" So came into being "the
horrible and destructive monsters, these caricatures and
distortions of creation," of which we have fossil remains. Dr.
Westermeyer goes on to insist that "whole generations called
into existence by God succumbed to the corruption of the devil,
and for that reason had to be destroyed"; and that "in the
work of the six days God caused the devil to feel his power in
all earnest, and made Satan's enterprise appear miserable and
vain."[243]
Such was the last important assault upon the strongholds of
geological science in Germany; and, in view of this and others
of the same kind, it is little to be wondered at that when, in
1870, Johann Silberschlag made an attempt to again base geology
upon the Deluge of Noah, he found such difficulties that, in a
touching passage, he expressed a desire to get back to the
theory that fossils were "sports of Nature."[243b]
But the most noted among efforts to keep geology well within the
letter of Scripture is of still more recent date.
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