In the second chapter of Genesis, Adam is said to have been made before the animals were created. After Adam had given names to all the animals as they passed before him in grand review, there was no helpmeet found among them for him, and as an afterthought God formed a woman for him out of a rib. But here was a very long period between the creation of Adam and Eve. According to the first chapter of Genesis Adam and Eve were created at the same time, and before the creation of the animal kingdom, but in the second chapter man was the first creature made and woman the last. This would make Adam millions of years older than Eve, if the word "day" means millions of years in the first chapter of Genesis. "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament heaven." According to this writer's ideas heaven and earth were two flat spheres, upon each of which were vast quantities of water. The firmament in which were set the sun, moon, and stars was in some way supported at a short distance above the earth. The Hebrew term rakia so translated, is generally regarded as expressive of simple expansion, and is so rendered in the margin of the A. V. (authorized version). (Gen. 1 : 6.) The root means to expand by beating whether by the hand, the foot, or any other instrument. It is especially used of beating out metals into thin plates. (Ex. 39 : 3, and Num. 16 : 39.) The sense of solidity is combined with the ideas of expansion and tenuity in the term. The same idea of solidity runs through all the references to the rakia. In Exodus 24 : 10, it is represented as a solid floor. So again in Ezekiel 1 : 22-26, the "firmament" is the floor on which the throne of the Most High is placed. Further, the office of the rakia in the economy of the world demanded strength and substance. It was to serve as a division between the waters above and the waters below. (Gen. 1 : 7.) In keeping with this view the rakia was provided with "windows" (Gen. 7 : 11, Isa. 24 : 18, Mal. 3 : 10), and "doors" (Ps. 78 : 23) through which the rain and the snow might descend. A secondary purpose which the rakia served was to support the heavenly bodies, sun, moon, and stars (Gen. 1 : 14), in which they were fixed as nails, and from which consequently, they might be said to drop off. (Isa. 14 : 12-34, Mat. 24 : 29.) In all these particulars we recognize the same view as was entertained by the Greeks, and to a certain extent by the Latins. If it be objected to the Mosaic account that the view embodied in the word rakia does not harmonize with strict philosophical truth, the answer to such an objection is, that