effect of volcanic actions which are daily raising portions of dry land and of the ocean bed to considerable heights above their former level. By such processes we have the formation of new islands, the partial alteration of the surface by the elevation of new mountains, the drainage of lakes, and the change of river courses.

Although, then, in the existing condition of the globe, we are not without distinct indications of a commencement; yet we cannot, by any physical processes, anticipate its final decay or ultimate destruction. A constant succession of operations, mechanical, chemical, and vital, are taking place, and producing considerable change and modification yet all contribute to the preservation of the whole. Amid all the transmutations of matter, nothing is lost or destroyed amid destruction and ruin, there is a rebuilding and restorationamid death and decay, there is a continual renewal of existence.*

-

But although our limited optics can trace no symptoms of a final termination; yet this by no means proves that such a progression may not be taking place in nature. The inspection of a tree in the full vigour of its growth, would never inform us, without the aid of analogical experience, that

"And herein Nature's art is wonderful, that having circumscribed itself within certain bounds, all within it which seems corrupting, waxing old or useless, it transforms into itself, and out of them makes other new forms, so as neither to need matter from

this tree had a commencement from a small germ, and that, in process of time, its trunk will gradually moulder to a mass of dust. And there is, in the full maturity of the animal frame, all the apparent requisites for an immortality of existence,-a continual waste of materials, it is true, but a most perfect system of renovation also. Yet dire experience convinces us, that the law of dissolution is inseparable from all organized existences; nor, on looking on the full grown man for the first time, could a being of still more limited experience ever imagine, that within a comparatively short space, this man had been a puling infant. "The operations at present going on within him," complex and important as they are, would be altogether insufficient to carry back the mind to the first development of the germ, or forwards to the complete chemical

without, nor want a place where to cast out its superfluities. 'Tis satisfied with its own substance, its own space, and its own art." -Meditations of Marcus Antoninus.

This, too, reminds us of the Pythagorean doctrine as alluded to by the poet :

Tempus edax rerum, tuquæ invidiosa vetustas

Omnia destruitis, vitiataquæ dentibus ævi

Paulatim lenta consumitis omnia morte.

Nec species sua cuique manet; rerumque novatrix

Ex aliis alias reparat natura figuras.

Nec perit in toto quicquam; mihi credite mundo
Sed variat faciemque novat; nascique vocatur.
Incipere esse aliud quam quod fuit ante,-morique
Desinere illud idem. Cum sint huc forsitan illa
Hæc translata illuc summa tamen omnia constant.
OVID, Metamorph.

disorganization of the whole fabric. Nay, even in the starry firmament, there are symptoms of instability; and a mortal whose life is but a mere span, may sometimes catch a glimpse of systems changing, or a bright world, it may be, extinguished.*

Such sudden appearance and disappearance of the stars are familiar to astronomers. It was the sudden appearance of a new star of uncommon brilliancy that first incited Tycho Brahè to the study of astronomy. The inferences in the following passage of Professor Playfair's "Illustrations," tend, however, to a somewhat different conclusion from the above. "How often the vicissitudes of decay and renovation have been repeated, it is not for us to determine; they constitute a series of which we neither see the beginning nor the end,-a circumstance that accords with what is known concerning other parts of the economy of the world. In the planetary motions, where geometry has carried the eye so far both into the future and the past, we discover no mark either of the commencement or the termination of the present order. It is unreasonable, indeed, to suppose, that such marks should any where exist. The Author of Nature has not given laws to the universe, which, like the institutions of men, carry in themselves the elements of their own destruction; he has not permitted in his works any symptom of infancy or of old age, or any sign by which we may estimate either their future or their past duration. He may put an end-as he, no doubt, gave a beginning to the present system at some determinate period; but we may safely conclude, that this great catastrophe will not be brought about by any of the laws now existing, and that it is not indicated by any thing which we perceive."

PART II.

GEOLOGICAL PHENOMENA COMPARED WITH THE

MOSAICAL RECORD.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.-Gen. i. 1, 2.

In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.-Exod. xx. 11.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them; and on the seventh day God ended his work.-Gen. ii. 1, 2.

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of heaven.-Gen. vii. 11, 19, 23.