When God created light. He pronounced it good; when He divided the dry land from the waters. He pronounced it good; but when He created the firmament, or expanse. He did not declare it good. Why? Possibly because, until vegetation began, it was loaded with carbonic acid and {180} other poisonous gases, and totally unfit to support animal life. Science teaches us that this was the period when those strata known as the _primary rocks_ were formed. No remains of animal life can be found in them. It is a well-known fact that most substances shrink as they cool. This is the principle that holds the tires upon wagon wheels. In the same manner the earth also shrank, in proportion, as it cooled. As the various parts might give out heat in an unequal manner, so irregularities would appear on its surface, forming the earliest mountain chains, valleys, rents and ravines. Gradually as these early mountains and table-lands rose above the surface of the primeval ocean, the waves would dash against them and the rains fall, slowly wearing away the rocks and thus forming the earliest soil on the new-made world. Continuing our investigations, let us turn to another chapter of the book of nature and see how closely the teachings of science agree with the record given by Moses: "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass" (literally, sproutage), "the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so." (_Gen. i_, 11.) Mark the order: First, the sproutage; second, seed-bearing herbs; and thirdly, fruit-bearing trees. Now what does science say on this subject? It tells us that the exact geological period, when plants first appeared upon the earth, cannot be told; for their delicate structure was such that their earliest forms have been entirely destroyed, unless {181} they are those which are still preserved in the strata of the coal measures. The earliest forms of which we have any knowledge were flowerless plants, which produced minute spores instead of seeds. Among these may be classed fungi, mosses and ferns. Thus we see how correctly Moses has described the first form of vegetable life by simply speaking of it as _sproutage_, without mentioning any seed. [ILLUSTRATIONS: SPECIMENS OF EARLY VEGETATION. FERNS. CALAMITES.] {182} [ILLUSTRATION: SPECIMEN OF BARK FROM A NOVA SCOTIA COAL MINE.]