learned in Hebrew literature affix no other meaning to the word, Ioм, used by the sacred historian, than that of a natural day; and the hebdomedal return of the SABBATH is a permanent memorial, transmitted from the most distant age of a venerable antiquity, to perpetuate its true and legitimate meaning. It requires no great penetration to perceive to what a tissue of absurdity the fourth section of the decalogue would be reduced, if we are to suppose that the six demiurgic days were indefinite periods, instead of natural days. Respecting the original creation of organized beings, Mr. Granville Penn supplies some pertinent remarks, and applies, with considerable force and effect, the same process of reasoning to the construction of the rocky materials of the globe. "Common sense discerns," says this acute writer, "that creation alone could give origin of existence, or first formation, to that which before did not exist; it discerns, that there can be no intermediate stage or degree between non-existence, and existence, and therefore no graduality in passing from the one state to the other. To the mode of creation, we cannot therefore ascribe that mode of succession to which we give the name of time. The action of creation, was therefore effected without the mediation of time, and consequently, in that mode which we express when we exclude all notion of the mediation of time; namely, immediately, that is instantaneously or suddenly.

"If a bone of the first created man now remained, and were mingled with other bones pertaining to a generated race; and if it were to be submitted to the inspection and examination of an anatomist, what opinion and judgment would its sensible phenomena suggest, respecting the mode of its first formation, and what would be his conclusion? If he were unapprised of its true origin, his mind would see nothing in its sensible phenomena but the laws of ossification; just as the mineral geology 'sees nothing in the details of the formation of minerals, but precipitations, crystallizations, and dissolutions.' He would, therefore, naturally pronounce of this bone, as of all the other bones, that

its fibres were originally soft,' until, in the shelter of the maternal womb, it acquired 'the hardness of a cartilage, and then of bone,' that this effect was not produced at once, or in a very short time,' but by degrees that, after birth, it increased in hardness by the continual addition of ossifying matter, until it ceased to grow at all.

Physically true as this reasoning would appear, it would nevertheless be morally and really false. Why would it be false? Because it concluded, from mere sensible phenomena, to the certainty of a fact which could not be established by the evidence of sensible phenomena alone; namely, the mode of the first formation of the substance of created bone.

"Let us proceed from animal to vegetable matter ; and let us consider the first created tree, under which the created man first reposed, and from which he gathered his first fruit. That tree must have had a stem, or trunk, through which the juices were conveyed from the root to the fruit, and by which it was able to sustain the branches upon which the fruit grew.

"If a portion of this created tree now remained, and if a section of its wood were to be mingled with other sections of propagated trees, and submitted to the inspection and examination of a naturalist; what opinion and judgment would its sensible phenomena suggest to him, respecting the mode of its first formation; and what would be his conclusion? If he were unapprised of its true origin, his mind would see nothing in its sensible phenomena, but the laws of lignification; just as the mineral geologist sees nothing in the details of the formations of primitive rock, but 'precipitations, crystallizations and dissolutions.' He would, therefore, naturally pronounce of it, as of all the other sections of wood, that its fibres,' when they first issued from the seed, 'were soft and herbaceous; that they did not suddenly pass to the hardness of perfect wood,' but after many years;' that the hardness of their folds, 'which indicate the growth of each year,' was, therefore, effected only by degrees; and that, 'since nature does nothing but

by a progressive course, it is not surprising that its substance acquired its hardness only by little and little.'

"Physically true as the naturalist would here appear to reason; yet his reasoning, like that of the anatomist, would be morally and really false. And why would it be false? For the same reason; because he concluded, from mere sensible phenomena, to the certainty of a fact which could not be established by the evidence of sensible phenomena alone; namely, the mode of the first formation of the substance of created wood."

According to the chronology of the Hebrew version, the creation of the globe took place 5835 years from the present date, or 4004 years before the Christian era. At the epocha of creation, by this calculation, the great axis of the ellipsis of the earth's orbit coincided with the line of the equinoxes. At the vernal equinox the earth was at the farthest point of her elliptic orbit, and at the autumnal equinox, when the earth may have commenced its revolution in the plane of the ecliptic, it was at its nearest point of approach to the elliptic focus. The period of revolution and elliptic orbit were equalized with respect to the seasons; or, in other words, the lapse of days and hours for each hemisphere, (for the period preceding the vernal equinox, and for that which succeeded it, comprising each six months,) were precisely alike. By Dr. Hales' chronology, the period of creation is stated at 5411 years before the era of Christianity. The deductions of this celebrated chronologist, have, however, been stated to be founded on an error of Abulpharagius, though they have been accepted by many as a correct estimate. The Samaritan version makes the age of the world, 6075, and the Septuagint, 7220 years. The ancient method of calculating by letters, considered as numerals, may be naturally supposed productive of error, and will account for the discrepancies. Dr. Pritchard seems to have reconciled the Egyptian chronology with that of the Scriptures, from which it seems indeed to have been originally derived. Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. Halley endeavoured to reconcile the discrepancies referred to, by astronomi

cal calculations, and succeeded to a considerable extent; but the causes of the errors in the Samaritan and Greek text being unknown, the task involved much intricacy. When the complexity of the question is estimated, and its liability to fallacy, with the independent sources which must be reconciled, it is rather remarkable that the error is not of wider extent.

We never attached much consequence to Mr. De Luc's natural chronometers for determining the age of the world, such as the rapid encroachment of the sands of the desert, and the Talus formed of the debris of the rocks among the vallies of the Alps; all which phenomena may be modified by circumstances. But to claim a high antiquity for our globe from the extraordinary premises which some have assumed, is quite sufficient to excite our astonishment. We particularly allude to an attempt to determine the age of the world from the process of petrifaction in the piles of Trajan's Bridge, and Brydone's story about the alternations of lava and earth on the flanks of Etna. The term petrifaction is very equivocal, and has been too vaguely and indiscriminately applied. Sometimes it is used to mean nothing more than a calcareous or silicious deposition or crust investing the organic remain, and which simply envelopes it without the substance enclosed undergoing any material decomposition, or indeed any change at all; but this is very different from those cases wherein the organic remain has been altogether substituted or supplanted by new calcareous or silicious matter, the form remaining as perfect as the impress of a seal. The travertino, on the Anio, near Tivoli, which we have diligently examined, is an abundant and very remarkable deposit; the concentric shells of calcareous matter are moulded on roots or twigs; the wood becomes soft, and moulders away, as if affected with dry rot; it bears a resemblance to some other "petrifying springs," which deposit, on their rising into day, a subcarbonate of lime. It is altogether different, however, with the chalcedonic envelopes of Iceland and other silicious depositions; for the form alone is not merely

preserved but the substance itself is hermetically sealed up, and preserved from the agencies of decay. Moss agates afford a familiar example of this description. No definite idea can, therefore, be formed from what are called petrifactions, unless their nature is clearly defined, together with the circumstances under which they are found, and the agencies which have affected and changed them-in themselves altogether contingent, they vary from time to time, and are modified and controlled by a variety of causes.

Nothing, certainly, can be deduced from the process and progress of petrifaction, as to the date or history of creation. The deposition of calcareous matter, from the thermal waters of San Vignone, near Radicofani, in Tuscany, amounts to six inches of solid travertino in twelve months. In quarrying this limestone, Roman tiles have been found at a depth of five or six feet; and we have the drawing of a Celt, an ancient warlike weapon, so called, excavated from the limestone rock, in Coalbrooke Dale, at a depth, as we were informed, of sixteen feet. The calcareous deposit at San Filippo, near Acquapendente, is still more remarkable. It has been ascertained that a solid mass of limestone, thirty feet in thickness, has actually been formed in about twenty years. A hard stratum of travertino, a foot thick, is obtained from these thermal springs in the course of four months. The magnitude of the calcareous mass, which has been formed by these waters on the flanks of the hill, down which the current descends, amounts to a mile and a quarter in length, and one-third of a mile in breadth, the thickness being estimated at two hundred and fifty feet. Now as the flow of the waters is uniform, it is evident that this gigantic calcareous structure has been reared within a period of little more than EIGHTY YEARS; and, for any thing we know to the contrary, there may be other agencies, more powerful and rapid, at work, at the present period; or, at any rate, at some epocha of the past. Near Civita Vecchia, is a hot spring, which deposits alternate beds of a yellow travertino, and a white granular rock, not distinguishable from statuary