appearance.

But why should this distinguished naturalist insist upon the specific
creation of either plants or animals? No scientific work of any paramount
value confines the creative power of the universe to such narrow and
restricted limits. Nor is there a particle of evidence to be drawn from
the Bible that either plants or animals primarily originated in pairs.
"Let the earth bring forth" is a command without limitation, or
restriction, as to time, place, or number; and there is no reason to
doubt that myriads of living forms swarmed everywhere, at first as now,
in nature.

The idea, as expressed by Mr. Renfrey, that they were specifically created
at one time and place only, whether in pairs, tens, twenties, or hundreds,
is neither a rational one, nor has it any experience-argument or
scientific authority on which to stand. Take, for instance, an
experience-argument directly in point:--When the salt wells were first
bored at Syracuse, N.Y., and the salt water was suffered to flow in waste
over the low grounds about the salt-works, the small saline plants
peculiar to salt-marshes in the warm temperate zone made their appearance,
not in pairs, tens or hundreds, but in thousands rather, and have
nourished there ever since. They came because conditions favored; because
a salt-marsh had been artificially produced hundreds of miles away from
the sea coast. This is only one of a large number of cases--more than we
have room to specify in this connection--showing that wherever man,
artificially or otherwise, produces the necessary conditions of
plant-life, nature responds to the germinal law precisely as she did
millions of years ago when the first salt-marsh favored the appearance of
these saline plants--such as grow under no other conditions or
circumstances.