of the country, where heavy forests of oak timber have been felled. So
with the new growths of timber springing up in the paths of tornadoes,
over large burnt districts, in soils brought up from below the last
glacial drift, and in hundreds of other instances which the reader will
find conclusively verified in these pages,--all making their appearance
without the possible intervention of natural seeds.

The great value of the Septuagint, as compared with other versions of the
Hebrew Bible, will appear from the fact that it is older by many hundred
years than any manuscript copy of the Hebrew text now extant. It was
undoubtedly translated at Alexandria, in Egypt, as early as the third
century before Christ, while the oldest known Hebrew MS. is a Pentateuch
roll dating no further back than A. D. 580. Its translators had before
them much older and more perfect MSS. than any that survived to the time
of the masoretic recension, when an attempt was made to give uniformity to
the readings and renderings of the Hebrew text by means of the vowel
points, diacritical signs, terminal letters, etc., all of which are now
subject to rejection by the best Oriental scholarship.

According to IrenA|us, this Greek version was rendered at the request of
Ptolemy Lagi, in order to add to the treasures of the Alexandrian library,
and it no doubt derived its name from the number of Hebrew and Hellenistic
scholars,--probably the most eminent to be found in that day,--employed
upon the work. The version comes, therefore, with paramount authority to
our own times; and we accept its Greek rendering as the highest and most
conclusive evidence of the authenticity of the text, and the "new genesis
of life" we derive therefrom.

ILIEuroI-II1/4I+- (as contained in the Septuagint) has almost an identical
signification with the Hebrew word ZRA. It means the "_germ_ of anything,"