It is not much more than seventy years since Bishop Watson, a man of no mean abilities and of no slight distinction, turned the science of geology into open ridicule. He said that the geologists who attempted to speculate on the internal formation of the globe reminded him only of a gnat which might be perched upon the shoulders of an elephant, and might, by the reach of its tiny puncture, affect to tell him what was the whole internal structure of the majestic animal below.[77] Listen now to the language of an eminent man of the present day, Sir David Brewster, on the same great subject: “How interesting must it be to study such phenomena—to escape for a while from the works of man—to go back to primeval times, and learn how its Maker moulded the earth—how He wore down the primitive mass into the strata of its present surface—how He deposited the precious metals in its bowels—how He filled it with races of living animals, and again buried them in its depths, to chronicle the steps of creative power—how He covered its surface with its fruit-bearing soil, and spread out the waters of the deep as the great highway of nations, to unite into one brotherhood the different races of his creatures, and to bless them by the interchange of their produce and their affections!” And again, referring to the discoveries of the great Cuvier in connexion with geology, he says: “In thus deciphering the handwriting of nature on her tablets of stone, the same distinguished naturalist discovered that all organised beings were not created at the same period. In the commissariat of Providence the stores were provided before the arrival of the host that was to devour them. Plants were created before animals, the molluscous fishes next appeared, then the reptiles, and last of all the mammiferous quadrupeds completed the scale of animal life.” Such are the terms in which able men now refer to geological science.[78]