The Prolific Character of the Life of the Ocean
Jacobus. Genesis 1:20-23 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that has life… The finny tribes are specially prolific. The eggs of fish, or spawn, produce vast multitudes. The row of a codfish contains nine millions of eggs, of a flounder, about a million and a half, and of a mackerel, half a million. "The unchecked produce of one pair of herrings would in a very few years crowd the Atlantic." So is it also with birds. The passenger pigeon of North America has been seen in flocks a mile broad, and taking four hours in passing, at the rate of a mile a minute, and was calculated to contain 250 millions of birds (Psalm 104:24, 25). The microscope also shows there are beings with perfect organs of nutrition and locomotion, a million of which would not exceed in bulk one grain of sand, and eight millions of which might be compressed within a grain of mustard seed. Others are so small that 500 millions of them could live in a dish of water. There are even animalcules so minute that a cubic inch could contain a million millions of them. (Jacobus.) Parallel Verses KJV: And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. WEB: God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky."