rominent, and characteristic life-forms
of the several strata, it could certainly be said that the period
when the _water_ actually brought forth a vast mass of its
life-forms--corals, sertularias, crustaceans, and fish of the lower
orders--must have _preceded_ (not followed) the time when the earth
produced vegetation of all kinds, and further that it must have come
after the appearance of scorpions and some land insects.[1]

[Footnote 1: A single wing found little more than a year ago is the sole
evidence of insects older than the Devonian; and scorpions
(highly-organized crustaceans) have been found in the Upper Silurian in
some abundance.]

Moreover, as the regular succession in periods of light and darkness on
the earth, and the sequence of seasons was not organized (but only a
generally diffused light, and, probably, an uniform and moist state of
climate without seasons) till _after_ the commands for the formation of
the whole of the large classes of plants, both cryptogams and
phanerogams, it is obvious that as many of these would require the
fuller development of seasonal influences, the whole process could not
have been worked out before the fourth day's creative work was begun.

This instance alone--and it would be easy to add others--shows that the
narrative cannot be meant to indicate what actually happened on earth,
i.e., to summarize the _entire realization_ of the Divine command.

Such being the plain facts with regard to the _kind of accomplishment_
meant by the terms "it was so," "the earth brought forth," &c., it is
quite plain that no violence is done to the text by explaining it as
intended to describe what God did in heaven, with the addition, that as
each command was formulated, the result on earth surely followed, the
thing "was so," and the earth and water respectively no doubt _began_
to "bring forth." More than this cannot be made out on _any_
interpretation that accords with facts. It seems so clear to me that
this is so, that I hardly need refer to the use of the terms the
"_waters brought forth"_ and the "_earth brought forth"_ and the phrase
in chapter ii. 5--the Lord made every plant _before it grew_.

If, as we have been long allowed to suppose, God spake and the water and
earth were _at once_ fully and finally peopled with animals where before
nothing but plants had existed, and so on, I should hardly have expected
the use of words which imply a gradual process--a gestation and
su