The third morning is the appearance of _land_ and _seas_, and the sprouting forth of _vegetation_, at first in its lowest forms--perhaps as marine plants. The Hebrew אֶרֶץ (eretz) has two significations, "earth" and "land." Whenever it is used in a restricted sense, and especially wherever it is contrasted with "water," the most appropriate rendering is "land." The third creative formation is _gross, ponderable matter_, whether aggregated by molecular attraction, or compounded by elective affinity, or selected and organized by vital force. The fourth morning is the appearance of _luminaries_ or _light-bearers_ in the expanse of heaven, which are now "set," or, more correctly, "appointed to give light upon the earth," and to be time-measures in the future world-history. The Hebrew word employed in ver. 14 (מְארֹת), which is unfortunately rendered "lights" in the Authorized Version, is a different word from the "light" (אוֹר) of vers. 3-5. מְארֹת (meoroth) strictly means "light-bearers," or bodies giving light. This distinction is carefully observed in the LXX., DeWette, Benisch, Kalisch, Tuch, Knobel, Delitzsch, and Keil.[199] The fourth creative formation was the establishment of such cosmical conditions or relations as should enable the heavenly bodies to fulfill their light-giving function to the earth. What those conditions were we may not be able to say. The dense clouds and ceaseless showers of the "Age of Rain," which had shut out the light of the heavenly bodies for a geological age, had now passed away, the atmosphere becomes fitted for the transmission of light, and the sun, moon, and stars are visible from the earth. The conditions for a rapid development of vegetable life now exist, and this is regarded as pre-eminently "the Age of Plant-growth." The fifth morning is the appearance of _animal life_--life moving in the waters and soaring in the air, marine animals, aquatic reptiles, and birds. The sixth morning is the appearance of a higher order of animal life, _mammals_, chiefly designed for the use of a still higher being--for _Man_, whose appearance is the noontide splendor of the sixth day. The seventh morning is the commencement of the _Sabbath of God_, which is devoted to the moral and religious instruction of humanity--the New Creation of the moral world. The following scheme, furnished by Dr. Winchell, presents at one view the order of the Mosaic record, and at the same time sets forth the harmony between the _Mosaic_ and _Geologic_ records:[200]