when the consequences of his revolt shall be overcome, and the curse removed, it will be renovated and restored to its original perfec

tion.

CHAPTER IV.

The following extracts from different works on Geology will sufficiently indicate the views of the authors on the points to which they relate.

"As the materials of stratified rocks are in great degree derived directly or indirectly from those which are unstratified, we commence our inquiry at that most ancient period when there is much evidence to render it probable that the entire materials of the globe were in a fluid state, and that the cause of this fluidity was heat. The form of the earth being that of an oblate spheroid,--is that which a fluid mass would assume from revolution round its axis. The nebular hypothesis offers the most simple and therefore the most probable theory respecting the first con

dition of the material elements that compose our solar system."-Buckland.

"The nebular hypothesis in its relations to the planetary system may be termed complete; it comprehends its beginnings, establishes those elements on which its duration depends, and exhibits the causes and mode of its ultimate transition into a novel form; and thus surveying it from its commencement to its close, we are as if in possession of that primeval Creative Thought which originated our system, and planned and circumscribed its destiny." "If that nebular hypothesis be true, all the forces developed upon the surface of our planet, and which have given rise to geological transitions, stretching through periods in which the existence of the human race is an invisible speck, will have resulted during a stage of condensation in a secondary nebula, which no instrument from any fixed star could possibly detect." "Our supposed origin of the planets gave them and their satellites that kind of orbits, and that kind of rotation, which produced their permanence ;

and the inherence of this same nebulous parentage, viz: the existence of an ether, leads gently to their decline."-Nichol, pp. 82, 106,

108.

"The nebular hypothesis, ridiculed as it has been by persons whose ignorance cannot excuse their presumption, is regarded as in a very high degree probable by some of the finest and most Christian minds. If I may venture to utter my own impressions, I must profess it as the most reasonable supposition, and the correllate of the nebular theory, that God originally gave being to the primordial elements of things, the very small number of simple bodies, endowing each with its own wondrous properties."-Smith.

"The evidence of geological phenomena constrains us to the belief, that our earth has existed, has been the seat of life, and has undergone many changes of its surface, through periods of time utterly beyond human power to assign. That evidence is of distinct and independent kinds, chiefly derived from the

appearance of stratification and the remains of animal and vegetable life.”—Smith.

"The best writers abound in general expressions; such as 'immense periods of time -undefined, yet countless ages-a duration to which we dare not assign a boundary--a work infinitely slow-a space of time from the contemplation of which the mind shrinks -a long succession of monuments, cach of which may have required a thousand ages for its elaboration--successions of events where the language of nature signifies millions of years.'"--Mantell, McCulloch, Sedgwick, and others, quoted by Smith.

"The whole series of strata, from the earliest of them to the present surface of the globe, exhibits a body of evidence in favour of our doctrine [of antiquity.] Every stratum, partially excepting the limestones, consists of a mass of earthy matters which once formed the substance of rocks on elevated land. Those portions of the rocks have been separated from their parent masses, worn down,

comminuted, transported often to great distances by the force of water, deposited, consolidated and hardened."-Ibid.

"Beneath the whole series of stratified rocks that appear on the surface of the globe, there probably exists a foundation of unstratified rocks, bearing an irregular surface, from the detritus of which the materials of stratified rocks have in great measure been derived either directly by the accumulation of the ingredients of disintegrated granite rocks; or indirectly, by the repeated destruction of different classes of stratified rocks, the materials of which had, by prior operations, been derived from unstratified formations."Buckland.

"In mountainous countries many facts are presented to the eye which approach to a standard of measurement of the average action of the atmosphere and of running water, in decomposing and washing off the surface of granitic and basaltic rocks. That action is sure and constant; but it is slow, to such