o the uppermost members of
the series, must belong to the day which is termed by Milton the sixth.
But, further, it is expressly stated that aquatic animals took their
origin upon the fifth day, and not before; hence, all formations in
which remains of aquatic animals can be proved to exist, and which
therefore testify that such animals lived at the time when these
formations were in course of deposition, must have been deposited during
or since the period which Milton speaks of as the fifth. But there is
absolutely no fossiliferous formation in which the remains of aquatic
animals are absent. The oldest fossils in the Silurian rocks[70] are
exuviae of marine animals; and if the view which is entertained by
Principal Dawson and Dr. Carpenter respecting the nature of the _eozooen_
be well founded, aquatic animals existed at a period as far antecedent
to the deposition of the coal as the coal is from us; inasmuch as the
_eozooen_ is met with in those Laurentian strata which lie at the bottom
of the series of stratified rocks. Hence it follows, plainly enough,
that the whole series of stratified rocks, if they are to be brought
into harmony with Milton, must be referred to the fifth and sixth days,
and that we cannot hope to find the slightest trace of the products of
the earlier days in the geological record. When we consider these simple
facts, we see how absolutely futile are the attempts that have been made
to draw a parallel between the story told by so much of the crust of the
earth as is known to us and the story which Milton tells. The whole
series of fossiliferous stratified rocks must be referred to the last
two days; and neither the Carboniferous, nor any other, formation can
afford evidence of the work of the third day.

Not only is there this objection to any attempt to establish a harmony
between the Miltonic account and the facts recorded in the fossiliferous
rocks, but there is a further difficulty. According to the Miltonic
account, the order in which animals should have made their appearance in
the stratified rocks would be this: Fishes, including the great whales,
and birds; after them, all varieties of terrestrial animals except
birds.

Nothing could be further from the facts as we find them; we know of not
the slightest evidence of the existence of birds before the Jurassic, or
perhaps the Triassic, formation;[71] while terrestrial animals, as we
have just seen, occur in the Carboniferous rocks.

If