tained to a point of
perfection which they have not since exceeded. There was also,
especially in the Carboniferous age, an abundant and luxuriant
vegetation. The Mesozoic period is, however, emphatically the age of
reptiles. This class then reached its climax, in the number,
perfection, and magnitude of its species, which filled all those
stations in the economy of nature now assigned to the mammalia. Birds
also belong to this era, though apparently much less numerous and
important than at present. Only a few species of small mammals, of the
lowest or marsupial type, appear as a presage of the mammalian
creation of the succeeding tertiary era. In these two geological
periods, then--the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic--we find, first, the lower
_sheretzim_ represented by the invertebrata and the fishes, then the
great reptiles and the birds; and it can not be denied that, if we
admit that the Mosaic day under consideration corresponds with these
geological periods, it would be impossible better to characterize
their creations in so few words adapted to popular comprehension. I
may add that all the species whose remains are found in the Palaeozoic
and Mesozoic rocks are extinct, and known to us only as fossils; and
their connection with the present system of nature consists only in
their forming with it a more perfect series than our present fauna
alone could afford, unless, indeed, we should find reason to believe
that any modern animals are their modified descendants. They belong to
the same system of types, but are parts of it which have served their
purpose and have been laid aside. The coincidences above noted between
geology and Scripture may be summed up as follows:

1. According to both records, the causes which at present regulate the
distribution of light, heat, and moisture, and of land and water,
were, during the whole of this period, much the same as at present.
The eyes of the trilobite of the old Silurian rocks are fitted for the
same conditions with respect to light with those of existing animals
of the same class. The coniferous trees of the coal measures show
annual rings of growth. Impressions of rain-marks have been found in
the shales of the coal measures and Devonian system. Hills and
valleys, swamps and lagoons, rivers, bays, seas, coral reefs and shell
beds, have all left indubitable evidence of their existence in the
geological record. On the other hand, the Bible affirms that all the
earth's physical f