followed by a repetition of the
approval of the Creator. "God saw that it was good." To our view that
primeval dry land would scarcely have seemed good. It was a world of
bare, rocky peaks, and verdureless valleys--here active volcanoes,
with their heaps of scoriae and scarcely cooled lava currents--there
vast mudflats, recently upheaved from the bottom of the
waters--nowhere even a blade of grass or a clinging lichen. Yet it was
good in the view of its Maker, who could see it in relation to the
uses for which he had made it, and as a fit preparatory step to the
new wonders he was soon to introduce. Then too, as we are informed in
Job xxxviii., "The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of
God shouted for joy." We also, when we think of the beautiful variety
of the terrestrial surface, the character and composition of its
soils, the variety of climate and exposure resulting from its degrees
of elevation, the arrangements for the continuance of springs and
streams, and many other beneficial provisions connected with the
merely mechanical arrangements of the dry land, may well join in the
tribute of praise to the All-wise Creator. There is, however, a
farther thought suggested by the approval of the great Artificer. In
this wondrous progress of creation, it seems as if every thing at
first was in its best estate. No succeeding state could parallel the
unbroken symmetry of the earth in the fluid and vaporous condition of
the "deep." Before the elevation of the land, the atmospheric currents
and the deposition of moisture must have been surpassingly regular.
The first dry land may have presented crags and peaks and ravines and
volcanic cones in a more marvellous and perfect manner than any
succeeding continents--even as the dry and barren moon now, in this
respect, far surpasses the earths. In the progress of organic life,
geology gives similar indications, in the variety and magnitude of
many animal types on their first introduction; so that this may very
possibly be a law of creation.

During the emergence of the first dry land, large quantities of
detrital matter must have been deposited in the waters, and in part
elevated into land. All of these beds would, probably, be destitute of
organic remains; but if such beds were formed and still remain, they
are probably unknown to us, for the oldest formations that we
know--those of the Eozoic age--contain traces of such remains. It has,
indeed, been suggested that t