two sunsets would exist most anomalously without a sun. In making these remarks, I am not guided by a personal predilection for any system. I have no claim to be called a geologist; I have studied the science more in its history than in its practical principles; rather to watch its bearings upon more sacred researches, than from any hope of personally applying it. I will just now give you another method, whereby some able geologists think they prove the beautiful accordance of this study with Scripture. I do not pretend-it would be presumption in me to pretend-to judge between the two, or pronounce upon the reasons which each may advance. But I am anxious to show that there is plenty of room, without trenching upon sacred ground, for all that modern geology thinks it has a right to demand. I am anxious, -and I trust the authorities I just now gave will secure that point, to show, that what has been claimed or postulated by it, has been accorded of old by ornaments and lights of early christianity, who assuredly would not have sacrificed one tittle of scriptural truth. But what, you will ask me, renders it necessary, or expedient, thus to suppose some intermediate period, between the act of creation, and the subsequent ordering of things, as they now exist? According to my plan, it is my duty to explain this point, and I will endeavour to do so with all possible brevity and simplicity. Within, comparatively, a few years, a new and most important element has been introduced into geological observation - the discovery and comparison of fossil remains. Every one of my hearers is doubtless aware, that, in many parts of the world, enormous bones have been found, which used to be considered those of the elephant-the mammoth, as it was called, from a Siberian word, designating a fabulous subterraneous animal. Besides these and similar remains, vast accumulations of shells, and impressions of fishes in stones, as at Monte Bolca, have been at all times discovered, in every country. All these used formerly to be referred to the deluge, and quoted as evidence that the waters had covered the entire globe, and extinguished terrestrial life, as well as deposited marine productions upon the dry land. But perhaps you will hardly believe me when I say, that, for many years, the fiercest controversy was carried on in this country (Italy) upon the question, whether these shells were real shells, and had once contained fish, or were only natural productions, formed by, what was called, the plastic power of nature,' imitating real forms. Agricola, followed by the sagacious Andrea Mattioli, affirmed, that a certain fat matter, set in fermentation by heat, produced these fossil shapes.* * " Agricola sognava in Germania, che alla formazione di questi corpi fosse concorsa non so qual materia pingue, messa in Mercati, in 1574, stoutly maintained, that the fossil shells collected in the Vatican, by Sixtus V, were mere stones, which had received their configuration from the influence of celestial bodies;* and the celebrated physician Falloppio asserted, that they were formed, wherever found, by "the tumultuary movements of terrestrial exhalations." Nay, this learned author was so adverse to all idea of deposits, as boldly to maintain, that the potsherds, which form the singular mound, known to you all under the name of Monte Testaceo, were natural productions, sports of nature to mock the works of man.† Such were the straits, to which these zealous and able men found themselves reduced, to account for the phenomena they had observed. As a more accurate attention was paid to the order, and to the strata, in which the remains of animals were found, it was perceived, that there was a certain ratio existing between the two. It was, moreover, observed, that many of these fermento dal calore. Andrea Mattioli addottó in Italia i medesimi pregiudizii."-Brocchi, Conchiologia Fossile Subapennina, tom. i. Milan, 1814, p. v. * "Egli niega che le conchiglie lapidefatte sieno vere conchiglie; e dopo un lunghissimo discorso, sulla materia e sulla forma sostanziale, conchiude che sono pietre in cotal guisa configurate dall' influenza dei corpi celesti." Ib. p. viii. + "Concepisce più facilmente che le chiocciole impietrite siano state generate sul luogo, dalla fermentazione, o pure, che abbiano acquistato quella forma, mediante il movimento vorticoso delle esalazioni terrestri." p. vi. remains lie entombed in situations which the action of the deluge, however violent and extensive, could never have reached. For, we must suppose this action to have been exercised upon the surface of the earth, and to have left signs of a disturbing and destructive agency; whereas, these remains were found below the strata which form the outermost rind of the earth's crust; and this reposed over them with all the symptoms of a gradual and quiet deposit. Again, if we consider these two observations in unison, supposing the whole to have been deposited by the deluge, we should expect to find them mixed in complete confusion: whereas, we discover that the lower strata, for instance, exhibit peculiar classes of fossils; then, those which are superimposed, are again pretty uniform in their contents, though, in many cases, they differ from the inferior deposits, and so forward to the surface. Which symmetry of deposition through each range, while it is dissimilar to the preceding one, supposes a succession of actions exercised upon varied materials, and not one convulsive and violent catastrophe. But this conclusion seems put out of doubt, by the still more unexpected discovery, that, while in moveable beds, or wherever the deluge can be supposed to have left its traces, we find the bones of animals belonging to existing genera; among the more deeply-seated fossils such are never discovered. On the contrary, their skeletons give us a representation of monsters, whether considered in their dimensions or their forms, such as have not even analogous species now existing, and should seem to have been incompatible with the coexistence of the human race. This latter consideration deserves some illustration, because it will introduce such as have not paid attention to this science, to some knowledge of its recent discoveries. They may, perhaps, wonder how, from a few fractured bones, any judgment can be formed of the animals to which they belonged. Some years ago the problem would have appeared absurd,-to reconstruct an animal from one of his bones; and yet we may truly say, that it has been most fully solved. It may be, perhaps, unnecessary to observe, that so perfect is the individuality of each species of animals, that every bone, almost every tooth, is sufficiently characteristic, to determine its shape. The careful study of these varieties, and the analogous results to which it always leads, were the basis on which the lamented Cuvier rested his extraordinary construction of this new science. The habits or characters of animals, as I once before had occasion to remark, impress their peculiarities upon every portion of their frames the carnivorous animal is not merely so in its fangs and its claws; every muscle must be proportioned to the strength and agility required for its method of living, and every muscle grooves |