Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/31

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The first verse of Genesis, therefore, seems explicitly to assert the creation of the Universe; "the heaven," including the sidereal systems;, "and the earth," more especially specifying our own planet, as the subsequent scene of the operations of the six days about to be described: no information is given as to events which may have occurred upon this earth, unconnected with the history of man, between the creation of its component matter recorded in the first verse, and the era at which its history is resumed in the second verse; nor is any limit fixed to the time during which these intermediate events may have been going on: millions of millions of years may have occupied the indefinite interval, between the beginning in which God created the heaven and the earth, and the evening or commencement of the first day of the Mosaic narrative.