re also quite irregular; in the case
of Jupiter, the outermost of the satellites revolves at a distance which
is only twenty-seven times the radius of the primary, and the innermost
is distant but six times that radius. This planet, consequently, has
shrunk to one twenty-seventh part of its original diameter, and in so
doing, has formed four moons; the earth has shrunk to one sixtieth part
of its first diameter, and still has produced but one satellite. If the
same law had prevailed in the two cases, we ought to have nine or ten
moons.

We need not analyze with any great minuteness the geological facts and
hypotheses incorporated into this magnificent history of creation. As
will be seen hereafter, the violent and sweeping transformations and
convulsions that the earth's crust has undergone directly conflict with
our author's theory, and afford the strongest presumption, that an
extraneous cause has frequently interfered, at different periods, to
repair the desolation produced by the unassisted working of natural
laws, to bring order out of chaos, and to people the desert earth anew
with animated tribes. The only general fact of much moment, which our
author has drawn from the discoveries of geologists, for the
confirmation of his own hypothesis, is, according to his own account,
one of the most questionable doctrines in the whole science,--one of a
negative character, on which we can never rely with full assurance, till
the researches of man have probed every fold, and examined every thread
in the texture, of the earth's garment, and thus shown that no evidence
can possibly be discovered to the contrary. The alleged fact is that, in
the early formations of rock--the first pages in the history of the
earth's surface--are found the remains of animals and vegetables only of
the lowest type and most imperfect development; while, in the later
strata, forms more and more advanced are discovered; so that there seems
to have been a constant progress along the line leading to the higher
forms of organization. The testimony which goes to support this
assertion is wholly negative. The geologist reasons thus: The more
perfect organisms have not been discovered in the earlier strata;
_therefore_, they do not exist in them. When, in a different connection,
it suits our author's purpose to throw doubt on the very postulate which
is here admitted, he holds the following language.

"These, it must be owned, are less strong traces