duce us to assign a
considerable duration to the third day. After the elevation of land,
and the draining off from it of the saline matter with which it would
be saturated, a process often very tedious, especially in low tracts
of ground, the soil would still consist only of mineral matter, and
must have been for a long period occupied by plants suited to this
condition of things, in order that sufficient organic matter might be
accumulated for the growth of a more varied vegetation; a
consideration which perhaps illustrates the order of the plants in the
narrative.

It may be objected to the above views that, however accordant with
chemical and physiological probabilities, they do not harmonize with
the facts of geology; since the earliest fossiliferous formations
contain almost exclusively the remains of animals, which must
therefore have preceded, or at least been coeval with, the earliest
forms of terrestrial vegetation. This objection is founded on
well-ascertained facts, but facts which may have no connection with
the third day of creation when regarded as a long period. The oldest
geological formations are of marine origin, and contain remains of
marine animals, with those of plants supposed to be allied to the
existing algae or sea-weeds. Geology can not, however, assure us either
that no land plants existed contemporaneously with these earliest
animals, or that no land flora preceded them. These oldest
fossiliferous rocks may mark the commencement of animal life, but they
testify nothing as to the existence or non-existence of a previous
period of vegetation alone. Farther, the rocks which contain the
oldest remains of life exist as far as yet known in a condition so
highly metamorphic as almost to preclude the possibility of their
containing any distinguishable vegetable fossils; yet they contain
vast deposits of carbon in the form of graphite, and if this, like
more modern coaly matter, was accumulated by vegetable growth, it must
indicate an exuberance of plants in these earliest geological periods,
but of plants as yet altogether unknown to us. It is possible,
therefore, that in these Eozoic rocks we may have remnants of the
formations of the third Mosaic day; and if we should ever be so
fortunate as to find any portion of them containing vegetable fossils,
and these of species differing from any hitherto known, either in a
fossil state or recent, and rising higher, in elevation and complexity
of type, th