Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

ON THE DEI.UGK. G59 nothing of the record I doubted: — and I mention this parti- cularly, because I have conversed with persons fond of geology, yet knowing no more of the Bible than I knew at that time. Thus much I feel it necessary to say, in accounting for my own approach to a subject in which all men feel deeply inte- rested; and which has therefore been so well treated of, that these remarks would be useless, were it not that they may reach the eyes of young sailors, vt^ho have not always access to works of authority. The Mosaic account of the Creation is so intimately con- nected with that of the Deluge that I must ask my young reader (whom alone I presume to address on this subject) to turn to the first chapter of Genesis, and refer to a few verses with me. We soon find a remarkable fact, which shows to my mind that the knowledge of Moses was super-human : his declaration in an early age that light was created before the svui and moon, which must till then have appeared to be the sources of light. In the fourth verse it is stated that " God divided the light from the darkness." This may have been effected by a rotation of the earth on its axis, turning each side in succession to the light ; otherwise, had the earth remained stationary, light must have been destroyed to admit darkness, and there must have been repeated creations of light. The light was called day — " and the evening and the morning were the first day." Of course there could have been no morn- ing previous to the creation of light ; and the first portion of time, consonant to our present expressions, would have been that which elapsed between light and darkness, or evening. The length of a day being determined by the rotation of the earth on its axis ; turning round once, so as to make an evening and a morning to each spot on the globe ; the time occupied by that rotation is a natural object of interest. In the 12th verse it is said that grass, herbs, and trees, were brought forth ; in the 14th and 16th, that lights were made to divide the day from the night ; and that the greater light was to rule the day. It is known that neither trees, herbs, nor grass can exist long without the light and heat of the sun, therefore the 2u2