3. It is not yet a settled question that the air, for any number of thousands of years before Adam, was sufficiently cleared of deadly gases as to admit of human breathing. On looking upon the coal veins of Pennsylvania, we need no argument to show that man could not have breathed the carbon that hung in the air of that period of deposit. The mute faces of the coal beds of Ohio forbid man’s existence then, although these succeed the former by millions of years. Geologists agree that the Pacific deposits of coal have been this side of the great upheavals of the large mountains. If man had been living then, the carbonic acid of the air would have strangled the life out of him. When we take into consideration how very slowly a continent rises out of the ocean, and that both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts had to rise over five thousand feet to expose their fruitful valleys; and also how very long a period had to elapse after, before the air would be laid into the ground by vegetation, we shall readily see the force of this proposition, viz: The very calculations which science has given us bring the deadly gases very near to the time given in Genesis for the creation of our present race. The volcanic periods of the world’s history argue against the early habitation of the Earth by man. Every volcano is a vent for the escape of deadly gases, caused by the consumption of oils and coal in the Earth’s strata. The enormous quantity of coal consumed is but faintly indicated by the amount of ashes thrown out. The mountains give evidence of recent volcanic disturbance, greatly exceeding the present. Ancient river beds are found into whose channels the debris of the mountains had been dragged by the great ice-flow, until leveled over to the height of several thousand feet; then the volcanic era covered, in places, this drift fifty or sixty feet thick; thus preserving the silt from being dragged away, as the waters receded. The fact that we had a coal period following, shows that man in the volcanic period, and for thousands of years after, could not breathe the air. Our active volcanoes are reduced to about three hundred. Still the air is polluted in many ways. Smelting works, forges and gas plants all pollute the air. Every cesspool, every whiff of burning tobacco, adds its quota to air-corrupting. Each year contributes to deposit a portion of the remaining carbon of the air. Rich valleys of warm zones are not yet healthy. We still go to the mountains for invigorating air. 5. Evidently, we have not yet reached the climax of good breathing air. Nature discourages the thought, that man could have continued his race, in any time, much previous to that given for the creating of Adam. The morning of the sixth day is in progress. Prophecy presents the coming man greatly improved over the present. “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”