The Vedic fathers of geology

10 . Tae Vepic Faruers or GEOLOGY.

In the Vayu Purana, however, a brighter vista is seen, and we find mentioned therein, that the Harth was at first but a mass of intense heat, which, having in time cooled down, was merged im and replaced by water; wherein after lapse of epochs, was produced vital creative आश.

आपोहाभ्रे समभवन्नष्टऽ्ौ एधिवीं तले । (श. 1) ९८.

In the Agni Purana and Vishnu Purana, moreover, references appear to have been made to the progressive development of vital gradation, viz. from the Paleozoic fish and the Mesozoic tortoise and the reptile, to the Tertiary mammaha, at last evolving Man—the Crowning piece of creation. But, in the Puranas, the description having been given in the grotesque ideas of incarnations and Mythological legends, the original scientific geological theory seems apparently to have been all lost in the dim mist of religion.

Now, in respect of the antiquity of some of these Puranas, Colebrooke-the great Oriental scholar—says, “Itihdsa and Puranas are anterior to Vyasa,” (Vide his Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. I. p. 11). Vyasa was the celebrated author of the Maha Bharata and the Puranas, and the halfbrother to Bhishma, the reputed Commander-inchief of the forces of Kauravas, in the Great War, whichseems to have taken place some five thou-