3. We have had subsequent periods of deposits of carbon in forests that produced coal. But the coal formed since that age is generally soft. One short coal period occurred this side the great upheavals of mountains. This coal is found on the Pacific Coast, and yields only forty-four per cent. carbon. The best coal had its origin before the flowers. In Moses’ prophetic vision of the work of the sun, he grasped certain points in the future of astronomy.
4. He noticed the use an enlightened civilization would make of the motions of the heavens. He noticed the Zodiac divided into signs, and time measured by three clocks of nature, called “days, years, and seasons.” The season clock is by the precession of the equinoxes, consuming 25,000 years in a circle. Michael, the archangel, used this term in explanation of the “long time” that would elapse before the final end. With the clear sunlight, the climax of vegetation was reached. Two inorganic mornings and two vegetable mornings have been noted; two animal mornings remain to finish the work of God with matter.
“And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”
Section 5.
The Work of the Fifth Day.
1. The contrasts of evening and morning of the fifth day are found in the sea. The contrasts of the sixth upon the land. The evening of the fifth began with the “moving things of the sea,” ending with the “whale.” With the exception of the first day, the fifth must have extended through a much longer time than all the others put together. The contrast between moving diatoms of the Gneiss rock, and the whale of the Miocene in size, is apparent. But the contrast is in a higher sense. All this long period to the Tertiary rock, gave only egg-producing animals. This was not high enough in the scale of animal existence to have the next evening, which must begin with the fifth morning, to form a contrast with man. The type of the highest of mammals must be reached, and that in the sea. This was found in the whale. Beside, the whale is intimately connected with the great geological change caused by the drift period. Here ninety-seven per cent of the previous animals of the earth became extinct. Following the drift, there came into existence nearly all the animals that now roam the Earth. This day, then, covers all the changes of the fourth, and most of the third; and of course has nothing to do with a measure of time, or order of deposits.
2. For aught we now know, the starting of animal life was in the time of the deposit of the Gneiss rock—here we find shells. From here onward was heard the voice of God, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.” This life, at first, was very simple; and small as simple. It required only the nourishment derived from water for its support. No animals of any considerable size are found until vegetables were furnished for their food. Those of the earlier period had to be protected from the carbonated waters by a bony covering or ivory scales. Scorpions, spiders, lizards and frogs might breathe the carbonic acid of the fourth day; but no warm-blooded animals are known to have existed until after the sun shone in upon the Earth, as a fixture.
3. Here Moses noticed the existence of “fowls of the air.” In the ichthyosaurus he might have found the contrast in size, but not in type.
4. He passed on down to the “whale as morning.” After the Carboniferous deposits, the tracks of birds and reptiles are found in the ancient sands of the shores of the waters. Gigantic saurians and voracious fish ruled the sea for untold ages; but as they all were oviparous, or egg-producing, they are ranked in the evening. Reaching the type of the ruling land animals of the next day, Moses pronounced the morning with the whale.
5. It remains a mystery, how any one knowing anything about geology can find fault with the order of the Mosaic record. So far as Moses has mentioned order, it is: moving animals in the sea, air animals, mammals. The order of science may be more explicit. Substantially it is protozoans, mollusks, radiates, articulates, vertebrates, mammals. There is no conflict, nor even deficiency. The term used by Moses is designedly generic; covering all moving creatures of the waters. The history of the rocks is in exact accord with the testimony of Moses; and both verify common observation, viz: each kind of animal produces its own kind.
6. The poise of the Earth to the sun was such as to give an ice-flow, whenever for any cause a great subsidence of the hemisphere took place.