THE ORDER OF THE STRATA WHICH FORM THE CRUST OF THE EARTH, TILTED UP AS IN A MOUNTAIN.

1. Without animal remains,-2. Slate.-3. Old Red Sand Stone.-4. Mountain Lime Stone.-5. Coal Beds.6. Lime Stone.-7. New Red Sand Stone.-8. Oolite Rocks.-9. Chalk Beds.-10. Blue Plastic Clay.-11. Gypsum.-12. Sand Stone.-13. Dilluvium.-14. Alluvium.-15. Vegetable Soil.

1. The earth has been examined to the depth of six or eight miles. The examination has been made from mountains, which have been thrown up from the earth by the action of heat. Mountains have been found to contain

specimens of the same kind of rock, arranged with great regularity which is found, when men dig into the earth; and hence is the conclusion that they have been thrown up from the earth.

2. The sea and earth have changed places a number of times. Take a glass vessel, and fill it with equal parts of earth and water-mix them and when it settles, you will see the sediment at the bottom. Suppose, now, you continue to drop in earth, the vessel will eventually become full of earth, and the water will run over and seek another abode. Suppose further that as the sediment begins to descend to the bottom, you should drop in a very small fish, and when that is completely covered with sediment, you drop in a little reptile, when that is covered, a small animal, and last of all, you drop in something that represents a small man. All through the process you have, we will suppose, dropped in small trees that have sunk with the sediment to the bottom. Let this vessel of sediment stand for a while, and it will become hard; and in process of time, it would become rock. This, though by no means a complete representation of our earth, in its undisturbed state, as it has been acted upon by quiet waters, yet, will serve as a very good illustration, to show how the different fossils are disposed above each other in the crust of the earth.

Now, in examining this sediment, the fish would be found at the bottom, the reptile next, the animal next to that, and the man above all, with the vegetable matter interspersed all the way along. Geologists, therefore, reckon four ages, the reign of fishes, the reign of reptiles, the reign of animals, and the reign of man.

3. Geology also teaches that the massive rock, which lie underneath all this sediment, and many of which have been thrown up to the surface of the earth by the action of heat, have been melted, and hence we cannot tell whether they ever contained organic remains or not.

4. Geology teaches that the climates of this earth have undergone material changes. Tropical animals and vegetation have been found in Northern latitudes. Carcasses of the elephant with flesh and skin preserved by the ice have been found in Siberia.

Animals and bones are often found whole, and present no marks of having been rolled up and down, hence it is evident that they must have lived in the countries where their remains are found.

In certain caves in Germany, England and France, great quantities of bones have been found, in such circumstances, as to show that the animals were destroyed by some sudden catastrophe. A great majority of these bones are those of the hyena. Other bones are also found in these caves which bear marks of having been gnawed by hyenas. Now, if hyenas once inhabited these regions, it is certain that the temperature of these countries must have been higher than it has been since the history of man.

The quantity of nourishment, also, required by these immensely large herbivorous animals, whose remains are found. in these Northern regions, must have required a much warmer climate, and one more favorable to vegetation than we have at present.

5. Many fossil remains of animals, shells, and vegetables are the remains of species, which have not existed on

earth since the history of man, thus species of animals and trees have become extinct.

6. The immense beds of coal, which lie many hundred feet beneath the surface of the earth, were once vegetable matter. In these beds, trees are sometimes found with the bark all on. Numerous palm trees have been found in England, that bear so close resemblance to the palms of tropical regions, that their vegetable origin cannot be doubted. Now it is not probable that the earth could have produced vegetation enough to form these beds of coal short of millions of years.

7. According to the deposites that have been made on the land and in the sea, since we find any of the remains of man, millions of years must have been requisite for these deposites that have covered beasts, reptiles and fishes six miles beneath the surface of the earth. If six thousand years were requisite for a few feet of deposites, what an immense period must have been requisite for six miles of deposites!

II. Such are some of the leading facts of geology, which are denied by no man of intelligence, who has ever examined the subject; and now the question is, how is such a revelation of the earth's history and which is written on its leaves of stone, that form a volume of miles in thickness, how are such facts to be reconciled with the volume of in-spiration?

1. Formerly, it was supposed that the Deluge of Noah: occasioned all these changes in the earth. But a large proportion of these rocks and remains of animals were

deposited in quiet waters. The animals are frequently deposited in groups, and in great order, besides which, the Deluge was too short to deposite sediment six miles in thickness, and furthermore the deposites of animals and plants do not correspond with the animals and plants which are now on earth.

2. Some have supposed that these changes took place in the sixteen hundred years between the creation and the flood, but to this, Professor Hitchcock replies, that the time "since the deluge has been twice as long as sixteen hundred years, but the amount of alluvium deposited, has not been one thousandth part as great as the whole fossilifferous rocks." Then according to this theory, the animals found in these deposites ought to be like existing animals, whereas they are very different, and not a single man or implement used by a man is found amongst them.

3. Some have regarded the six days of creation as long periods of time, but this creates many new difficulties and

removes none.

There is the same evidence that the six days of creation were literal, as there is that the seventh-the day of rest was literal. There can be no rational doubt that the six days of labor mentioned in the fourth commandment, were the same kind of days as the seventh day.-(Exodus 20 : 9, 10, 11.) We see by comparing Genesis 2: 5, with 1: 11, 12, that it did not rain till the third day, which would be very improbable if the days were long periods.

It will also be recollected that Moses describes vegetables to have been created the third day, and animals not till the fifth, hence, on the principle that these days were epochs,