Genesis 1:23 - Exposition

And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. If of the previous creative days geological science has only doubtful traces, of this it bears irrefragable witness. When the first animal life was Introduced upon our globe may be said to be as yet sub judice . Principal Dawson inclines to claim for the gigantic foraminifer, eozoon canadense , of the Laurentian rocks, the honor of being one of the first aquatic creatures that swarmed in terrestrial waters, though Professor Huxley believes that the earliest life is not represented by the oldest known fossils; but, whether then or at some point of time anterior introduced, geology can trace it upwards through the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras with the result that is here so exactly defined. Throughout the long ages that fill the interval between the Azoic period of our earth's history and that which witnessed the appearance of the higher animals she is able to detect an unbroken succession of aquatic life, rising gradually from lower to higher forms—from the trilobites and mollusks of the Cambrian and Silurian systems, up through the ganoid fishes of the Devonian and the amphibians of the Carboniferous to the saurian reptiles of the Permian periods. At this point certain ornithic tracks in the superincumbent Triassic strata reveal the introduction upon the scene of winged creatures, and with this accession to its strength and Volume the stream of life flows on till the higher animals appear. Thus geology confirms the Scripture record y attesting