Before leaving this part of the subject, I may remark that the desolate and empty condition of the earth was not necessarily a chaotic mass of confusion--_rudis indigestaque moles_; but in reality, when physically considered, may have been a more symmetrical and homogeneous condition than any that it subsequently assumed. If the earth were first a vast globe of vapor, then a liquid spheroid, and then acquired a crust not yet seamed by fissures or broken by corrugations, and eventually covered with a universal ocean, then in each of these early conditions it would, in regard to its form, be a more perfect globe than at any succeeding time. That something of this kind is the intention of our historian is implied in his subsequent statements as to the absence of land and the prevalence of a universal ocean in the immediately succeeding period, which imply that the crust had not yet been ruptured or disturbed, but presented an even and uniform surface, no part of which could project above the comparatively thin fluid envelope. The second clause introduces a new object--"_the deep_." Whatever its precise nature, this is evidently something included in the earth of verse 1st, and created with it. The word occurs in other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures in various senses. It often denotes the sea, especially when in an agitated state (Psa. xlii., 8; Job xxxviii., 10). In Psalm cxxxv., however, it is distinguished from the sea: "Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, in the earth, in the seas, and _in all deeps_." In other cases it has been supposed to refer to interior recesses of the earth, as when at the deluge "the fountains of the great deep" are said to have been broken up. It is probable, however, that this refers to the ocean. In some places it would appear to mean the atmosphere or its waters; as Prov. viii., 27-29, "When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he described a circle on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep." The Septuagint in this passage reads "throne on the winds" and "fountains under the heaven."[39] Though we can not attach much value to these readings, there seems little reason to doubt that the author of this passage understands by the deep the atmospheric waters, and not the sea, which he mentions separately. The same meaning must be attached to the word in another passage of the Book of Proverbs: "The Lord in wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath he established the heavens; by his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the small rain."