The Cosmic Day of the Book of Genesis

But while the "day" by which we compute our year consists of twenty-four hours, nearly, Geology supplies unerring testimony, that the pre-solar or cosmic days mentioned in the Sacred Volume in connection with the Creation, were, each, a period of vast duration! Geology also clearly teaches, that the lowest forms of vegetable and animal life were first called into existence, which were gradually followed by other and higher organizations; and confirms the truth of divine revelation, that man was the last created animal, and that a comparatively recent period only has elapsed since his first appearance on the surface of our globe.

On the fifth day God made the birds: and ordered the swarming of the waters with living creatures, among which are specified "the great Taninim" or "Dragons" belonging to the class Reptilia, of which the crocodile of Egypt is an example. These serpent-monsters of the deep answer perfectly to the Reptilia of the Saurian period. On the sixth day Man is created in connection with the land animals, domestic and wild, and with the fishes and vegetation of the modern type, or those of the present era.

At the close of the Carboniferous or Coal period the atmosphere became so far purified as to admit of the appearance of animal life of the order of the Reptilia of the seas, with which the waters swarmed during the Saurian period.

The closing era of the Reptilian age was the Cretaceous or Chalk period. In the Cretaceous period, which closed the pre-Tertiary, the atmosphere, which was previously incapable of sustaining the high-class, warm-blooded animals, became sufficiently purified to admit of their appearance. With the opening of the Cretaceous period we find a great change in vegetation: then appeared the oak, palms, maple, willow, etc., and the ordinary fruit-trees of temperate regions, adapted to Man's needs.