The Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science

by Sir John William Dawson

It would be wrong, however, to omit to state that, though we may know at present no remains of the first dry land, we are not ignorant of its general distribution; for the present continents show, in the arrangement of their formations and mountain chains, evidence that they are parts of a plan sketched out from the beginning. It has often been remarked by physical geographers that the great lines of coast and mountain ranges are generally in directions approaching to northeast and southwest, or northwest and southeast, and that where they run in other directions, as in the case of the south of Europe and Asia, they are much broken by salient and re-entering angles, formed by lines having these directions. Professor R. Owen, of Tennessee, and Professor Pierce, of Harvard College, were, I believe, the first to point out that these lines are in reality parts of great circles tangent to the polar circles, and the latter to suggest a theory of their origin, based on the action of solar heat and the seasons on a cooling earth. This has been more fully stated by Mr. W. Lowthian Green in his curious book, "Vestiges of the Molten Globe." [85] It would appear that the great circles in question are in reality at right angles to the line of direction of the attraction of the sun and moon at the period of either solstice, and when they happen to be in conjunction or opposition at these periods; and that such circles would be the lines on which the thin crust of a cooling globe would be most likely to be ruptured by its internal tidal-wave. Whatever the cause of the phenomenon, it is evident that in the formation of its surface inequalities the earth has cracked—so to speak—along two series of great circles tangent to the polar circles; and that these, with certain subordinate lines of fracture running north and south and east and west, have determined the forms of the continents from their origin.

M. Elie de Beaumont, and after him most other geologists, have attributed the elevation of the continents and the upheaval and plication of mountain chains to the secular refrigeration of the earth, causing its outer shell to become too capacious for its contracting interior mass, and thus to break or bend, and to settle toward the centre. This view would well accord with the terms in which the elevation of the land is mentioned throughout the Bible, and especially with the general progress of the work as we have gleaned it from the Mosaic narrative; since from the period of the desolate void and aeriform deep to that now before us secular refrigeration must have been steadily in progress. Let us also observe here that the earliest fractures of the crust would determine the first coast lines, and the first slopes along which sedimentary matter would descend from the land and be deposited in the sea. They would also modify the direction of the ocean currents. Thus the deposition of new formations would be directed by these old lines, as would also to some extent the course of all subsequent fractures and plications. Thus it happens that the lines of outcrop of the oldest rocks first raised out of the waters already marked out the forms of the continents, and that the later formations appear rather as fillings-up and extensions of the skeleton established by the first dry land. Farther, the lines of plication first established along the borders of the continents formed resisting walls along which, in the continued contraction of the earth, pressure was exerted from the ocean bed, widening and elevating these lines of upheaval, and still farther fixing the general forms of the continents, and giving variety to their surfaces. In the progress of geological time there have also been successive depressions and re-elevations of the continental plateaus, subjecting them alternately to the wearing and disintegrating action of the atmosphere and its waters, and to the influence of waves and ocean currents, and especially to that of the deep-seated polar currents which have throughout geological ages been loading the submerged areas of the earth's surface with the products of the waste caused by frost and ice in the polar regions. These causes again have been progressively increasing the oblateness of the earth's figure, and, along with the slackening of its rotation, preparing the way for those periodical collapses in the equatorial and temperate regions which form the boundaries of some of our most important geological periods. [86] Throughout all these changes the great general plan of the continents, first sketched out when the "foundations of the earth" were laid, before Eozoic time, was being elaborated.

The same creative period that witnessed the first appearance of dry land saw it also clothed with vegetation; and it is quite likely that this is intended to teach that no time was lost in clothing the earth with plants—that the first emerging portions received their vegetable tenants as they became fitted for them—and that each additional region, as it rose above the surface of the waters, in like manner received the species of plants for which it was adapted. What was the nature of this earliest vegetation? The sacred writer specifies three descriptions of plants as included in it; and, by considering the terms which he uses, some information on this subject may be gained.

Deshé, translated "grass" in our version, is derived from a verb signifying to spring up or bud forth; the same verb, indeed, used in this verse to denote "bringing forth," literally causing to spring up. Its radical meaning is, therefore, vegetation in the act of sprouting or springing forth; or, as connected with this, young and delicate herbage. Thus, in Job xxxviii., "To satisfy the desolate and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the young herbage to spring forth." Here the reference is, no doubt, to the bulbous and tuberous rooted plants of the desert plains, which, fading away in the summer drought, burst forth with magical rapidity on the setting-in of rain. The following passages are similar: Psalm xxiii., "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures" (literally, young or tender herbage); Deuteronomy xxiii., "Small rain upon the tender herb;" Isaiah xxxvii., "Grass on the house-tops." The word is also used for herbage such as can be eaten by cattle or cut down for fodder, though even in these cases the idea of young and tender herbage is evidently included; "Fat as a heifer at grass" (Jer. xiv.)—that is, feeding on young succulent grass, not that which is dry and parched. "Cut down as the grass, or wither as the green herb," like the soft, tender grass, soon cut down and quickly withering. With respect to the use of the word in this place, I may remark: 1. It is not here correctly translated by the word "grass;" for grass bears seed, and is, consequently, a member of the second class of plants mentioned. Even if we set aside all idea of inspiration, it is obviously impossible that any one living among a pastoral or agricultural people could have been ignorant of this fact. 2. It can scarcely be a general term, including all plants when in a young or tender state. The idea of their springing up is included in the verb, and this was but a very temporary condition. Besides, this word does not appear to be employed for the young state of shrubs or trees. 3. We thus appear to be shut up to the conclusion that deshé here means those plants, mostly small and herbaceous, which bear no proper seeds; [87] in other words, the Cryptogamia—as fungi, mosses, lichens, ferns, etc. The remaining words are translated with sufficient accuracy in our version. They denote seed-bearing or phoenogamous herbs and trees. The special mention of the fructification of plants is probably intended not only for distinction, but also to indicate the new power of organic reproduction now first introduced on the surface of our planet, and to mark its difference from the creative act itself. That this new and wondrous phenomenon should be so stated is thus in strict scientific propriety, and it is precisely the point that would be seized by an intelligent spectator of the visions of creation, who had previously witnessed only the accretion and disintegration of mineral substances, and to whom this marvellous power of organic reproduction would be in every respect a new creation.

The arrangement of plants in the three great classes of cryptogams, seed-bearing herbs, and fruit-bearing trees differs in one important point—viz., the separation of herbaceous plants from trees—from modern botanical classification. It is, however, sufficiently natural for the purposes of a general description like this, and perhaps gives more precise ideas of the meaning intended than any other arrangement equally concise and popular. It is also probable that the object of the writer was not so much a natural-history classification as an account of the order of creation, and that he wishes to affirm that the introduction of these three classes of plants on the earth corresponded with the order here stated. This view renders it unnecessary to vindicate the accuracy of the arrangement on botanical grounds, since the historical order was evidently better suited to the purpose in view, and in so far as the earlier appearance of cryptogamous plants is concerned, it is in strict accordance with geological fact.

A very important truth is contained in the expression "after its kind"—that is, after its species; for the Hebrew "min," used here, has strictly this sense, and, like the Greek idea and the Latin species, conveys the notion of form as well as that of kind. It is used to denote species of animals, in Leviticus i., 14, and in Deuteronomy xiv., 15. We are taught by this statement that plants were created each kind by itself; and that creation was not a sort of slump-work to be perfected by the operation of a law of development, as fancied by some modern speculators. In this assertion of the distinctness of species, and the production of each as a distinct part of the creative plan, revelation tallies perfectly with the conclusions of natural science, which lead us to believe that each species, as observed by us, is permanently reproductive, variable within narrow limits, and incapable of permanent intermixture with other species; and though hypotheses of modification by descent, and of the production of new species by such modification, may be formed, they are not in accordance with experience, and are still among the unproved speculations which haunt the outskirts of true science. We shall be better prepared, however, to weigh the relations of such hypotheses to our revelation of origins when we shall have reached the period of the introduction of animal life.

Some additional facts contained in the recapitulation of the creative work in Chapter II. may very properly be considered here, as they seem to refer to the climatal conditions of the earth during the growth of the most ancient vegetation, and before the final adjustment of the astronomical relations of the earth on the fourth day. "And every shrub of the land before it was on the earth, and every herb of the land before it sprung up. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground; but a mist ascended from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground." This has been supposed to be a description of the state of the earth during the whole period anterior to the fall of man. There is, however, no Scripture evidence of this; and geology informs us that rain fell as at present far back in the Palæozoic period, countless ages before the creation of man or the existing animals. Although, however, such a condition of the earth as that stated in these verses has not been known in any geological period, yet it is not inconceivable, but in reality corresponds with the other conditions of nature likely to have prevailed on the third day, as described in Genesis. The land of this period, we may suppose, was not very extensive nor very elevated. Hence the temperature would be uniform and the air moist. The luminous and calorific matter connected with the sun still occupied a large space, and therefore diffused heat and light more uniformly than at present. The internal heat of the earth may still have produced an effect in warming the oceanic waters. The combined operation of these causes, of which we, perhaps, have some traces as late as the Carboniferous period, might well produce a state of things in which the earth was watered, not by showers of rain, but by the gentle and continued precipitation of finely divided moisture, in the manner now observed in those climates in which vegetation is nourished for a considerable part of the year by nocturnal mists and copious dews. The atmosphere, in short, as yet partook in some slight degree of the same moist and misty character which prevailed before the "establishment of the clouds above"—the airy firmament of the second day. The introduction of these explanatory particulars by the sacred historian furnishes an additional argument for the theory of long periods. That vegetation should exist for two or three natural days without rain or the irrigation which is given in culture, was, as already stated, a circumstance altogether unworthy of notice; but the growth during a long period of a varied and highly organized flora, without this advantage, and by the aid of a special natural provision afterward discontinued, was in all respects so remarkable and so highly illustrative of the expedients of the divine wisdom that it deserved a prominent place.

It is evident that the words of the inspired writer include plants belonging to all the great subdivisions of the vegetable kingdom. This earliest vegetation was not rude or incomplete, or restricted to the lower forms of life. It was not even, like that of the coal period, solely or mainly cryptogamous or gymnospermous. It included trees bearing fruit, as well as lichens and mosses, and it received the same stamp of approbation bestowed on other portions of the work—"it was good." We have a good right to assume that its excellence had reference not only to its own period, but to subsequent conditions of the earth. Vegetation is the great assimilating power, the converter of inorganic into organic matter suitable for the sustenance of animals. In like manner the lower tribes of plants prepare the way for the higher. We should therefore have expected à priori that vegetation would have clothed the earth before the creation of animals, and a sufficient time before it to allow soils to be accumulated, and surplus stores of organic matter to be prepared in advance: this consideration alone would also induce us to assign a considerable duration to the third day. After the elevation of land, and the draining off from it of the saline matter with which it would be saturated, a process often very tedious, especially in low tracts of ground, the soil would still consist only of mineral matter, and must have been for a long period occupied by plants suited to this condition of things, in order that sufficient organic matter might be accumulated for the growth of a more varied vegetation; a consideration which perhaps illustrates the order of the plants in the narrative.

It may be objected to the above views that, however accordant with chemical and physiological probabilities, they do not harmonize with the facts of geology; since the earliest fossiliferous formations contain almost exclusively the remains of animals, which must therefore have preceded, or at least been coeval with, the earliest forms of terrestrial vegetation. This objection is founded on well-ascertained facts, but facts which may have no connection with the third day of creation when regarded as a long period. The oldest geological formations are of marine origin, and contain remains of marine animals, with those of plants supposed to be allied to the existing algæ or sea-weeds. Geology can not, however, assure us either that no land plants existed contemporaneously with these earliest animals, or that no land flora preceded them. These oldest fossiliferous rocks may mark the commencement of animal life, but they testify nothing as to the existence or non-existence of a previous period of vegetation alone. Farther, the rocks which contain the oldest remains of life exist as far as yet known in a condition so highly metamorphic as almost to preclude the possibility of their containing any distinguishable vegetable fossils; yet they contain vast deposits of carbon in the form of graphite, and if this, like more modern coaly matter, was accumulated by vegetable growth, it must indicate an exuberance of plants in these earliest geological periods, but of plants as yet altogether unknown to us. It is possible, therefore, that in these Eozoic rocks we may have remnants of the formations of the third Mosaic day; and if we should ever be so fortunate as to find any portion of them containing vegetable fossils, and these of species differing from any hitherto known, either in a fossil state or recent, and rising higher, in elevation and complexity of type, than the flora of the succeeding Silurian and Carboniferous eras, we may then suppose that we have penetrated to the monuments of this third creative æon. The only other alternative by which these verses can be reconciled with geology is that adopted by the late Hugh Miller, who supposes that the plants of the third day are those of the Carboniferous period; but, besides the apparent anachronism involved in this, we now know that the coal flora consisted mainly of cryptogams allied to ferns and club-mosses, and of gymnosperms allied to the pines and cycads, the higher orders of plants being almost entirely wanting. For these reasons we are shut up to the conclusion that this flora of the third day must have its place before the Palæozoic period of geology.

To those who are familiar with the vast lapse of time required by the geological history of the earth, it may be startling to ascribe the whole of it to three or four of the creative days. If, however, it be admitted that these days were periods of unknown duration, no reason remains for limiting their length any farther than the facts of the case require. If in the strata of the earth which are accessible to us we can detect the evidence of its existence for myriads of years, why may not its Creator be able to carry our view back for myriads more. It may be humbling to our pride of knowledge, but it is not on any scientific ground improbable, that the oldest animal remains known to geology belong to the middle period of the earth's history, and were preceded by an enormous lapse of ages in which the earth was being prepared for animal existence, but of which no records remain, except those contained in the inspired history.