In like manner it may be admitted that Daniel’s “vision of the evening and morning” (viii., 26) covers a period of 2,300 days, and his “seventy weeks” (ix., 24) may be 490 years, that is seventy weeks of years; but all this gives very little relief to the real difficulties. It is not true that there ever was a period like that called by Moses “the third day;” a period when the earth was drained, the sea gathered into its bed, the rivers and lakes confined to their proper boundaries, grass growing on the mountains, trees in the forests, fruits in the vineyards, and all the vegetable kingdom complete; yet no fish in the waters, no creeping thing on the earth, no bird in the air. Even in the Cambrian period may be traced the rudiments of animal life; and in the Silurian, long before any trace of land plants can be detected, certain molluscs were so abundant that the period of this formation has been distinctly called “The age of brachiopods.” Next to the Silurian or mollusc period comes the Devonian or “age of fishes,” when the seas literally swarmed with inhabitants, and it is not till we arrive at the coal formation that we come to the “vegetable age.” And what were these vegetables? principally ferns and mosses, a rank production, which can in no wise answer to the description: “The earth brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind . . . and the evening and the morning were the third day.” But of this enough. Come we to the physical features of the heavens and the earth according to the writers of the Old and New Testaments. The earth is represented by these writers as immovable in the centre of the universe, and the heavenly bodies are described as revolving round it. The clouds (_rakia_) are supposed to be a solid body sustaining an ocean of water similar to the seas: “God said, let there be a firmament (_rakia_) in the midst of [or between] the waters, and let it divide the waters [of the sea] from the waters [of the clouds], and it was so.” This solid firmament, or roof of the earth, is said to have windows or casements in it, which are opened to let the rain fall through. The New Testament makes no advance upon these primitive notions. We are told (Matt, iv., 8) that the devil on one occasion took Jesus to a high mountain, and showed him thence “all the kingdoms of the world.” Of course the writer supposed the world to be a flat surface, the whole of which could be seen from one spot, if of sufficient elevation. In like manner the solidity of the clouds is taken for granted, for thrones are set upon them, and Christ, it is said, will show himself hereafter “sitting on the clouds,” attended with his court of angels.