that it is almost absolutely confined to this branch of their speculations-that there is not another question in the whole range of their system, in regard to which they do not entertain a wide diversity of opinion. They are not agreed, for example, whether the world, at its creation, was in a gaseous or in a solid form. They are not agreed in respect to the processes by which granite, gneiss, schist, and the other primary rocks were produced. They are not agreed in respect to the point at which the secondary series commences, the order of the strata, the sources from which some of their elements were drawn, nor the agencies to which they owe their peculiar structure. They differ in respect to the point at which vegetable and animal life commenced, and the forms which it first assumed. They entertain the most diverse and absurd opinions respecting the origin of limestone, coal, gypsum, chalk, magnesia, iron, and salt. They hold conflicting views in regard to the state of the globe at the epoch of the different formations, the forces by which the strata were dislocated, the causes by which the mountains were upthrown, the period at which land animals were first called into existence, and the origin of the races that now inhabit the globe. They differ likewise, to the extent of countless ages, in regard to the period that has elapsed during the formation of the strata. In short, beyond the simple facts that the strata have been formed since the creation of the earth,

that chemical and mechanical forces of some kind were the principal agents in their deposition, and that the fossilized forms that are imbedded in them once belonged to the vegetable and animal worlds-there is scarce a topic of any moment in the whole circle of the science, in respect to which they do not maintain very diverse opinions; there is scarce a solitary point so fully ascertained as to be placed beyond doubt. Their unanimity in assigning a vast round of ages to the world, while they thus disagree in repect to the nature of the processes to which they suppose those incalculable ages were requisite, instead therefore of giving strength to their induction, indicates that the grounds on which it rests are mistaken. What can be more absurd than to suppose that an inference erected on such a mere mass of gratuitous assumptions and disputable theories, can be entitled to the rank of a philosophic induction? What can be more preposterous than to dignify a branch of knowledge in which there is so little that is settled, and so much that is in debate, with the lofty title of an accurate science? It cannot, as a whole, rise any higher, in a demonstrative relation, than the parts of which it consists; the conclusion cannot acquire any greater validity, than the postulates possess from which it is drawn.

They have not then, as their theory represents, unfolded and established a series of facts that are at

variance with the scriptural history of the creation, and that render it certain that the earth had, at the epoch at which that dates its existence, already subsisted through innumerable ages; nor is there anything in their discoveries that detracts in the least from that inspired narrative. So far from it, as their speculations are built throughout on hypotheses, not upon facts; as their inference is drawn from supposititious conditions and imagined processes, not from causes and conditions that are real and capable of being verified; the fancy that they have convicted the sacred record of error, and demonstrated the vast age which they assign to the world by unanswerable evidence, is as groundless and mistaken as it were to imagine that the scriptural account of the creation is confuted by Buffon's hypothesis, or that Newton's theory of the motions of the planets is overthrown by Descartes' fancied vortices. The history of the creation in Genesis remains untouched. If it is to be controverted, it must be by proofs, not by assumptions; by arguments founded on a real, not on a supposititious world. When, however, the question of its truth is tried by its proper criteria, it will be found as we shall show, that instead of being confuted, it is corroborated by all the facts of the strata, and all the laws that govern the action of geological forces.

QUESTIONS.

What is the second objection to the theory respecting the uniform action of the causes by which the strata and other rocks that constitute the surface of the earth were formed? If their theory were true, would rocks, and formations of all kinds that were produced in the early ages of the globe, continue to be produced on a similar scale now? Is it a fact, however, that none of the most important classes of rocks are now in the process of formation? What is the first and most important species to which no accessions are now making? Describe it. What is the second? Describe it and its extent. What is the third? How extensive is it? What other elements of the earth's crust are not now in the process of augmentation? Are sand, gravel, and peobles important constituents of the earth's crust? How were they probably formed? Is there any reason to believe, that one of this infinite multitude of granules, or large masses, has been formed for ages? How is it with lime? Are there any additions made to the mass? How is it with chalk? Was the formation

of that, confined to a limited period? Is that admitted and maintained by geologists? How is it with rock-salt? Is that distributed like sandstone and limestone through the whole series of the strata; or is it confined within narrow limits? Is coal confined mainly to one great division of the strata, called for that reason, the carboniferous, not distributed through the whole?

Is it apparent also, that some of the geological agents that are still producing effects on the earth's surface, are not now acting with more than a moderate share of the energy with which they exerted their powers during the formation of the strata? Is this admitted by geologists? Is this true of the ocean? What is the first class of effects in respect to which this is apparent? What is the second class of effects in respect to which it is manifest? Is it true in regard to volcanic fires? Point out proofs of it. Is this admitted by geologists? What is the testimony of Sir T. H. De La Beche, respecting it? Do these several considerations show that this postulate of their

theory, instead of being legitimate, is inconsistent with the facts of geology, and the laws of matter? What else do they allege to sustain their theory of the great age of the world? What is the first objection to their argument from the vegetable and animal remains that are buried in the strata? What is the second objection? Are there positive proofs in the condition of the great mass of fossilized vegetables, that they cannot have been accumulated and buried by a slow process, but must have been enveloped in the earthy matter in which they are interred, in vast masses at once, before decay had commenced? Is there any reason to suppose vast periods were requisite for the generation of the animals that are entombed in the strata? Is the number of those relics greater than the sea and land might have supplied in a very few centuries? Is it not incredible that if millions of ages, as geologists maintain, had passed while the fossiliferous strata were forming, an incalculably greater number would not have existed, and their relics been incorporated in the strata? Is not this preeminently certain in respect to the testaceous and infusorial tribes? State some of the proofs that they swarm in infinite numbers, both in the cold and the warm latitudes?

Is the whole ground on which they found their inference of the great age of the world, thus swept from beneath them, and the whole fabric of their theory shown to be based upon unauthorized assumptions, instead of facts?