the middle of the Palaeozoic formations to the uppermost members of
the series, must belong to the day which is termed by Milton the sixth.
But, further, it is expressly stated that aquatic animals took their
origin on the fifth day, and not before; hence, all formations in which
remains of aquatic animals can be proved to exist, and which therefore
testify that such animals lived at the time when these formations were
in course of deposition, must have been deposited during or since the
period which Milton speaks of as the fifth day. But there is absolutely
no fossiliferous formation in which the remains of aquatic animals are
absent. The oldest fossils in the Silurian rocks are exuviae of marine
animals; and if the view which is entertained by Principal Dawson and
Dr. Carpenter respecting the nature of the _Eozooen_ be well-founded,
aquatic animals existed at a period as far antecedent to the deposition
of the coal as the coal is from us; inasmuch as the _Eozooen_ is met with
in those Laurentian strata which lie at the bottom of the series of
stratified rocks. Hence it follows, plainly enough, that the whole
series of stratified rocks, if they are to be brought into harmony with
Milton, must be referred to the fifth and sixth days, and that we cannot
hope to find the slightest trace of the products of the earlier days in
the geological record. When we consider these simple facts, we see how
absolutely futile are the attempts that have been made to draw a
parallel between the story told by so much of the crust of the earth as
is known to us and the story which Milton tells. The whole series of
fossiliferous stratified rocks must be referred to the last two days;
and neither the Carboniferous, nor any other, formation can afford
evidence of the work of the third day.

Not only is there this objection to any attempt to establish a harmony
between the Miltonic account and the facts recorded in the fossiliferous
rocks, but there is a further difficulty. According to the Miltonic
account, the order in which animals should have made their appearance in
the stratified rocks would be this: Fishes, including the great whales,
and birds; after them, all varieties of terrestrial animals except
birds. Nothing could be further from the facts as we find them; we know
of not the slightest evidence of the existence of birds before the
Jurassic, or perhaps the Triassic, formation; while terrestrial animals,
as we have just seen, occur i