Again, others have thought that Moses, after recording, in the first sentence of Genesis, the great truth that all things were made by the will of an intelligent Creator—passed silently over some intermediate state of the earth, which had no direct relation to the history, or to the duties of man—and proceeded to describe the successive appearance of the present order of things. On this supposition, the fossil remains and peculiarities in the structure of the earth may have belonged to that intermediate state.
A third method of explaining the difficulty, and which we think highly satisfactory, is, by understanding the days of creation to mean, not ordinary days, but periods of time, in which the recorded events took place in the order described so briefly by the sacred historian. It is acknowledged by every one competent to judge, that among the Hebrews, days and weeks were often used in this manner. The accordance between the order in which, according to the account of Moses, the work of creation was accomplished, and the order in which the fossil remains of plants and animals are deposited in the earth, has surprised, and has been acknowledged by learned sceptics themselves.[11]
[11] The Baron Cuvier, on this subject, remarks, respecting the Jewish legislator—"His books show us, that he had very perfect ideas respecting several of the highest questions of natural philosophy. His cosmogony, especially, considered purely in a scientific point of view, is extremely remarkable, inasmuch as the order which it assigns to the different epochs of creation, is precisely the same as that which has been deduced from geological considerations."
It will be useless to push these arguments further. The catastrophes which have produced the secondary strata, and the diluvian depositions, could not have been local or partial phenomena; but rather than call upon a comet, with the abstracted philosopher, to deluge the earth for every new geological epoch—or to change the axis of motion of our planet—or to resort to any of his wild, fanciful, and impious theories, we should, with Sir Humphrey Davy, even prefer the dream that all the secondary strata were created, filled with the remains, as it were, of animal life, to confound the speculations of our geological reasoners.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
Every author who attempts a Monograph of any of the departments of Natural History, must necessarily depend, in a greater or less degree, upon the kindness and liberality of others. Rare and unique specimens, particularly of fossil species, are often scattered through different cabinets, and his work would be rendered very imperfect, if they were not intrusted to his care. In preparing the following Monograph on the plan of giving exact models of the species, instead of illustrating them by engravings in the usual manner, the specimens when used by the artist are perhaps more liable to accident, and it was at first supposed that this circumstance might have prevented the original design. But in no instance, where an application has been made, either to a public institution or to a private cabinet, has the author met with a refusal; indeed the courtesy, kindness, and liberality which he has experienced from naturalists, who have every where aided him in the prosecution of his work, form no inconsiderable portion of the gratification which he has received. Besides the acknowledgments to public museums, and to individuals, which are made in the body of the work, the author is desirous of recording in this place, the following cabinets from which he has derived much assistance.
IN PHILADELPHIA.
The Cabinet of John P. Wetherill.
The Cabinet of the Academy of Natural Sciences.
The Philadelphia Museum. (Peale's.)