[92] Perhaps rather the high places of the waters, referring to the atmospheric waters.
[93] The rendering "sweet influences" in our version may be correct, but the weight of argument appears to favor the view of Gesenius that the close bond of union between the stars of this group is referred to. I think it is Herder who well unites both views, the Pleiades being bound together in a sisterly union, and also ushering in the spring by their appearance above the horizon. Conant applies the whole to the seasons, the bands of Orion being in this view those of winter.
[94] It would be unfair to suppress the farther probability that the writer intends specially to indicate that the sacred crocodile of the Nile was itself a creature of Jehovah, and among the humbler of those creatures.
[95] The interesting discovery, by Mr. Beale and others, of several species of mammalia in the Purbeck, and that of Professor Emmons of a mammal in rocks of similar age in the Southern States of America, do not invalidate this statement; for all these, like the Microlestes of the German trias and the Amphitherium of the Stonesfeld slate, are small marsupials belonging to the least perfect type of mammals. The discovery of so many species of these humbler creatures, goes far to increase the improbability of the existence of the higher mammals.
[96] It is very interesting, in connection with this, to note that nearly all the earliest and greatest seats of population and civilization have been placed on the more modern geological deposits, or on those in which stores of fuel have been accumulated by the growth of extinct plants.
[97] See Appendix.
[98] See Appendix for farther discussion of this subject.
[99] See Lyell, Principles of Geology, "Introduction of Species."
[100] For the exposition of the details of the fall, I beg to refer the reader to McDonald's "Creation and the Fall," to Kitto's "Antediluvians and Patriarchs," and to Kurtz's "History of the Old Covenant."
[101] The Bible specifies, perhaps only as the principal of these arts, music and musical instruments by Jubal, metallurgy by Tubalcain, the domestication of cattle and the nomade life by Jabal. It is highly probable that these inventors are introduced into the Mosaic record for a theological reason, to point out the folly of the worship rendered to Phtha, Hephæstos, Vulcan, Horus, Phoebus, and other inventors, either traditionary representatives of the family of Lamech, or other heroes wrongly identified with them. Very possibly their sister Naamah, "the beautiful," is introduced for the same reason, as the true original of some of the female deities of the heathen.