ammoths and mastodons wandered
over the plains of North America, huge sloth-like Megatheria passed
their sluggish lives on the pampas of South America, and elephantine
marsupials strolled about Australia.

"As the mammalian age draws to a close, the ancient carnivora and
herbivora of that era all pass away, excepting, it is believed, a few
that are useful to man. New creations of smaller size peopled the
groves; the vegetation received accessions to its foliage, fruit-trees
and flowers, and the seas brighter forms of water life. This we know
from comparisons with the fossils of the preceding mammalian age.
There was at this time no chaotic upturning, but only the opening of
creation to its fullest expansion; and so in Genesis no new day is
begun, it is still the _sixth day_."

The creation of man is prefaced by expressions implying deliberation
and care. It is not said, "Let the earth bring forth" man, but let us
form or fashion man. This marks the relative importance of the human
species, and the heavenly origin of its nobler immaterial part. Man is
also said to have been "created," implying that in his constitution
there was something new and not included in previous parts of the
work, even in its material. Man was created, as the Hebrew literally
reads, the shadow and similitude of God--the greatest of the visible
manifestations of Deity in the lower world--the reflected image of his
Maker, and, under the Supreme Lawgiver, the delegated ruler of the
earth. Now for the first time was the earth tenanted by a being
capable of comprehending the purposes and plans of Jehovah, of
regarding his works with intelligent admiration, and of shadowing
forth the excellences of his moral nature. For countless ages the
earth had been inhabited by creatures wonderful in their structures
and instincts, and mutely testifying, as their buried remains still
do, to the Creator's glory; but limited within a narrow range of
animal propensities, and having no power of raising a thought or
aspiration toward the Being who made them. Now, however, man enters on
the scene, and the sons of God, who had shouted for joy when the first
land emerged from the bosom of the deep, saw the wondrous spectacle of
a spiritual nature analogous to their own, united to a corporeal frame
constructed on the same general type with the higher of those
irrational creatures whose presence on earth they had so long
witnessed.

Man was to rule over the fish of the