the solid crust of the earth, so far as it has been penetrated into, it is evident that the rudimental materials of the globe existed at its earliest period, in one confused and liquid mass; that they were afterwards separated and arranged by a progressive series of operations, and a uniform system of laws, the more obvious of which appear to be, those of gravity and crystallization; and that they have since been convulsed and dislocated by some dreadful commotion and inundation, that have extended to every region, and again thrown a great part of the organic and inorganic creation into a promiscuous jumble. Hence have originated the Plutonic and Neptunian hypotheses; the former, ascribing the origin of the world, in its present state, to igneous fusion; the latter to aqueous solution, resolving the genuine origin of things into the operation of water. The Neptunian or aqueous theory is recommended by its general coincidence with the geology of the Scriptures, and its adaptation to several phenomena in the present structure of the earth. The Mosaic narrative opens with a statement of three distinct facts, each following the other in a regular series, in the origin of the visible world. First, an absolute creation, as opposed to a mere remodification of the heavens and the earth, which constituted the earliest step in the creative process. Secondly, the condition of the earth when it was thus primarily brought into being, which was that of an amorphous or shapeless waste. And, thirdly, a commencing effort to reduce the unfashioned mass into a condition of order and harmony. "In the beginning," says the sacred historian, “God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep (or abyss). And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," Gen. i. 1, 2. We are hence necessarily led to infer, that the first change of the formless chaos, after its existence, was into a state of universal aqueous solution; for it was upon the surface of the waters that the Divine Spirit commenced his operative power. We are next informed, that this chaotic mass acquired shape, not instantaneously, but by a series of six distinct days or epochs, and apparently through the agency of the established laws of gravity and crystallization, which regulate it at the present moment. It tells us that during the first of these days was evolved what, indeed, agreeably to the laws of gravity, must have been evolved first of all-the matter of light and heat; of all material substances the most subtle and attenuate; those by which alone the sun operates, and has ever operated, upon the earth and the other planets, and which may be the identical substances that constitute its essence. And it tells us, also, that the luminous matter thus evolved produced light, without the assistance of the sun or moon, which were not set in the sky or firmament, and had no rule, till the fourth day; that the light thus produced flowed by tides, and alternately intermitted, thus constituting a single day and a single night, whatever their length might be. It tells us that, during the second day, uprose, progressively, the fine fluids, or waters, as they are poetically and beautifully denominated, of the firmament, and filled the blue ethereal void with a vital atmosphere; that, during the third day, the waters, more properly so called, or the grosser and more compact fluids of the general mass, were strained off and gathered together into the vast bed of the ocean, and the dry land began to make its appearance, by disclosing the peaks or highest points of the primitive mountains; in consequence of which a progress instantly commenced, from inorganic matter to vegetable organization, the surface of the earth, as well above as under the waters, being covered with plants and herbs bearing seeds after their respective kinds; thus laying a basis for those carbonaceous materials, the remains of vegetable matter, which are occasionally to be traced in some of the layers or formations of the class of primitive rocks (the lowest of the whole), without a single particle of animal relics intermixed with them. It tells us that, during the fourth day, the sun and moon, now completed, were set in the firmament, the solar system was finished, its laws were established, and the celestial orrery was put into play; in consequence of which the harmonious revolutions of signs and of seasons, of days and of years, struck up for the first time their mighty symphony. That the fifth period was allotted exclusively to the formation of water-fowl, and the countless tribes of aquatic creatures; and, consequently, to that of those lowest ranks of animal life, testaceous worms, corals, and other zoophytes, whose relics are alone to be traced in the second class of rocks or transition formations, and still more freely in the third or horizontal formations; these being the only animals as yet created, since the air, and the water, and the utmost peaks of the loftiest mountains, were the only parts as yet inhabitable. It tells us, still continuing the same grand and exquisite climax, that towards the close of this period, the mass of waters having sufficiently retired into the deep bed appointed for them, the sixth and concluding period was devoted to the formation of terrestrial animals; and, last of all, as the master piece of the whole, to that of man himself. Thus, in progressive order, uprose the stupendous system of the world; the bright host of morning stars shouted together on its birth-day; and the eternal | agreed, that in every continent and island, the Creator looked down with complacency on the mountains, the hills, and the declivities, are, in finished fabric, and "saw that it was good.”* 4. But the sacred historian further assures us that the wickedness of man subjected the earth to desolations, changes, and new formations, in its surface and upper strata. Of the universal deluge, by which this was effected, he gives us a particular account, in Gen. vi., vii., viii.; and his narrative of the fact is authenticated and confirmed both by profane historians and by natural phenomena. Plutarch, in his book on the industry of animals, mentions both the ark and the dove. The account Ovid has given of the flood, in the reign of a surnamed Deucalion, which drowned all Thessalia, and from which the king and his wife were saved on Mount Parnassus, seems clearly to be a confused tradition between the deluge of Noah and a partial inundation. The etymology of the name Deucalion, from deuteros, the second, and kaleo, to call, imports the recalling of society a second time into existence under the patriarch Noah. It was usual with ancient nations to give new names to princes, expressive of auspicious events; a custom not yet wholly discontinued. The landing of Deucalion with his wife on Mount Parnassus, is but a confusion of the tradition concerning the resting of the ark on Mount Ararat. The deluge not only covered both these mountains, but has left stratifications on all the higher mountains, as far as the snow will allow us to ascend. The moral cause of this unexampled catastrophe is wholly attributed by the Hebrew historian to the great and incorrigible wickedness of the antediluvians. And what could be more assortable to the divine perfections, when the apostasy was total-when all flesh had corrupted its way-when the sons of the great seized the daughters of the poor-when the earth was filled with violence-when the prophesying and translation of Enoch had no effectwhen the preaching of Noah and the building of the ark excited scoffing, rather than reformation— what could be more assortable to the perfections of God, than to save the one righteous family, and wash away the filthy inhabitants of the earth? The changes and ravages of nature correspond with the impetuous force of the flood, as described by Moses.t Travellers and geologists are all * Good's Book of Nature, series 1, sect. 6. The Mosaic history of the deluge has been carefully examined by Lightfoot, who equalled the rabbins in Hebrew literature. The whole period, according to him, comprised a solar year. Forty-six days of this period were spent in conveying stores and provisions for the ark; and seven in receiving the beasts and cattle. The rain began to fall on the 18th day of the Hebrew month of Marchesvan, and continued forty days. places without number, left desolated of earth, craggy and bare; and many of the rocks, and bolder hills, and salient promontories, appear to have been detached to a considerable distance from the elevated summits to which they once belonged. Whatever earths the impetuous tides of the deluge washed from one place, they must of necessity have deposited in another. Hence, one tide would bring gravel and marine exuviæ, already worn by the action of the billows rolling on the shore; another would bring sand; and a third, clay. But though all alluvial strata were formed of the detritus of the old earths, they would repeat the first formation by combination. They would change into a variety of silica, rocks, marls, and minerals; while others, falling on more neutral earths, would remain in their primitive state. Thus, also, the deeper strata of the earth would be laid on while the waters were rising; and all the more loamy earths by the gradual retreat and subsiding of the waters. These longcontinued actions and deposits of the water are a sure guide, in accounting for all the conformations and heterogeneous masses found in most parts of the alluvial earth.‡ 5. But the researches of geologists have given confirmation to sacred history, not only as to the origin of the earth and the universal deluge, but also as to the age of the earth. Early in the last century, and even more recently, several geological phenomena were considered as indicative of the fact, that the creation of the globe was an event much more remote than the sacred history represents it to be. But the investigations of the latest and most sober philosophers have furnished proof, little short of demonstration, that the earth, in its present form,|| cannot have existed from a more During the fall of the rain, it is thought that the atmosphere was much darkened, because it was afterwards promised that day and night should no more cease, Gen. viii. 22. The waters or tides continued to increase for one hundred and fifty days. The decrease commenced on the 1st day of Sivan, and continued one hundred and twenty days. This idea, that the deeper alluvial strata were laid on by the increasing tides, assists us to account for the deposit of coal, confessedly a vegetable fossil, that once floated upon the sea. When analyzed, charcoal constitutes the principal part of its base. Acidulous waters, bitumen, and hydrogen, it contains in various proportions. Its combustible qualities and its ashes may also be retraced to vegetable origin. || Mr. Faber, in order to meet the objectious of some of our geologists, founded on the fossil phenomena occurring in the strata of the earth, maintains, that the six demiurgic days were periods of vast but uncertain length, during which some mighty revolution occurred, to which the origin of these strata are to be attributed, rather than to the deluge of Noab.-Treatise on the Three Dispensations, b. i., chap. ii. remote period than that assigned to it in the Mosaic narrative. * The absolute falsehood of many hardy assertions and specious inferences, hostile to the Scripture chronology, has been fully evinced; and thence has arisen a new presumptive argument in support of the authenticity of that volume which contains the most ancient and the most precious of all records.† *Kirwan's Geological Essays, and Miller's Retrospect, cited by Shaw, “Panorama of Nature," p. 14. Mr. Townsend, in his 'Geological and Mineralogical Researches,' has presented us with some excellent GEOLOGICAL CHRONOMETERS, as Deltas, Lakes, Estuaries, Drift Sands, and Mouldering Cliffs. From all these chronometers, consisting in effects which result from known causes, operating since the existence of our continents, and of which the progress within known times is indicated by monuments, he justly draws this conclusion, that our continents are not of a more remote antiquity than has been assigned to them by the sacred historian, in the beginning of his Penta teuch.-P. 403. + Carpenter's Scripture Natural History, Introd. to Geology, or stratum of alluvial mud deposited by the river during its periodical overflowings; and this bed or stratum is superimposed on sand, in all respects resembling the sand of the adjoining desert. During the period of the French expedition, a great variety of experiments were made by the savans who accompanied it, upon the thickness of this alluvial bed; and some curious and interesting results were obtained. In the transverse section of the valley of Syout, and other places where the deposits could be made without obstacle, and without being in any The valley of the Nile, it is well known, is covered with a bed material degree augmented or diminished by local causes, the mean of all the measurements gave for the average thickness of the mud stratum rather more than twenty feet. Having ascertained this point, M. Girard next applied himself to determine the quantity by which the soil is raised or thickened in the course of a century, from the depositions of the river; and the pits of the nilometers furnished him with the basis of an approximate calculation, which gave the centenary elevation of the soil, from the cause already mentioned, at less than four and a half inches. Dividing, then, the whole thickness or depth of this stratum by the quantity added to it in the course of a century, the quotient is 5,650; from which it follows that the origin of this superimposed soil, must have preceded 1809, the date of the experiments, by 5,650 years, being only 154 less than the Mosaic chronology gives as the age of the world at that time. 6. The various geological terms employed by the sacred writers have been investigated and judiciously arranged by a learned and indefatigable student of the Bible, in the "Scripture Encyclopædia," published in the CRITICA BIBLICA. Amongst them are noticed, paretz, by which the Hebrews commonly expressed the idea of earthy or solid substances in general : '' imim, seas, and ar, fluidity in general, or a river in particular (Amos viii. 8): np as aben ikre, a stone of value, or a precious stone (1 Sam. xii. 32; 1 Kings x. 2; Ezek. xxvii. 22; Dan. xi. 38), and 80s Tos, in 1 Cor. iii. 12; and Rev. xviii. 12. A rock is called yo salo, from its cragginess. Copper and iron (nuckshith and berzal) are mentioned, as being in use among the antediluvians, in Gen. iv. 22; and silver ( kasaph) as an article of barter, or most likely.a species of money, in the time of Abraham, Gen. xiii. 2. Gold is called an zeb, to denote the purity of its nature; 15 phez, from its solidity; n cherutz, because of its being dug out or found in small pieces; and 7518 auphir, from the place where it was found in large quantities. Tin ( Numb. xxxi. 22, as ebedil) is mentioned in part of the spoils of the Midianites, who had been principal carriers of oriental merchandise, Gen. xxxvii. 25-28. Salt is called ' melech, from its property of melting; and a stone 18 aben, from its appearance of being built up or constructed of a large number of separate and divisible particles of matter.|| The coincidence between the sacred chronologist and the deduction of science strikes us as very remarkable; nay, as affording one more proof how nature and revelation harmonize, when the truth is sought in the love of it. We may add, that the French savant has carefully avoided drawing the inference to which his own premises necessarily lead; an avoidance which is only the more absurd from the obvious nature of the conclusion obtruded upon the mind of the reader. Vol. iii., p. 19, &c. || See Parkhurst's Heb. Lex. sub voce. CHAPTER III. BOTANY. Scientific arrangements in the Scriptures; Herbaceous produc- | in his treatises on natural history, mentioned in tions-Corn, its uses and preparation—Fruitfulness of Pales-1 Kings iv. 33, advancing from the lesser to the tine-Sacred groves. 1. We have already adverted to the scientific order in which the Hebrew legislator enumerates the several classes of the vegetable world, in his narrative of the creation, in Gen. i. 11, 12. Solomon also exhibits the same adherence to system, larger from grass, including the minutest species of whatever is green, to shrubs, or trees of the smaller kind; and from these, again, to trees, which differ, not only in their enlarged dimensions, but in their permanency also. 2. The common term for herbaceous produc tions, in the Hebrew writings, is desha, although it is also specifically applied to grass. The Hebrews, as Wetstein remarks, divided all kinds of vegetables into trees and herbs; the former of which the Hellenists call uλov, the latter, xogros, under which they also comprehended all sorts of grass, corn, and flowers. See Matt. vi. 30; Luke xii. 28, &c. There is great impropriety, as the late editor of Calmet has shown, in our version of Prov. xxvii. 25, "The hay appeareth, and the tender grass sheweth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered." If the tender grass is but just beginning to show itself, the hay, which is grass cut and dried, after it has arrived at maturity, ought by no means to be associated with it, still less to precede it. Mr. Taylor takes the word, here rendered hay, to mean the first-shoots, the rising, just budding spires of grass. So the wise man says: "The tender risings of the grass are in motion, and the buddings of the grass [grass in its early state] appear; and the tufts of grass, proceeding from the same root, collect themselves together, and by their union, begin to clothe the mountain tops with a pleasing verdure." Surely the beautiful progress of vegetation, as described in this passage, must appear to every reader of taste as too poetical to be lost; but what must it be to an eastern beholder-to one whose imagination is exalted by a poetic spirit one who has lately witnessed an all-surrounding sterility a grassless waste! The same impropriety, but in a contrary order, and where, perhaps, the English reader would be less likely to detect it, occurs in the English version of Isai. xv. 6: "For the waters of Nimrim [water is a principal source of vegetation] shall be desolate, departed, DEAD; so that [the hay, in our translation, but as it should be] the tender, just sprouting risings of the grass are withered, dried up; the buddings of the grass are entirely ruined" ["there is no green thing," in our version]. The following verse may be thus translated: "Insomuch that the reserve he had made, and the deposit he had placed with great care in supposed security, shall all be driven to the brook of the willows." A similar gradation of poetical imagery is used in 2 Kings xix. 26: “Their inhabitants were of shortened hand, dismayed, ashamed; they were as grass of the field [vegetables in general]; as the green buddings of grass; as the tender risings on the house-tops; and those, too, struck by the wind, before it is advanced in growth to a rising up." What a climax of imbecility!* A tree is, in the Hebrew Scriptures, called y otz, from a verb which signifies" "to make firm," or "steady;" and it is See Expository Index, in loc. thus distinguished from herbage or plants, which are more soft and loose. 3. It is evident from Ruth ii. 14, 2 Sam. xvii. 28, 29, and other passages in the Old Testament, that parched corn constituted part of the ordinary food of the Hebrews, as it still does of the Arabs. Corn was also used for bread; and the method of preparing it for the oven demands some notice here. The threshing was done either by the staff or the flail (Isai. xxviii. 27, 28); by the feet of cattle (Deut. xxv. 4); or by “a sharp threshing instrument having teeth” (Isai. xli. 15), which was something resembling a cart, and was drawn over the corn by means of horses or oxen. When the corn was threshed, it was separated from the chaff and dust by throwing it forward across the wind by means of a winnowing-fan, or shovel (Matt. iii. 12); after which the grain was sifted to separate all impurities from it (Amos ix. 9; Luke xxii. 31). Hence the threshing-floors" were in the open air (Judg. vi. 11; 2 Sam. xxiv. 18). The grain thus obtained was commonly reduced to meal by the hand-mill, which consisted of a lower millstone, the upper side of which was concave, and an upper millstone, the lower surface of which was convex. The hole for receiving the corn was in the centre of the upper millstone; and in the operation of grinding, the lower was fixed, and the upper made to move round upon it with considerable velocity, by means of a handle. These mills are still in use in the East, and in some parts of Scotland, where they are called querns. The employment of grinding with these mills is confined solely to females; and the practice illustrates the prophetic observation of our Saviour, concerning the day of Jerusalem's destruction: "Two women shall be grinding at the mill; one shall be taken, and the other shall be left," Matt. xxiv. 41. Mr. Pennant, who has given a particular account of these handmills, as used in Scotland, observes, that the women always accompany the grating noise of the stones with their voices; and that when ten or a dozen are thus employed, the fury of the song rises to such a pitch, that you would, without breach of charity, imagine a troop of female demoniacs to be assembled. As the operation of grinding was usually performed in the morning at day-break, the sound of the females at the handmill was heard all over the city, which often awoke their more indolent masters. The Scriptures mention the want of this noise as a mark of desolation, in Jer. xxv. 10, and Rev. xviii. 22. There was a humane law, that "no man shall take the nether or upper millstone in pledge, for he taketh a man's life in pledge," Deut. xxiv. 6. He could not grind his daily bread without it. both the climate and soil of Judea to those of Italy; and particularly specifies the palm-tree and balsam-tree, as productions which gave the country an advantage over his own.† Amongst other indigenous productions may be enumerated the cedar, and other varieties of the pine, the cypress, the oak, the sycamore, the mulberry-tree, the figtree, the willow, the turpentine-tree, the acacia, the aspen, the arnutus, the almond-tree, the tamarisk, the ollander, the peach-tree, the chastetree, the carob or locust-tree, the oskar, the doom, the mustard-plant, the aloe, the citron, the apple, the pomegranate; and many flowering shrubs, as the rose, the myrtle, &c. The country about Jericho was celebrated for its balsam, as well as for its palm-trees; but Gilead appears to have been the country in which it abounded. Hence the name, "the balm of Gilead." Since the country has fallen under the dominion of the Turks, the balsam has ceased to be cultivated; but it is still found in Arabia.‡ 4. It is demonstrable, from numerous and authentic sources, that those writers who have described Palestine as a barren and unfruitful place, have formed their notions upon a very partial survey of the land; or else that they have, from unworthy motives, grossly misrepresented the fact. Abulfeda describes this country as the most fruitful part of Syria; and the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, as one of the most fruitful parts of Palestine. Malte Brun has remarked, that if the advantages of nature were seconded by the efforts of human skill, we might, in the space of twenty leagues, bring together in Syria the vegetable riches of the most distant countries. Besides wheat, rye, barley, beans, and the cotton-plant, which are cultivated every where, there are several objects of utility or pleasure, peculiar to different localities. Palestine, for example, abounds in sesamum, which affords oil, and in dhoura, similar to that of Egypt. Maize thrives in the light soil of Baalbec, and rice is cultivated with success along the marsh of Haoule. Within these twenty-five years sugar5. It will not be out of place to notice here, canes have been introduced into the gardens of the consecration of groves to idols, a circumstance Saida and Beirout, which are not inferior to those that is frequently referred to in the Old Testament of the Delta. Indigo grows without culture on the Scriptures. The custom is so ancient, that it is banks of the Jordan, and only requires a little care thought to have been antecedent to the consecrato secure a good quantity. The hills of Latakie pro- tion of temples and altars. But this is very quesduce tobacco, which creates a commercial intercourse tionable, for the ashel of Abraham, rendered with Damietta and Cairo. This crop is at present "grove" in the English Bible, being differently cultivated in all the mountains. The white mul- expressed from the consecrated groves elsewhere in berry forms the riches of the Druses, by the beau- the same writings spoken of, is rather to be undertiful silks that are obtained from it; and the vine, stood of a single tree, the oak or the tamarisk. raised on poles or creeping along the ground, Be this as it may, however, it is certain that the furnishes red and white wines equal to those of use of sacred groves for the celebration of mysBordeaux. Jaffa boasts of her lemons and water-teries, is of very high antiquity, and perhaps of melons; Gaza possesses both the dates of Mecca and the pomegranates of Algiers. Tripoli has oranges which might vie with those of Malta. Beirout has figs like Marseilles, and bananas like St. Domingo. Aleppo is unequalled for pistachio-nuts; and Damascus possesses all the fruits of Europe; inasmuch as apples, plumbs, and peaches grow with equal facility on her rocky soil. Niebuhr is of opinion that the Arabian coffee-shrub might be cultivated in Palestine.* The land of Canaan was characterized by Moses as a land flowing with milk and honey," and it still answers to this description; for it contains extensive pasture lands of the richest quality, and the rocky country is covered with aromatic plants, yielding to the wild bees which hive in the hollow of the rocks, such abundance of honey, as to supply the poorer classes with an article of food. See Matt. iii. 4; Sam. xiv. 25; Ps. lxxxi. 16. Tacitus compares * Malte Brun, vol. ii., p. 130. all others the most universal. (1) At first there were in these groves neither temple nor altar: they were simple retreats, to which there was no access for the profane, or such as were not devoted to the service of the gods. Afterwards temples were built in them, and to preserve so ancient a custom, they took care, whenever they had it in their power, to plant groves round the temples and altars, which groves were not only consecrated to the gods in honour of whom the temples had been built, but were themselves a place of sanctuary, or an asylum for criminals, who fled thither for refuge. (2) This very prevalent custom seems to have originated in the conception, that shade and solitude gave an air of mystery and devotion to religious services, and were adapted to inspire the worshippers with a solemn and superstitious dread Hist. lib. v., chap. 6. The palm-tree was the symbol of |