The Vedic fathers of geology

HE Vepic Discoverins IN GEOLoGy. 21

caused the aqueous vapour im the atmosphere <9 condense, occasiong thereby the fall of rain, and thus creating the Thermal Ocean ; and that then, the eranite crust having been formed and afterwards partially broken, the land and mountains began to appear in time. ( Vide ante pp 15-16 )

Tn another place also, mention is made again of the Earth having been made solid by 171त्‌78 ( येन परथिवी च get | Rig-Veda. X. 121. 5.).

But, more than this, and as if to crown the whole, we find a most important statement made in the Rig- Veda, from the distinct stand point of Geology, that vegetable life ( sttweT: ) had commenced ( gat Hat ), some three epochs { बिद्ुगं ), before the Mammalian life-types of the Tertiary Era, or rather before the advent of Man and the superhuman Gods ( #a-at@aa gi); and that m the Primary! or Paleozoic Era (44 G7 ), vitality had first come into being, alter the Azoic Epoch ( असतः सदजायत । ). That is to say, from the chaotic deep or the ‘/hermal Ocean, where nothing was favourable to the sustenance of life, there was the manifestation of vitality, after the boiling waters had cooled down. In other words, it was then, that life had come into play and existence becom

1 So called by Sir Charles Lyell-the great Geologist-in his Elements of Geology. Sixth Eid. p. 92.