into vegetation, and then hidden away in the -waters, until changed into coal. - -(4.) Sandstone and conglomerate are formed from eroded material of other -rocks. - -(5.) The melting of sedimentary rock in proximity to burning beds of -coal has formed the lava. - -(6.) Chimneys of rock crossing the lower strata, as of quartz and -granite, are now known to be of water deposit. The word dyke is -improperly applied to them. These circumstances all point to a center of -water. - -4. The question with many will arise, How can rock rest upon water? The -answer is, Upon the principle of the compressibility of liquids. Water -compresses a twentieth part in a thousand atmospheres. Thirty-three feet -of water is equal to one atmosphere. Thirty-three thousand feet would -compress one-twentieth part. We have a geometrical series, with a ratio -of 1.05. In 79-1/2 miles we have twelve and three-fourths terms. The sum -of the series will equal 19.127, calling 33,000 feet _one_, without -compressibility. Now as the average rock, under salt water, weighs only -one and a half times as much as water, we have to multiply twelve and -three-fourths by one and a half to get its relative weight. This we find -to be 19.125. At 79-1/2 miles in salt water, the weight of water equals -rock of the same thickness. As rock displaces only its bulk of water, it -will swim like an egg in strong lye at this depth. - -5. The explorations which have been made of the Atlantic ocean go to -sustain the Neptunian theory. - -(1.) They think that they have established the fact that we had a -connected land hemisphere, and a hemisphere of water. Lieutenant Maury -made such extensive explorations of its contour and bed, as to well nigh -demonstrate the above position. His report is, that the trough-like -appearance of its bed, the corresponding walls on either side, being -nearly perpendicular, showed that the continents were once together. On -either side of the Atlantic the sounding line showed a gradual deepening -of water for about two hundred miles from shore, when suddenly the depth -became too great for measurement. This only confirms what Guizot wrote -upon the same subject over fifty years ago. - -In a small treatise he endeavored to prove that the continent showed a -rent hemisphere of land, once altogether. That it had been rent asunder -by some great convulsion of nature, and by water carried away from -Africa and Europe, with which North and South America were formerly -connected. His theory was, that continents and islands are but floating -remnants of a once connected hemisphere. - -(2.) Such a rupture could only be maintained on the hypothesis of a -center of water. Should the earth open its crust, letting the ocean into -its interior of melted lava, it would resemble a bomb. - -6. We shall, therefore, assume that we had a land hemisphere, and that -the north pole was in the center, and pointed directly to the sun -throughout its entire orbit. This would involve the fact that the south -half of the globe was in darkness, and locked in ice, as a great -Antarctic sea. - -(1.) We argue this from the widely extended remains of the -polyp-builders. This animalcule inhabits only warm waters. His remains -are found widely distributed in every zone from the Lower Silurian up. -Iowa and Minnesota show as nice coral in their strata as is now found in -the torrid seas. - -(2.) From the widely scattered remains of tropical shells. They -conclusively show that a warm ocean once covered the continents. Sir -Chas. Lyell mentions the tropical nature of the shells about England and -Labrador, and that “They indicate a very warm climate, more uniformly -warm than any now existing on the Earth.” - -(3.) From the remains of saurians; such as the icthyosaurus, which, like -the crocodile of the Ganges, is found only in warm waters. Darwin saw -one in the bank of the La Plata. No land is without their remains. - -(4.) From the widely spread coal beds of Earth. Nothing in geology is -better established, than that this is the product of tropical forests. -All countries boast of their coal veins. Anthracite coal is often found -in the frozen rocks of Greenland. A vein of the best coal, ten feet -thick, was found in Nova Zembla, now covered with ice. Good coal is also -found in the northern part of Alaska. A genial climate once covered -these places. - -(5.) From the remains of tropical animals. The evidence is conclusive, -that gigantic elephants in countless herds once roamed the arctic -regions of Siberia. His remains have been found in all lands, except the -Scandinavian peninsula. The mastodon was his near neighbor, and his -bones are generally found in the same regions. These animals depended on -grass for subsistence. They could not endure a cold winter, nor live -where snow lies on the ground for even a short time. We now find their -remains where snow now lies from four to eight months in a year, and -from two to twenty feet deep. From the region of Russian Siberia alone, -more than eighty thousand pounds of their ivory have been sold in a -single year. Whence, then, this warm climate, so uniform and general? It -cannot be accounted for on internal heat. Heat, sufficient to warm an -arctic atmosphere, if coming from the ground, would destroy all animal -life, either of water or land. Geologists agree that it has not been -affected so much as one degree for the last four thousand years. But we -have positive proof that these animals existed down to the period of -human existence. They probably have not been exterminated five thousand -years. Internal heat cuts no figure in their existence. Only one -hypothesis accounts for these tropical phenomena, viz., a land -hemisphere, with pole in the center, pointing directly to the sun. - -(6.) The sudden change of climate in some past time argues a rapid -change in the axillary motion of the earth, preceded by a general -rupture of the earth’s crust. It was so sudden, that animals were locked -up in arctic ice, and have been preserved to our day, with flesh entire. -(See the word Mammoth, W. Dictionary.) The change of pole must have been -very sudden, or animals, slain by the convulsion, would have decayed at -once. - -(7.) The widely spread tropical flowers and fruits sustain this theory. -The palm tree flourished in Europe and Central Asia; also in the -northern part of North America. The magnolia blossomed at least 80 -degrees north. Sir Charles Lyell claims that the earlier vegetation was -generally tropical. Grass evidently flourished in all lands, the year -round. - -7. The nature and condition of the early rock attest the water theory. -Had the crust begun upon a ball of lava, at a white heat, the ocean, -readily boiling, would be thrown into the air, where it would be -condensed, and by gravitation thrown back upon the thin crust. This -would often give way, and the whole volume would enter the interior and -explode the entire crust into atoms. In such case we should expect to -find the under rock a broken mass of displaced lava. But we find the -granite to have been so calmly deposited in water, and it retains its -place so well, that we split it with the rift of sugar pine. Geologists -estimate the earth’s crust from fifty to one hundred miles thick. Upon -the Neptunian theory we at least have seventy-five miles without a -particle of lava, or so much as the scratch of an iceberg. The early -geologies spoke of dykes of lava, injected into granite. The furnace -shows these to be water seams. No well attested lava has ever been found -there. - -8. The period of the great upheavals supports this theory. No grand -mountains reared their lofty heads to the clouds, until this side the -Carboniferous system of deposits. It is more probable that burning coal -must have been the cause of the heat, and the expansion of steam the -power, that rent the Earth’s crust; and the eighty miles pressure of -waters suddenly liberated would bring up the granite, with all under -rock, to the surface. Lava then proceeds from local deposits of melted -rock, that had been stratified. If it came from a common center of a -primary melted mass, there would be no occasion for ashes. The abundance -of these ashes shows the consumption of some burning material, as of -coal. The very witnesses which the Plutonic believers have placed upon -the stand prove quite the reverse of their theory. - -9. Facts show that the substance of all mountain chains was once -deposited in the sea. Baron Von Humboldt remarked, “Upon the tallest -mountains yet reached by the footsteps of man you may witness the -ancient sea bottom.” Conglomerate shells with sand, hardened into rock -in the ancient seas, are now found in all lands thousands of feet above -the sea. - -10. The rise and depressions of the Earth’s crust are proofs of the -water theory. Lands having large rivers, carrying more debris or silt -into the ocean than the weight of her vegetation, decaying, are rising; -as has been demonstrated in North and South America, Europe, Asia and -Africa. The terraces left attest the truth of this position. - -Lands having more vegetation or ice than the weight of the debris -carried into the sea are sinking. Witness Greenland and the Pacific -Isles. But these islands could not well sink into a sea of burning lava, -without letting in the surrounding ocean; in which case the entire crust -would be destroyed. - -11. The crowning reason for believing in the Neptunian theory is found -in the great glacial drift period. The Neptunian hypothesis of the poles -of the Earth is sufficient to account for the ice that constituted the -drift. The ancient equator would mark the bound between darkness and -light; and would be situated so as to manufacture icebergs the whole -length of this largest circle. - -The depressions of the lowlands beneath the sea are accounted for in the -great upheavals. On an average, rock weighed out of water is one and -two-thirds times as much as when weighed under water. All the strata of -mountains and plateaus lifted from beneath the waters weigh one and -two-thirds times what they did before being disturbed. - -Geologists tell us that the Earth’s crust was depressed six to seven -thousand feet. This would enable the ice to flow over the surface, the -bergs being of enormous depth. The lowlands of every continent have been -thus plowed. The evidence exists in every valley and far up the sides of -all mountains. This evidence is by no means confined to scratches on the -rock, but the water-washed gravel and polished pebbles equally attest -its action. You can hardly sink a shaft in valley or hill without -encountering them. With the present inclination of the Earth’s pole to -the elliptic no such quantity of ice can possibly occur. No iceberg has -ever yet been seen in tropical waters. There never yet has been enough -at one time within historic note, to counteract the influence of the -Gulf Stream about Norway and Iceland. - -How different the ancient drift! Then the ice penetrated all open seas, -caused by submergence. It plowed alike the Brazilian mountains, the -Sierra Nevada, and the Appalachian. It chilled the seas to the very -center of the submerged hemisphere; and England witnessed the dwelling -of the reindeer in her borders, while it lasted. According to Sir Chas. -Lyell, the temperature sank from the uniformity of our intensely warm -climate to the chilliness of melting ice. The cold was now as uniform as -the heat had before been constant. The north pole, pointing directly to -the sun, would bring the whole land hemisphere within perpetual -sunshine; and consequently, when above the sea, would be in a tropical -or semi-tropical zone to the very edge. This climate would continue as -long as the land could hold back the ice, which had been accumulated at -the equator. But no sooner did the lowlands become submerged, than the -ice would change the climate, wherever it could in large quantities -accumulate. As it plowed every river, plain, and gulch, the fauna, -adapted to the former climate, would naturally lose their existence. -Such is the history of the drift. Ninety-seven per cent. of all land -animals died. By the slow process of disintegration of the mountains, -the hemisphere was again raised, and its former beautiful climate -restored. - - - Section 4. - How was such a World adapted to Man or strictly speaking, - Man to such a World? - - -1. The even climate of such a world would tend to his longevity, and be -most genial to his feelings. - -Man’s nature calls for an even climate. Now by art he tries to even up -the climate of the year. - -(1.) Less than two-thirds of the lighted hemisphere could have been -covered with dry land. Many bodies of water are known to have been -included within the areas of land. The pole, pointing directly toward -the sun, must have been near Gibraltar. Allowing that land extended in -every direction, four thousand miles or more, we should then have an -open sea of from fifteen hundred to two thousand miles, intervening -between the edge of the hemisphere of land, or perhaps more properly, -the quartosphere of land, and the region of perpetual ice. - -(2.) On the sunny side of such a globe, being at first entirely water, a -rapid evaporation must have taken place; and most, nearest the north -pole. This would give rise to currents, both of air and water, to flow -toward it, as a source of supply. Counter currents of both would follow. -Currents of either starting near the equator would be cold and possess a -motion greater than the earth, a few degrees toward the pole. This would -send both towards the northeast, until meeting the return currents of -wind, which would cause variable winds; but a most genial climate must -have surrounded the earth, at least forty degrees wide. - -(3.) Such a climate, with such facilities for evaporation, would provide -the way for perpetual harvest. The open sea to the edge must have been -constantly filled with floating ice. Cold breezes, often laden with -thick fog, would float in over the edge of the land. This may account -for the long hair which covered the mammoth elephant of Siberia and -California. No winds are more penetrating than those coming from large -bodies of melting ice; yet under a perpetual sunshine the vegetation -must have been abundant. - -2. We add by way of recapitulation: - -(1.) That everywhere, and with each new discovery in science, the -evidence is accumulating that our globe is essentially an immense ball -of cold water, with a crust of earth covering the under waters as with a -stone; while a portion of water above is held in the earth’s lap. - -(2.) Until recently, the continents and islands were together in one -vast body, with the axillary center pointing to the sun. - -(3.) That fragments of the broken hemisphere have been spread out upon -the seas, often standing with just their tops out of water as islands. - -(4.) Inasmuch as this Earth is a magnet, the deposit about the pole was -of the nature of a load-stone. This existed as a mountain, which by the -force of the waters was bodily removed to the present north, nearly -three thousand miles. It was thus we had a change of times and seasons. - -(5.) That the alternation of day and night, heat and cold, summer and -winter, seed-time and harvest, are results following this great change -in the Earth’s polarity. - -(6.) That the existence of the rainbow, caused by the declination of the -sun toward the horizon in the Earth’s present motion, is a reminder of -what is, and will remain to be, in contrast to what was, and would have -been, until the end of time, had no cause occurred making it necessary -for this radical change. - -Earth’s climate was changed, - -(_a_) By changing the magnetic currents of Earth, in removing the pole -locally three thousand miles away. - -(_b_) By withdrawing the attraction the former pole had for the sun, and -pointing it to an empty place in the north, now one degree and a half -from Polaris. - -(_c_) By inclining the Earth’s pole twenty-three and a half degrees to -the ecliptic. “He changeth times and seasons.” - - - - - CHAPTER II. - The Neptunian Theory of Creation was first brought to Light - in the Book of Job. - - -1. Like Homer, who dated his poem in the rising of the star Sirius, so -Job dated his book in the Pleiades, while the sun was gaining his vernal -equinox in the star Alcyone of this constellation. The Septuagint speaks -of Job’s age at the commencement of his trial as being one hundred -years. By the closing statement appended to his book, we learn that he -lived after his restoration one hundred and forty years. This makes his -age two hundred and forty at his death. Alcyone marks by precession of -the equinoxes 2100 years B. C. The great period of his longevity -indicates a time antedating Abraham’s day by more than two hundred -years. - -2. This book is an epi-dramatic Oratorio of human history. It is epic, -in that it gives the history of a real life; dramatic, in that it -dramatizes human history, by the inspirations of these actors, with the -religious intuitions of all ages. The poem as a whole shows the -contending forces that develop character; the struggle of man’s redeemed -nature against the tendencies of a series of degenerate ages, as far -down as the full triumph of Christ’s reign; followed by the long -prosperity that awaits the Church. It also sets forth the longings of -the human intellect for a knowledge of first causes; and its crowning -success when Nature is studied in connection with the revelations of -God’s Word. The Book of Job was evidently the only Scripture that the -world had for at least eight hundred years. The introduction shows Job -to have been a person adapted to great reverses of fortune, rich, pious, -prosperous, happy, and respected. Two spirits, either of which may take -form, but neither being dependent on form or locality, are present in -their religious gatherings as they have ever been in ours. That -objective figures come before our imaginations in reading this part of -the poem, only shows the high character of the production. - -3. The first question between God and Satan is that hackneyed one of all -history, viz: Is piety a selfish ebullition of the human heart or a -divinely planted principle? Satan takes the first statement, God the -latter. Satan affirms that a sudden reverse of fortune will change the -aspect of Job’s piety, and he will then curse God to his face. Great -principles are best tested by suffering. Nor is it necessary that every -one should suffer in the same direction to show forth the same. The -world is full of delegated suffering; the few for the many, and -sometimes one for all. Job is the right man in wealth, station, -influence, and habits of mind to personify piety in its relation to the -world’s progress. - -4. The Orient is the place, and that period of the world the time, for -the rich figures of speech found in the two scenes of this unparalleled -production. Of the two forces meeting us in life, inviting our attention -and co-operation, one must and but one can, at the same time, receive -our homage. The one inclines you to and gives you credit for all good; -the other inclines you from and gives you no credit for any good. The -princely man of the Orient is suddenly confronted with absolute -bankruptcy and bereavement of all his children, without the chance of -speaking the parting good-bye. Satan expected the question settled in -his favor, by a sudden outburst of passion, in vindictive hate to God. -But listen! “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb (earth), and naked -shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; -blessed be the name of the Lord.” The first scene is ended with Satan -completely foiled. But, some one might say, the question only covered -Job’s outward prosperity. True, his wife is left to him, but she is a -part of himself. - -5. Again the sons of God are together in worship. Satan begs leave to -amend his indictment against piety. “Touch his bone and his flesh and he -will curse thee.” Job is smitten in a manner calculated to break down -his patience. The patience of his wife having become exhausted, she is -influenced to give her vindictive advice in the line of Satan’s desires, -“Curse God, and die.” “Thou speakest as a foolish woman. What! shall we -receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” - -6. The prologue of scene second ends with Satan confounded. The incoming -circumstances show God’s present proposition to be that true piety will -not only endure, without tarnish, what Satan in his ill will has -proposed, but it will survive and develop in strength in the ages to -come, until it shall triumph over every foe. To refute all satanic -charges to which history will give rise, God proposes to try it in this -person, under the leading intuitions governing the masses of all ages, -past and to come. Three supposed but mistaken friends hear of Job’s -calamity, and resolve to condole his misery. These are ranked within the -family of God’s sons. These men are kings in their time, and are -supposed to be entitled to a hearing. Their mistakes will make them -really Job’s enemies. Such are the coadjutors that Satan is about to -have brought to his aid. They find Job in keen anguish of body, -incapable of recognizing his friends. - -7. These persons are all representative characters, whose intuitions -will partake of the nature of the epochs of human history, through which -the prophet Job is about to be taken. Job personifies piety; Eliphaz, -reverence in tradition; Bildad, special Providence as a rule of action; -Zophar, ignorance, the mother of devotion. Beginning with the fall of -man, each epoch of human history is to stamp the prevailing religious -intuitions of the masses upon these men. - -8. Piety must be tried under all. Until the enlightened age of the world -is reached, piety will have little to cling to but faith in God, and -that in the face of appearances. Such is the drama about to be enacted. -Six grand epochs of historic time must be passed to reach even the -present time. (1.) Deism of the antediluvian world. (2.) Special -Providence as a rule of action following the flood, and out of which -grew the building of the Tower of Babel. (3.) He was left alone through -materialistic worship in idolatry, as in Abraham’s time. (4.) He was -confronted by a superstitious looking-behind, as in Persia’s time. (5.) -Tempted with an abnormal ambition, as in Alexander’s time. (6.) He must -be surrounded by the ruling necessities of commercial selfishness -inaugurated by Rome, and transmitted by circumstantial links in the -progress of civilization to our own time. - -9. Human history in the drama starts in with a wail. Job, with the -intuitions of a deist, bewails his very existence. As he looks to the -future there is not one ray of hope. “Thou (God) shalt search for me in -the morning but I shall not be. He that goeth down to the grave shall -come up no more.” - -Where now is that oft repeated declaration of Satan, that piety, at -best, is only a selfish looking forward to rewards in the future? The -piety of Job survives this terrible ordeal. The blinding intellectual -fog of deism could not lose his point of compass. - -Creeds may be good as sign-boards directing the traveler, but they go -but a little ways in determining the action of the truly pious. As he -approaches the flood he beholds the “numbering of man’s days on the -earth.” And, as the reality bursts upon his vision, he experiences a -perfect revolution of intuition. All is special Providence now. - -10. The flood is passed in chapter eight, and “man’s days become as a -shadow.” The law of God’s natural Providence, in cause and effect, is by -Job and his friends completely ignored. His own condition will look him -in the face with terrible effect, asking an explanation. To such an -ordeal, with Bildad framing an enthusiastic argument upon the evidences -of special Providence in the affliction, was Job brought. He can -logically prove Job to be one of the worst of men. “Doth God pervert -judgment?” To Job he saith, “If thou wast pure and upright, surely now -he would awake for thee.” Job with his intuitions cannot see why the -argument is not sound. “I know it is so of a truth.” To work thus upon -the nerves of a sick man, who has been shut off from comprehensive views -of God’s general Providence in law, is well calculated to break him down -in impatience toward God. But Job replies, “If I say I am perfect it -shall also prove me perverse. Though I were perfect, yet would I not -know my soul; neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that he should -lay his hand upon us both.” Zophar replied, “Know therefore that God -exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.” Job replied, “I -could speak as you do if I were in your stead.” “Though he slay me, yet -will I trust in him.” Job claims an honest integrity of purpose, though -denying perfection in attainment. - -10. For this noble stand he is rewarded on the spot with a prophetic -view of what forms the first chapter in the “Little Book” of star-dates. -Tracing time back by the precession of the equinoxes to where the sun -crossed its spring equinox in Orion’s belt, he saw the commencement of -man. Tracing the same line forward to the end of our race, where indeed -time ends, he saw that it rested in Ash or the Great Bear (margin) -incorrectly translated Arcturus; new version, Great Bear. - -Looking to the same kind of date of his own time, he saw the sun -crossing the Pleiades. Looking at the full inauguration of Christ’s -Kingdom on earth, represented by the termination of Job’s own -sufferings, he saw the time measured in the Summer Solstitial colure -going from under the Altar. “Thou madest Ash, Orion and the Pleiades, -and the chambers of the south.” Here commences the “Little Book,” -alluded to so often in prophecy, with four of the most important dates -of history, but sealed upon the back part until the opening of the same -by the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah” to his servant John. Here, perhaps -all unconscious of their bearings on future history, he is picturing in -the heavens, and dating by means of the precession of the equinoxes, the -long periods, revolutions, changes and triumphs his sufferings were to -take him, followed by the long prosperity of the Church of Christ in the -latter day. - -11. Representing the reign of universal idolatry, and consequent -ignorance of the masses, and preceding the anxious inquiries concerning -immortality by Confucius, Socrates and Plato, Zophar is prepared to fill -in his part of the drama. - -The question of the resurrection is discussed in the light of nature, in -Chap. 14. He is compelled to leave it as an open question, only wishing -that it might be true. “Oh that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that -thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me.” He nears the time -of the general expectation of Messiah’s appearance on earth. - -He closes to allow Zophar, the representative of those Scribes and -Pharisees in their tradition, to speak again. This is found in the -fifteenth chapter. - -12. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth, inclusive, Job personifies -Christ. Hence these chapters are Messianic. “They have gaped upon me -with their mouth, they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully. My -days are extinct, the graves are ready for me. God hath delivered me to -the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. Are there -not mockers with me? For thou hast hid their heart from understanding.” -Many of these sentences are quoted into the twenty-second psalm, -recognized by all commentators to be Messianic. This Special Providence, -as a rule to depend upon, watched Christ on the cross; it triumphed over -the fact that God did not deliver him. - -Here it is in prophecy: “The snare is laid for him in the ground. It -shall devour the strength of his skin, even the firstborn of death, it -shall devour his strength. His confidence shall be rooted out of his -tabernacle. His remembrance shall perish from the earth. He shall be -driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. He shall -neither have son or nephew among his people.” Isaiah, quoting the -sentiment, asks, “Who shall declare his generation, for his life was -taken from the earth?” - -The Messianic voice is personified from the grave. The grave speaks the -facts of history. “He hath put my brethren far from me, and my -acquaintance are verily estranged from me. My kinsfolks have failed, and -my familiar friends have forgotten me. They whom I loved are turned -against me. Why do you persecute me as God?” In the nineteenth chapter -Job has reached the resurrection. How changed the voice! “Oh, that my -words were now written! Oh, that they were printed in a book! That they -were graven with an iron pen, and lead in the rock forever.” - -13. “For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the -latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this -body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Ignorance is not satisfied with -the report “that he is risen from the dead.” “The triumph of the wicked -is short. Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, yet he shall -perish forever. He shall fly away as a dream.” The days of apostolic -teaching and suffering passed, Christianity debauched by a state -religion, ignorance again put forth as a dying gasp, a few platitudes in -defense of God and against piety. Chap. 20. Job answered by referring -man’s conduct in life to a future judgment. Chap. 21. Reverence in -tradition exhorted Piety to speedy repentance. Chaps. 23 and 24. Piety -is searching directly for the true God. - -14. Special Providence, ignoring law, boasteth of his secular strength. -“Is there any numbers of his armies?” Here in the poem civilization -reached the dawn of the Reformation. Chap. 26. It begins in the line of -science. The rocks begin to speak. “Dead things are formed from under -the waters.” The orbicular motion and the present pole-pointing of the -Earth, according to the Copernican system, is seen. “He stretcheth out -the north over the empty place, and hangeth the Earth upon nothing.” How -exactly in accordance with the history of scientific reform, that this -knowledge should begin in small fragments of truth. A glimpse of the -ancient pole-pointing is seen. “He hath compassed the waters with -bounds, until the day and night come to an end”; or until the end of -light begins with darkness. He saw the great “change of times and -seasons” caused by the Noachian flood. “He divideth the sea with his -power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud. Lo these -are parts of his ways; but how little a portion is heard of him! but the -thunder of his power who can understand?” - -15. Job enters upon the Reformation in science with a prophet’s view of -the desperate efforts put forth, by scientists of our own period, to -reach first causes by analytical deduction and hypothetical reasoning; -and this unaided by any light claiming to come by inspiration of God. -His harp seemed attuned in the most exquisite niceness of poetic finish, -to that class of modern pretenders who talk of the fullness of nature’s -laws, while they disbelieve in the existence of nature’s God. He opens -the twenty-eighth chapter with certain admissions, as to points of -knowledge obtainable from phenomena of nature, followed by questions -suggestive of the paucity of all things seen to unfold a true and full -cosmology. “Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold -where they fine it. Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten -out of the stone.” Now beholding the futile efforts of Naturalists to -reach first causes he exclaims, “There is a path which no fowl knoweth, -and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen. The lion’s whelps have not -trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it. He putteth forth his hand -upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots. He cutteth out -rivers among the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing.” This and -more is freely conceded as yielding a grand field for geological -thought. “But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of -understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof, neither is it found in -the land of the living.” Right here, beholding the observations through -heaven-pointed lenses, that man may read first causes in the stars, he -gives the poetic reply of space. “The depth saith it is not in me.” Now -beholding the kindled expectations in the student of the seas, as he -traces her currents, measures her waves and tides, and reaches her -deepest deposits, the sea is made to report, “It is not with me.” But -may not wealth and position gain it from the schools? He answers: “It -cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price -thereof. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious -onyx, or the sapphire. The gold and the crystal cannot equal it; and the -exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be -made of coral or of pearls; for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The -topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with -pure gold.” - -Disappointed in reading first causes in all these resources man still -inquires: “Whence then cometh wisdom, and where is the place of -understanding? Seeing it is hidden from the eyes of all living, and kept -close from the fowls of the air.” Let now the dead fossil speak. May not -the entombed life of forty millions of years open up this subject to -man? - -16. Destruction and death say, “We have heard the fame thereof with our -ears. God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place -thereof; for he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the -whole heavens, to make the weight of the winds, and he weigheth the -waters by measure. When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the -lightning of the thunder; then did he see it and declare it.” But how -shall man gain this true wisdom of causes? “He that cometh to God must -believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently -seek him.” It is the voice of the Saviour, he who “walked in the -garden.” Men must be drawn toward God before they can see him in his -word. “And unto man he said, Behold the fear of the Lord, that is -wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” It cannot be doubted -that more reverence for God, and less egotistical trust in self, would -greatly aid the wisest thinker of the present day. We have had -altogether too much of that feigned or real pity for the Bible, as -unfortunate in its allusions to science, deserving to be ranked with the -superstitions of the untutored masses of the unlettered ages. It is true -that prophetic allusions to scientific subjects are usually poetic, but -none the less specific and definite for this. These allusions embody a -true objective view, leaving to science the task to subjectively work -out the true condition of things presenting such phenomena. Thus -prophecy poetized upon the “Place for light, and the home and house for -darkness; and the path leading to the bounds between them.” -Scientifically explained, one pole of the Earth must have pointed -steadily to the sun, leaving half the globe in perpetual darkness. - -17. Joshua is said to have commanded the sun and the moon to stand -still, and they obeyed him. Subjectively rendered the sun went not down, -during one night, which could have been objectively accomplished by a -mirage. As this would answer the purpose for which the phenomena is -reported, it is highly probable that this is all that is meant. Again, -God made a firmament. But firmaments called heaven are not things made. -Subjectively rendered, he made a globe, from which the visible expanse -is seen. These figures of speech, and especially the one called -metonymy, run all through prophetic sayings. The heart’s willingness to -accept the truth is often necessary to the intellect’s perceiving it. - -18. The Reformation has made some considerable progress, and Job’s three -mistaken friends begin to see their errors, and acknowledge themselves -silenced. Job’s renewed ability to speak, and the readiness with which -he handles the subject of each passing event, shows that the darkness is -passing away, and the teachings of these dismal ages are being -counteracted. - -19. A far more formidable enemy, in the person of Elihu, is about to -arise. He represents Secular Education, in unbelief of the inspiration -of God, or the existence of true piety. He reasons that all men are -essentially alike, imperfect; that heredity, inclination, education and -surrounding circumstances account for all the difference in men. That -Job, having claimed upright intentions before God, has committed a grave -offence. His God is one of cause. “I will fetch my knowledge from afar: -he that is perfect in knowledge is with thee. My lips shall utter -knowledge clearly. All flesh shall perish together.” What is this but -infidel Deism? How different the expression of the wise man! “Who -knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast -that goeth downward to the earth?” The one is mortal, the other -immortal. For some cause Job is silent, though again and again -challenged to the combat. Let us apply a little history to the prophetic -drama. French Atheists, in a convention in 1808, put forth eighty-three -counts, any one of which was claimed sufficient to prove the Bible to be -uninspired. Sir Charles Lyell, himself a Deist, wrote, “Of these counts, -not one of them remains today. Science has laid them aside as -untenable.” - -20. We have three distinct views of prayer, represented in Bildad, Elihu -and Job. Bildad’s view is, “If deserving, you can have all you ask for, -without reference to law. All that you need is faith to perpetuate the -line of miracles.” Elihu’s view was essentially expressed by the -Professor who threw down the challenge, called the prayer gauge. Its -substance was, “Prayer changes no effect following cause. It cannot -mitigate the death rate in a hospital.” Job’s position is that prayer -may be beneficial when in harmony with God’s laws. There are three -realms, viz, physics, mind and spirit. Mind is higher than physics, and, -within bounds, rules it; spirit is higher than either, and within bounds -rules both: that prayer to God, ever subject to “Thy will be done, not -mine,” may increase the power of the spirit in man over the lower realms -of law, thus securing wonderful help from God, according to his -expressed will in law. This does not necessarily involve miracle in the -answer God gives. It is in harmony with the law of the spirit, that God -within the spirit greatly increases its power over mind and matter. This -was the secret of Job’s power over his contestants. This power Elihu -denied. Secular Education will readily admit that God, by his direct -power (which is Special Providence), created matter, again set it in -motion, again gave life to portions of it, etc., and then deny that God -would listen to the cry of his children for spiritual or material help. -This modern Elihu has completely ignored the efforts of God to help the -would-be scientists to phenomena and principles, which would link his -knowledge of nature in happy relation with first causes. Hence in the -end, like Elihu, he is destined to be completely confounded. - -21. Two thousand years ago, science established the Ptolemaic theory of -Astronomy. It taught it for eighteen hundred years, when the Copernican -theory forced its way to the front. And now, it is evident, the true -theory was clearly taught in God’s first book of Inspiration, called -Scripture. A few years since, Elihu, as a learned professor, would take -a piece of granite in his hand, and learnedly talk of the crystals -formed, as it slowly cooled, as the first crust formed upon the sea of -lava. - -22. Now, the same professor talks to his class of the sedimentary nature -of the rock, and the crystals formed under great pressure in the deep -sea. Four thousand years ago, the Bible gave this knowledge to the -world. For some cause, Job is reticent while Elihu speaks. He speaks as -a “beast of power, rising up out of the earth.” But God has something to -say as to who shall stand in the coming ages. Piety will stand up, and -God will answer as by the power of the whirlwind. Chap. 38. “Gird up 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 cornerstone thereof?” -Marginal reading “made the cornerstone to sink.” Balancing order, in -exact equipose, is proclaimed in science. “Not one star could be -spared,” say the Solons of Philosophy, “without throwing all into the -greatest confusion.” The balancing of the primary gases, as each sun -gathered in the beginning, was seen by Job. “When the morning stars sang -together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” - -23. The great under-waters were once imprisoned as though shut behind -doors. “Or who shut up the sea with doors when it brake forth as if it -had issued out of the womb?” Rotundity of the Earth is here given with -the inside water. He saw the young Earth first “clothed in a garment of -clouds,” and “thick darkness a swaddling band about it.” He saw the -“foundations of the earth breaking up,” as the flood in Noah’s day -poured in over the earth. “And brake up the decreed place for it,” and -set new “bars and doors.” A change of polarity, and when it took place, -is seen. “Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days, and caused the -day-spring to know his place, that it might take hold of the ends of the -earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?” When have the wicked -been shaken out of it, but when “all the fountains of the great deep -were broken up?” The finishing touch is added to the Copernican system. -“It is turned as clay to the seal.” Allusion is made to the clay on the -potter’s wheel rotating to a fixed seal shaping the same. In contrast to -its present motion, he saw a former condition with pole pointing to the -sun. This was a motion that never exchanged the darkness for light, nor -light for darkness, but both remained stationary. “Where is the way -where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof, -that thou shouldst take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldst -know the paths to the house thereof?” He saw the contrasted appearance -of the former earth to her present contour. “The waters are hid as with -a stone.” Altogether, the land hemisphere covered the under-waters; “and -the face of the deep is frozen.” The face of the deep in the southern -hemisphere of the ancient earth was locked in darkness and perpetual -ice. He had asked the question, “Out of whose womb came the ice?” Where -was it born? This is one of the most perplexing questions in science. - -24. Where was the ice born that once plowed such deep furrows over hill -and dale, that climbed the rugged mountain, and filled ancient river -beds with three thousand feet of drift? In vain do you ask where the ice -came from that scooped out the Yosemite Valley, or laid the deep beds of -water-washed pebbles along the Sierra Nevada mountains. God has answered -it in giving the ancient polarity, by which the mighty deep of one half -the globe was covered with ice. Again, “Who hath divided a watercourse -for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of the -thunder?” Our earth is a magnet. The way of the lightning produces -spiral effects on plants and cyclones from the equator to each pole. The -earth being divided, forming the Atlantic Ocean, and the pole being -locally changed on the globe, a new way for the lightning is formed. -This poem is wonderful for its flights of prophetic views. The vision, -from comprehending the phenomena attending the globe in its antediluvian -state, now changes to a mode of communication by telegraph of our own -time. To identify the century in which it would appear, he resorted to -the third clock of the heavens, measured by precession. He noticed that -beautiful cluster of stars called the Pleiades at the usual time of -Zenith measurement, in the evening, standing over the January thaw, -followed in a few days with Orion’s belt in the same place. At the time -of Job’s captivity the Pleiades rose to the Zenith on the 10th day of -November. By the slow action of precession they have moved eastward, -until now they come to the Zenith on the second day of January. Only -eighteen days elapse before Orion’s belt stands in the Zenith to look -down on sealed rivers, as the thaw is over. - -25. “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the -bands of Orion?” The time in this poetic allusion is our present -century. The phenomena seen is employing lightning as a messenger. -“Canst thou send lightnings that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we -are?” Proceeding to give the habits and instincts of a few -representative animals in natural history, Job proposed to sit down and -say no more. - -26. But God proposed to gird him for the description of two -representative fossil animals of the Middle and Tertiary ages. For the -ruling king of saurians, he described Ichthyosaurus under the title of -Leviathan. For the king of the Myocene period he described the -Megathareum under the title of Behemoth. God opens the understanding of -Job’s three mistaken friends, and makes demands for repentance and -reparation. Job becomes their intercessor. The captivity of Piety ends -here. The “times of the gentiles are fulfilled.” “The sanctuary is -cleansed.” “Babylon is fallen.” “The white horse appears, and Jesus -reigns King of kings and Lord of lords.” - -27. Now commences the grandest era of Job’s life. It is double in -prosperity to all going before. The time for its continuance is very -long. The universal respect that will be shown the church, the voluntary -contributions in liberal free-will offerings, the abundance of peace and -prosperity, are well diagrammed and set forth in the closing events of -Job’s life. - -Elihu will still talk of the “Twilight of Christianity,” but faith is -looking for the dawn of Christ’s triumph, when the dragon, “like -lightning,” must “fall from the heavens,” and nations will hail with joy -the reign of righteousness. - -“Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up ye everlasting -doors; and the King of glory shall come in. - -“Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty -in battle. The Lord of hosts; he is the King of glory.” - - - - - CHAPTER III. - All the Scripture References to Cosmology are in Harmony - with the Book of Job. - - -1. Peter must have understood the import of this divine poem, when he -wrote, “For this they are willingly ignorant of, that by the word of God -the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in -the water.” So also “The earth, that then was, being overflowed.” - -2. So Solomon understood the poem. Personifying the eternity of wisdom, -under things timely, he wrote, “Before the mountains were settled, -before the hills were brought forth.” Notice the sedimentary character -of the mountains! “While as yet he had not made the earth (in form). -When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass -(circle) upon the face of the depth (space).” - -3. The spirit of this poem must have inspired the Psalmist, when he -ascribed thanks unto “Him who stretcheth out the earth above the -waters.” And again, “He hath founded it upon the seas, and established -it upon the floods.” - -4. Moses must have possessed this sublime poem in the wilderness. By an -easy succession of steps, he could find his way back to where suns, in -gathering, kept time to the marching forces of Jehovah, as a well -trained choir. “When the morning stars sang together.” Not content here, -he sought farther aid of God, and swung out into the voids of space, -where heat, light, force, and gravitation slept in the embrace of chaos; -yea, still farther back to when and where matter was not. He heard God -speak matter into existence. It was from this vision he wrote, “In the -beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” As it came from the -hand of God, “It was without form, and darkness was upon the face of the -deep.” - -Matter without form is in gas; and to be in equilibrium, it must be -equally diffused in all that portion of space now containing matter. -Inertia would incapacitate its moving. Without motion, light was -impossible; without centers, gravitation had not commenced. Such was -matter in the darkness of chaos without form, called night. A force from -without must overcome inertia, and give birth to form, light, heat, -gravitation, and power at the same time. This power is brought to our -view in the following sublime sentence: “And the Spirit of the Lord -moved upon the face of the waters” (fluids). Gravitation acts -instantaneously throughout space. Therefore the gathering of any one -center as a sun, would necessitate the gathering of every central sun in -relative accord. - -5. Gravitating centers account for centripetal motion only. Acted upon -by gravitation alone, all matter within each system would start for the -center direct. Hence, centrifugal force also must have been imparted to -all that portion of gaseous chaos, destined to become planets. With -these two forces acting upon them, they would naturally assume the shape -of an immense ring about the sun. Those gases destined to make our sun, -must have traversed a space of not less than twenty trillion of miles; -possibly, in some directions thirty trillion of miles. The center would -be small at first; and should these gases float thirty miles per hour, -it would take ninety million of our years to gather the sun complete. In -such condition, from the voids of space Moses beheld our system, and -noticed that the “waters above the firmament were not separated from the -waters beneath.” If from a tall mountain we behold a rainbow, when the -sun is quite low we shall see a complete circle of prismatic colors. If -one should report that the colors above the firmament were not separate -from the colors beneath the firmament, we should readily understand that -the bow was continuous as a circle. Now imagine these colors tangible -gases, and a sun placed in the center, and you have some faint -conception of the grand objective view of the prophet, as he beheld the -first morning of creation. The condition in darkness, unmeasured by -time, he had called night. The condition in light, unmeasured by flight -of years, he called morning. “And the evening and the morning were day -first.” The vision, from contemplating matter as divided into systems, -now changes to prospective Earth, as yet without form. If the lack of -form constituted its evening, then, when it gains a form, it will be its -morning. The gases that were to form earth, then lay diffused in the -firmament ring. - -6. A spark would unite a field of Hydrogen and Oxygen, and cause a -division in the ring, as a new element much lighter, formed in space in -the condition of superheated steam. Its lightness would cause it to -evolve outside the ring, and take the form of a globe. “And God made the -firmament,” and he called it “heaven,” which is the visible expanse of a -half circle or sphere above our heads; “and he divided the waters which -were under the firmament, (the first, which was a tangible circle) from -the waters which were above the firmament.” The Earth is in form, but -has, as yet, but two gases; and these unite in steam. The second day of -creation ends without a “footprint” for the unassisted geologists to -trace. Well may Job refer man to the voice of the Lord for the wisdom of -first cause and the early changes of matter. This newly formed -firmament, or visible expanse, which, by figure of metonymy means a -newly formed globe, differs materially from the ring substance of the -sun, which gave rise to the term firmament. This second firmament is not -made of tangible gases, nor is its appearance to dwellers on the earth -continuous. Hence, the making of this firmament is the objective -description of the formation of our Earth as a globe. With a world of -steam in globe form, the second age or day of creation ended. The -matter, that gathered would constitute Earth, while floating in chaos -was called evening. When the globe took its form, though only a world of -steam, it was called morning. “And the evening and the morning were the -second day.” No measurement of twenty-four hour days had commenced yet. -Having followed our globe out into space, the prophet now confines his -observations to this single planet. He beholds the outside liquifying, -and he follows it into its present orbit. He made no mention of the -“swaddling band,” it took out of the ring as it passed back toward the -sun. This had been well noticed by Job, as well as the manner of the -first deposits. But he noticed the appearance of dry land; and the -introduction of terrestrial vegetation, and described them as cryptogam -“having the seed in itself.” He had followed the gathering together of -the waters as a grand sea, and the inorganic deposits as a long evening; -and now, to bring out a grand contrast, as morning, he waited until the -forests sung the praises of God’s creative hand in bestowing life. “And -the evening and the morning were the third day.” But this vegetation -grows in the veiled light, much as the gray of twilight. This twilight -is the evening of the fourth day. Contrasting with it is pure sunlight. -The Carboniferous age of the world cleared the air of these deadly -gases, and let in the sunshine upon the earth. This was morning. In -noticing this, he is reminded that this globe is occupying his entire -attention; and yet God made all the planets and suns of the heavens. So -the source of light is again noticed and its proper name given to it, -and the relation it sustains to our own time noticed and recorded, “The -sun to give light by day.” In a similar manner the moon and the stars -were all noticed. As vegetation had now arrived at its climax, Moses -closed this age, making the cryptogram in the gray twilight the evening, -and its contrast the gay flower basking in clear sunlight the morning. -“And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.” - -7. Gases are combined into rock through the agency of air and water. -There are three methods of conveying or changing gas into rock. The -first is by gases mingling directly with the water. This gave us the -larger portion of sedimentary rock. For aught that science has yet -discovered, the entire bed of primary granite was made in this manner. -The second is by combining the gases by means of diatoms and polyps of -the seas. These animals do not depend upon vegetation, but draw their -nourishment directly from the waters. Their remains constitute large -portions of sedimentary rock. The marble and chalk are formed almost -entirely of their remains, while all sedimentary rock this side the -granite contains more or less of their remains. A third way is by gases -combining in vegetation. Anthracite coal is ninety-six per cent. carbon, -combined through vegetation. - -8. It is evident that the days of creation were not given to mark an -order of time. (1.) Creation commenced before time. (2.) Without motion -there could be no measure of duration. (3.) The fifth day includes all -the fourth and part of the third; and could therefore be no order of -time. - -9. They were not designed to mark an order in the deposit of rock. All -stratified rock, from the Gneiss to the Myocene deposit, is included in -the fifth day. They do not, therefore, give a progressive order of -deposit. - -10. They were designed to give two mornings of inorganic changes of -matter, with two contrasting evenings; two organic changes, as mornings -of vegetation, with contrasting evenings; two organic changes, as -mornings of animals, with contrasting evenings. These days are all -spoken of as noting a beginning, a middle, and a close. The beginning -and close are contrasts. This mode of measurement may have been derived -from Job 9:9—“Which maketh the Bear, Orion, and Pleiades.” Here is -Orion, marking the colure line of the Spring equinox at the creation of -man; the Bear, marking the same Spring equinox at the end of time; and -Pleiades, marking the date at which these visions came to the prophet. -Thus we have the beginning and ending of the human race in contrast, and -a middle date of passing events. Thus, with Moses the vision of creation -opens with the creation of all matter, and the first day ends with the -morning of light. The inertia of rest in chaos intervened. The Earth, -without form, and the Earth, in form, is contrasted, the second day, -with a separated firmament of the sun intervening. In the third day, we -have evening commencing with two gases in the form of a steam globe, -contrasted with the waving forests of the Devonian age of geology, with -the millions of years of deposits of inorganic substance intervening. -The language explaining the fourth day seems to be about the sun, moon, -and stars. But that these might shine in on the Earth, there was -involved the idea of removing the Earth’s “swaddling band,” alluded to -by Job. Hence the language involves an evening of twilight in which -Cryptogams, as the beginning of Earth’s vegetation, would contrast with -the flowers basking in clear sun light, while the slow process of how -God caused the sun to shine in on the Earth, by working this dark band -of gases into its crust, intervened. Nowhere is this rule seen so -clearly as in the language pertaining to the fifth day. Here, the -infusoria of the sea is made to contrast with the whale; while birds -intervene. These diatoms began in the deposit of the Gneiss rock. The -whale is found in the Myocene and since. The solitary reign of beasts is -noted as evening, contrasting with the reign of God’s people as “priests -and kings unto God,” at the close of time. Intervening are the events of -human history. Thus, every day of the six is shown by contrasts. - -11. A general providence runs in law, evolving progress as far as -Nature’s law is adapted; but when Nature fails to meet any new want, -special providence steps in, with additional forces to supply the -deficiency. Space was an empty nakedness, and God created matter -therein. Matter was without form and void, and God started it in motion. -Matter was without life, and God created the life. The beasts of the -field were without a moral spirit. And God made man in his own image, -blessed with immortality, and capable of attaining to eternal life. For -farther particulars, see Sec. 4. - - - - - CHAPTER IV. - The Phenomena to which allusions are so freely made in the “Six - Days of Moses,” suggest certain scientific necessities, replete - with geological information, which demonstrate the progressive - work of God, for matter, in matter, by and through matter, - and above matter, to the end of time. - - -Two books give a revelation of God, Nature and the Bible. Except for -purposes of intelligent connection, as a rule, the revelations of one -are not repeated in the other. Revelation on the subject of cosmos is -evidently intended to supply parts, which nature is not adapted to -unfold. Each stands as a part of a great whole; that the true student of -nature may be thoroughly furnished with proper text books, which, when -rightly understood, are conjointly harmonious, connected, and -exhaustive. If man would attain even the faintest ability to measure the -“footprints of God” in nature, or fathom the relation of first causes in -creation, he can ill afford unacquaintance with either book. The Bible -is given as a supplement to God’s voice in nature. Creation, shown in -harmony with the testimony of the rocks, confirms the testimony of -Moses. The unsupported hypotheses of men have led some to deplore the -“mistakes of Moses.” A better acquaintance with both books will lead -them, it is thought, at least to respect his great prophetic knowledge, -in outlining creation’s origin and forces. - - - Section 1. - The Work of the First Day. - - -1. The account, given in Genesis, of creation is in the form of an Epic -Poem. As a treatise on any subject, it would be incomplete. Its design -seems to be to give, in the form of poetic suggestions, the connecting -links to unite creation with creation’s God. For such a purpose, it is -the grandest and most complete of all productions of the pen. Six of -these days are marked by contrasts, “called evening and morning” but the -seventh is peculiar, having neither. The sixth is said to close God’s -labor with matter. Unmeasured duration is, doubtless, the seventh. - -2. The “deep,” when used in reference to the heavens, means immensity of -space; as: “darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Darkness is the -normal state of space. Not dependent on matter, it is eternal. Moses saw -all matter created at once. God’s work, as revealed here for matter, is -in harmony with correlation of matter in science. - -3. By a beautiful figure of metonymy, poets speak of a part implying the -whole. Such is the word “Earth,” as first introduced in this production. -“And the earth (all matter) was without form.” Inertia holds all in -rest. An act, fiat, or work of God, above matter, is requisite, to set -it in motion. “And the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the -deep.” A system formed with a center of light is noted. All systems are -members of this choir. - -4. Science would suggest, that, if a ponderous globe, as our sun, should -gather in a field of gases, though trillions of miles in diameter, all -gases, within its drawing sphere, must either go toward the sun, or be -thrown around it in a circle. Such was the ring of waters, or fluids, -first called a firmament. A most minute directing of Providence is here -suggested. It extended to each molecule of gas, and its appropriate -place was determined. Before that grand movement of the Spirit of God, -there was nothing with which to measure duration, and time had not -commenced. No centers—no gravitation. No motion—no light or force. All -this is suggested in matter “without form.” Suns only had form at the -close of the first day. As systems revolved, measured duration might -have commenced at the revolutions of suns about a grand center. One day -at the sun would be twenty-seven of ours; one year, eighteen thousand of -ours. This first day of creation may have been one hundred million of -years. It included the length of these contrasts to a climax, -darkness—light. The one reigning over all matter, the other forming from -matter, under the direction of God. - -5. If the first is a literal day, so are the seven. If the first is -poetic, so are the seven. That the first was not literal, is evident in -that the “Earth was without form” as yet. Hence there was no twenty-four -hour measurement. Day is also used to signify a nation’s history. It is -not that. It is also used to signify the life of an individual. It could -not be that. “A day with the Lord is as a thousand years.” It is evident -that Peter was merely hinting at the indefiniteness, as to time, of the -Mosaic days. It remains, then, that it is a cosmological day, without -exact measurement of time. It certainly includes all that period of -chaotic darkness before time commenced. Should these gases move across -the radii of our system with the speed of light, it would take -thirty-five days; but should the gases move like an atmosphere in space, -it would take more than ninety million of years to gather the sun. The -greater probability is that these contrasted conditions of the first -day, poetically described without any exact measurement, if measured, -would extend through more than one hundred million of our years. - - - Section 2. - The Work of the Second Day. - - -1. Creation includes not only the bringing into existence of matter, but -all its undeveloped forces and changes. Revelation, upon this subject, -is suggestive, rather than exhaustive, of what we need above what Nature -shows, to trace creation back to God. The greatest difficulty in reading -this poem understandingly, is in rightly rendering the phenomena noticed -upon the second day. Figures of metonymy abound. As a rule, figures once -used in prophecy are not changed when used by another prophet. Hence, we -may derive benefit by seeing how other prophets have used them. Job had -made the gathering of suns at the creation of light a morning in figure. -Moses is about to use the same figure, and beholding the darkness of -chaos preceding, he extended the figure to an evening preceding. This is -the only day that pertains to light and darkness. The second day will be -analogous in contrast. Whatever be the one, the other will contrast. The -evening of Earth is given. “And the Earth was without form.” The -contrast will be the Earth in form, for morning. - -2. To read these allusions understandingly, every sentence must be -cosmologically analyzed in the light of our present knowledge of -astronomy, chemistry, philosophy, geology, and rhetoric. There is a -grand suggestion of progress, couched in the figure of morning -succeeding evening. The morning of each day is a complete contrast to -its own evening; and yet the morning of that day is only the evening of -the day following. The morning of the sun, with hosts of God’s angels -rejoicing, is only the evening of the prospective globe, upon whose disk -shall be perfected, in knowledge and true holiness, beings in God’s own -image. The sun has perfected his day, in which Moses beholds the evening -of the second. - -3. He is looking at our system, as from the voids of space, as a whole; -with its gathered sun and its immense ring of prospective planets. It is -now shown him that a change is to take place in the ring, which will -result in the form of a globe. To that part of the ring he draws near. -The first phenomenon noticed was a separation in the ring between the -“waters above, and those below.” The gases thus uniting in one -substance, soon left this firmament ring of the sun, and had a firmament -of its own, called heaven, or visible expanse. The Hebrew word -translated “firmament” implies something tangible, and yet it was used -to denote the visible expanse. - -4. The first firmament was composed of tangible gases or waters, so -called; the second is the expanse of heaven. The cause of the separated -waters is seen in what follows. These fluids that evolved out, leaving -the ring separated, are now in a condition that they only have to be -gathered together into one place to be a sea. It was then steam. The -suggestion is that an immense field of oxygen and hydrogen had united by -the spark which separated the ring, and as the union was superheated -steam, it evolved out into the voids of space as a globe. It is plain -then “And God made a firmament in the midst of the waters,” means he -made a globe, from which the visible expanse is seen. The vision now -places the prophet upon this globe, the changes of which will occupy his -attention to the end. - -5. Whether any or all the planets were formed at the same time, we are -not told. No allusion is made to them except an incidental one, on the -fourth day, so that all things should be traced back to God as their -Maker. If the union of two gases took out a segment of the ring, leaving -it “separated,” it would only be temporary, as the ring would close up -again. Whether our planet was the first, third, or last formed, no -mention is made. The vision is designed henceforth to unfold what we -need to know of Earth, not found in nature. Our globe in chaos of gases, -sweeping around the sun in the form of a ring, is evening, being -“without form.” Our globe in steam, having a firmament of its own, is in -shape, and this is “morning.” Solomon must have given such an -interpretation to the account of the second day. Prov. 8:27. Tracing the -unmeasured age of wisdom, “Before the mountains were settled, before the -hills, while as yet he had not made the Earth, when he prepared the -heavens, I was there; when he set a compass (or circle) upon the face of -the depth.” A globe of steam, possibly highly charged with electricity, -revolving in an orbit outside the ring of planetary gases, was all that -constituted Earth at this time. “And the evening and the morning were -the second day.” - - - Section 3. - The Work of the Third Day. - - -1. A globe of vapor in contact with the cold voids of space must -condense or liquify. The beginning would be upon the outside; constantly -growing heavier according to bulk, it would work its way nearer to the -sun. Having become a center of attraction, and coming back to the now -closed-up ring, it would claim a portion of the same as an atmosphere. -Increasing now its centrifugal force, it gained an orbit inside the -ring, still drawing nearer the sun. Job’s attention had been called to -the earth’s appearance in this “gathering” process. “When I made the -cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it.” -Moses began the third day as the globe began to condense. “And he -gathered the waters together into one place; and he called the gathering -together of the waters, seas.” While the globe was in a condition of -vapor, the waters were firmament waters; and the word firmament answered -very well for both globe and visible expanse. Hence, “God made a -firmament” by figure; covered both. But as soon as gathered, there was a -distinction. Now only the expanse, holding yet a cloudy vapor, could be -called firmament, or heaven; and the gathered waters he called seas. - -2. Science claims that the present pointing of the pole of the Earth, -and its inclination to the ecliptic, could not produce such a warm -climate as the Earth once enjoyed. This fact, in connection with the -Earth covered with ice, at a remote period of the past, confounds the -mere seeker of cause in nature’s laws. The ancient pole-pointing is sung -by Job. According to his description of light and darkness, one pole of -the Earth must have pointed directly to the sun throughout the year. And -as that warm climate was uniform, it must have turned on its axis not -only daily, but as does our moon in reference to Earth, once over in its -entire orbicular journey. Its enlightened hemisphere was never in -darkness; its dark hemisphere was never in light. According to Job’s -statement, both light and darkness were stationary. “Where is the place -where light dwelleth? And as for darkness, where is the place thereof, -that thou shouldst take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldst -know the paths to the house thereof?” All our deposits then hung as -gases in the air; one-half of which science proclaims to have been -oxygen. In the language of Solomon, the mountains before rising must -have first “settled” in the sea. The psalmist saw that God spread out -the earth upon the waters, that he founded it upon the sea, and -established it upon the floods. Job saw that the very corner foundation -stone was made to sink. Moses rushes the deposits all into the evening -of the third day, to the appearance of dry land. “And God said, Let the -waters under the heaven (the new firmament) be gathered together unto -one place, and let the dry land appear.” Here are eighty miles deposit -made in the sea, all of which came out of the air and water. During this -time Moses says, “The Lord God had not caused it to rain on the Earth.” -“The plant and the herb of the field had not yet been made.” - -3. With such a pole-pointing, only one end of the Earth could receive -deposits, and the sun could take hold only of that end. Job alludes to a -convulsion in which “The proud were shaken out of it, that the sun might -take hold of both ends of it.” 38:13. Before this change, “The waters -were covered as with a stone, and the deep was frozen.” Deposits are now -made from the air at the rate of four hundredths of an inch in a year. -At this rate it would take, possibly, eighty million of years to reach -the surface. Our globe was never a rain-less planet. - -4. The allusion to its not having rained on the earth, is an allusion -that the deposits were yet beneath the waters, until the “dry land -appeared.” Following the changes of organic life up to the time of the -deposits of the “Old Red Sand Stone,” where God spread out the waving -forests of the Devonian plain, he had found the fit contrast to the -inorganic deposit of the evening. - -5. The climate of the first part of the third clay was chilled to the -temperature of melting ice. The latter part was torrid. The equator -marked the bound between perpetual sunlight and perpetual darkness. -Along this equator a line of open sea would beat against a line of -perpetual ice. The spray and vapor from the open sea, going south, would -be rapidly converted into snow and ice, increasing the thickness and -gravity of the ice. At length, breaking by its own weight, it would -drift into the open sea. During the first part of this day, there was -nothing to prevent this drift-ice finding its way to the very north -pole. The sea, therefore, would be at a temperature of 32 degrees Fahr. - -6. After the deposits neared the top, and before dry land appeared, the -larger bergs were kept back, and tropical waters resulted, followed by -the same climate upon the dry land, as it appeared. At the close of this -day there existed many kinds of water animals, but they did not form a -suitable contrast with what Moses had to start with, as evening. These -were inorganic deposits from the air. The organic deposits of the -Devonian forests are the morning. “And the earth brought forth the tree, -yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself (cryptogams) after his kind.” -“And the evening and the morning were the third day.” - - - Section 4. - The Work of the Fourth Day. - - -Up to the Carboniferous time of deposit, the air had never been -sufficiently cleared of its dark clouds of deadly gases, to admit -sunshine on the earth. Vegetation had not reached a climax. No mention -is to be made of animals existing, until this climax is reached. It will -be reached when the sun shall have taken off the “swaddling band” of her -childhood, and depositing the same, as coal, in the earth, shall give -the earth a clothing of flowers. Non-flowering plants are evening, the -contrast will be the flowering plant in the sunshine. - -1. By figure of metonymy, again he traced the progress of deposits -through the sun, which God had made, with the moon and stars. The labor -of the sun to clear the atmosphere, calling for immediate help of God, -was long and persevering. Poetically, the narrative is enriched by this -elegant figure, in putting cause for effect. As now from the earth for -the first time he beholds the clear sunlight, he doubtless is reminded, -that in mentioning the creation of this center of attraction in our -system, he had given a name which indicated a specific property of the -sun, viz, light; whereas it also had heat and force. - -Now, calling it by a generic name, and remembering also that in -describing the origin of Earth no mention had been made of the rest of -the heavens, he incidentally mentions that God made them all, without -attempting the individual history of either. His mission is to trace in -progress the contrasting changes of God’s work in the Earth. And to his -text he adheres. - -Since the sun is the only source of permanent natural light within our -system, and since Moses had made light to contrast with the darkness of -chaos in the first day, it seems strange that any intelligent reader -should understand him to speak of the bringing into existence of the -great orb of light the fourth day. Shining in on the earth is all that -is noted. - -2. Sir Charles Lyell, the great English geologist, gives us the process -by which sunlight was let in on the earth during the carboniferous age. -This age corresponds to the fourth day of Moses. The dark band of gases -intercepted the clear rays of sunlight, so that a somber hue of gray -covered the earth, as in twilight. Vegetation must slowly do the work of -depositing these gases, until diminished so that fire, or flame, could -be supported. Such was the resinous and oily nature of all vegetation of -that period, that a stroke of lightning might set the world on fire, to -burn for six months or a year. Some of the carbonated growth of the -forests would be hidden away beyond the reach of flame. In this -condition it would ripen into coal. But enough carbonic acid would -escape, to intercept the clear rays of the sun, and another period of -deposit would set in. In the Nova Scotia coal mines, alone, he had -noticed one hundred of these burnings, implying a long period of deposit -between each. It is thus the long ages struggled, to enable the sun to -kiss the vegetation into bloom. The widely scattered coal beds of this -period show that the whole earth was covered with a tropical forest. -Large veins of this coal are found in Greenland, Nova Zembla Island, -Tasmania, and the Melville Islands. - -3. We have had subsequent periods of deposits of carbon in forests that -produced coal. But the coal formed since that age is generally soft. One -short coal period occurred this side the great upheavals of mountains. -This coal is found on the Pacific Coast, and yields only forty-four per -cent. carbon. The best coal had its origin before the flowers. In Moses’ -prophetic vision of the work of the sun, he grasped certain points in -the future of astronomy. - -4. He noticed the use an enlightened civilization would make of the -motions of the heavens. He noticed the Zodiac divided into signs, and -time measured by three clocks of nature, called “days, years, and -seasons.” The season clock is by the precession of the equinoxes, -consuming 25,000 years in a circle. Michael, the archangel, used this -term in explanation of the “long time” that would elapse before the -final end. With the clear sunlight, the climax of vegetation was -reached. Two inorganic mornings and two vegetable mornings have been -noted; two animal mornings remain to finish the work of God with matter. - -“And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.” - - - Section 5. - The Work of the Fifth Day. - - -1. The contrasts of evening and morning of the fifth day are found in -the sea. The contrasts of the sixth upon the land. The evening of the -fifth began with the “moving things of the sea,” ending with the -“whale.” With the exception of the first day, the fifth must have -extended through a much longer time than all the others put together. -The contrast between moving diatoms of the Gneiss rock, and the whale of -the Miocene in size, is apparent. But the contrast is in a higher sense. -All this long period to the Tertiary rock, gave only egg-producing -animals. This was not high enough in the scale of animal existence to -have the next evening, which must begin with the fifth morning, to form -a contrast with man. The type of the highest of mammals must be reached, -and that in the sea. This was found in the whale. Beside, the whale is -intimately connected with the great geological change caused by the -drift period. Here ninety-seven per cent of the previous animals of the -earth became extinct. Following the drift, there came into existence -nearly all the animals that now roam the Earth. This day, then, covers -all the changes of the fourth, and most of the third; and of course has -nothing to do with a measure of time, or order of deposits. - -2. For aught we now know, the starting of animal life was in the time of -the deposit of the Gneiss rock—here we find shells. From here onward was -heard the voice of God, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the -moving creature that hath life.” This life, at first, was very simple; -and small as simple. It required only the nourishment derived from water -for its support. No animals of any considerable size are found until -vegetables were furnished for their food. Those of the earlier period -had to be protected from the carbonated waters by a bony covering or -ivory scales. Scorpions, spiders, lizards and frogs might breathe the -carbonic acid of the fourth day; but no warm-blooded animals are known -to have existed until after the sun shone in upon the Earth, as a -fixture. - -3. Here Moses noticed the existence of “fowls of the air.” In the -ichthyosaurus he might have found the contrast in size, but not in type. - -4. He passed on down to the “whale as morning.” After the Carboniferous -deposits, the tracks of birds and reptiles are found in the ancient -sands of the shores of the waters. Gigantic saurians and voracious fish -ruled the sea for untold ages; but as they all were oviparous, or -egg-producing, they are ranked in the evening. Reaching the type of the -ruling land animals of the next day, Moses pronounced the morning with -the whale. - -5. It remains a mystery, how any one knowing anything about geology can -find fault with the order of the Mosaic record. So far as Moses has -mentioned order, it is: moving animals in the sea, air animals, mammals. -The order of science may be more explicit. Substantially it is -protozoans, mollusks, radiates, articulates, vertebrates, mammals. There -is no conflict, nor even deficiency. The term used by Moses is -designedly generic; covering all moving creatures of the waters. The -history of the rocks is in exact accord with the testimony of Moses; and -both verify common observation, viz: each kind of animal produces its -own kind. - -6. The poise of the Earth to the sun was such as to give an ice-flow, -whenever for any cause a great subsidence of the hemisphere took place. - -The largest happened when the last and highest mountains were raised. As -a consequence, the period called the Drift followed, when the reindeer -made his home in the vicinity of England. Most tropical animals were -destroyed. A new race of placential mammals was to be introduced; the -type of which is found in the sea, able to endure the revolutions of the -Drift. Hence the wisdom displayed in selecting this animal, as a -representative of morning. - -7. The Scripture claim of special providence is in harmony with the -defence of the same in science. Providence is general, when wrought out -in due course of law; special, when it is a power added to nature. -Special providence is not a rule of action, but the exception. Science -claims this much in nature. I refer to the admissions of such men as -Huxley, Tyndal and Darwin. Prof. Huxley says: “No scientist of the -present day will venture the affirmation, that matter is eternal. Should -one be found, his brethren would rise up in court, and object to his -testimony, as he would be incompetent to testify.” If not eternal, it -was created by God’s special power. Prof. Darwin says: “Some of our -brethren have tried by experiments, to prove spontaneous life from -inorganic matter, but they have failed, and, from the nature of the -case, they must ever fail.” “There must have been a first life, I think -five forms, I know there must have been one from which life could -proceed.” Special providence again is needed to start life. The same -principle would apply as many times as the earth may have lost its -living forms. Sir Charles Lyell would assure you that the fires of the -Carboniferous period alone deprived the earth of all land and fresh -water animals, plants and seeds, at least one hundred times. Yet it was -supplied between each. Prof. Tyndal says, “Do you ask me 'May inert -matter rise up and live?’ I answer directly, 'No, life must have been -created.’” Here then in science are the Deists’ endorsements of exactly -what every enlightened Christian believes in reference to the covenant -of salvation. This is the doctrine of the science of today, viz: that -“God made all matter at one and the same time; that by special power he -put all parts in motion at one and the same time; that his eye is over -all, ready to supply what is needed above what the machinery of nature -can perform.” Carry out this principle, and you have the manifestations -of the true God in Jesus, and every Bible theory of the New Covenant. - - - Section 6. - The Work of the Sixth Day. - - -1. Beasts, with a perishable spirit, are the evening of the sixth day. -Man without an immortal spirit is the morning. Here we shall find the -grandest contrast of any of the six days. Historic man is the morning, -extending to the end of God’s work, in reference to matter. - -Duration ceases to be measured at the close of this day. Solomon alludes -to the contrasts found in this day. “Who knoweth the spirit of the -beast, that goeth downward; and the spirit of man, that goeth upward?” -For a long time these animals, without a spirit to be preserved, ruled -the earth as kings, “without any one to till the soil.” Jungles and -forests, mountains and dales, lakes and caves, alike afford no facts -inconsistent with this statement of Moses. Should science ever confirm -the existence of a race prehistoric, resembling man, it will doubtless -be shown that they were not a contrast with beasts, and have no -connection with our race. - -2. Our race undoubtedly sprang from Adam less than six thousand years -ago. Prehistoric man, like evolution, rests upon the hypotheses of men, -always unsafe; but in this case unsupported by a well-attested fact. The -former may claim the intuitions of that class of persons ever looking up -the genealogy of Cain’s wife; the latter has the common sense of the -average man against him. Upon this subject, as upon every other upon -which the Bible pretends to speak, “If they speak not according to what -is written, it is because there is no truth in them.” By special -revelation man saw that by a special providence of God, he caused the -ground to become the mother of man; and from this creation proceeded, by -the same special providence, a help-meet for man. She has ever proved -herself the great help in the march of civilization. Facts show that man -gloriously contrasts with the highest types going before. - -3. It is not yet a settled question that the air, for any number of -thousands of years before Adam, was sufficiently cleared of deadly gases -as to admit of human breathing. On looking upon the coal veins of -Pennsylvania, we need no argument to show that man could not have -breathed the carbon that hung in the air of that period of deposit. The -mute faces of the coal beds of Ohio forbid man’s existence then, -although these succeed the former by millions of years. Geologists agree -that the Pacific deposits of coal have been this side of the great -upheavals of the large mountains. If man had been living then, the -carbonic acid of the air would have strangled the life out of him. When -we take into consideration how very slowly a continent rises out of the -ocean, and that both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts had to rise over -five thousand feet to expose their fruitful valleys; and also how very -long a period had to elapse after, before the air would be laid into the -ground by vegetation, we shall readily see the force of this -proposition, viz: The very calculations which science has given us bring -the deadly gases very near to the time given in Genesis for the creation -of our present race. - -The volcanic periods of the world’s history argue against the early -habitation of the Earth by man. Every volcano is a vent for the escape -of deadly gases, caused by the consumption of oils and coal in the -Earth’s strata. The enormous quantity of coal consumed is but faintly -indicated by the amount of ashes thrown out. The mountains give evidence -of recent volcanic disturbance, greatly exceeding the present. Ancient -river beds are found into whose channels the debris of the mountains had -been dragged by the great ice-flow, until leveled over to the height of -several thousand feet; then the volcanic era covered, in places, this -drift fifty or sixty feet thick; thus preserving the silt from being -dragged away, as the waters receded. The fact that we had a coal period -following, shows that man in the volcanic period, and for thousands of -years after, could not breathe the air. Our active volcanoes are reduced -to about three hundred. Still the air is polluted in many ways. Smelting -works, forges and gas plants all pollute the air. Every cesspool, every -whiff of burning tobacco, adds its quota to air-corrupting. Each year -contributes to deposit a portion of the remaining carbon of the air. -Rich valleys of warm zones are not yet healthy. We still go to the -mountains for invigorating air. - -5. Evidently, we have not yet reached the climax of good breathing air. -Nature discourages the thought, that man could have continued his race, -in any time, much previous to that given for the creating of Adam. The -morning of the sixth day is in progress. Prophecy presents the coming -man greatly improved over the present. “My Father worketh hitherto, and -I work.” - -6. This morning ends, when the angel stands one foot upon the land, his -right hung over the sea, with his left hand pointing to heaven, -proclaiming that time shall be no longer. “And God rested from all his -labor.” - - - - - ● Transcriber’s Notes: - ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only - when a predominant form was found in this book. - ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEPTUNIAN, OR WATER THEORY OF -CREATION *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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