,,transcriber',s ,,note3 ,a list of corrections is at the end of the text4 ,italics are indicated by underscores1 bold by equal signs and superscripts by ''4 ,illogical ,geology ,the ,weakest ,point in ,the ,evolution ,theory ,illustration3 ,author ,,by ,,george ,mc,c,r,e,a,d,y ,,price ,,editor ,,of ,,the ,,modern ,,heretic1 ,,and ,,author ,,of ,,outlines ,,of ,,modern ,,science ,,and ,,modern ,,christianity4 ,,the ,,modern ,,heretic ,,company #beg ,s4 ,,hill ,,street1 ,,los ,,angeles1 ,,cal4 ,,single ,,copies #be;c #c ,,copies #fj;c3 #aj ,,copies #a4ge ,,illogical ,,geology ,,the ,,weakest ,,point ,,in ,,the ,,evolution ,,theory ,to the ,reader4 ,this ,advance ,edition has been issued by the ,publishers in this cheap form to enable them to get out several thousand copies for critical review at comparatively small expense4 ,succeeding editions will be in regular book form1 and will be sold at the usual rates for bound volumes4 ,it is a singular and a notable fact1 that while most other branches of science have emancipated themselves from the trammels of metaphysical reasoning1 the science of geology still remains imprisoned in 'a priori' theories4--,sir ,henry ,howorth3 ,the ,glacial ,nightmare and the ,flood4 ,preface4 ,,vii4 ,,the ,,modern ,,heretic ,,company #beg ,s4 ,,hill ,,st41 ,,los ,,angeles1 ,,california #aijf ,,copyright #aijf ,,by ,,george ,mc,c,r,e,a,d,y ,,price ,,los ,,angeles1 ,,cal4 ,,part ,i ,,preface ,this book is not written especially for geologists or other scientists as such1 though it deals with the question which it discusses from a purely scientific standpoint1 and presupposes a good general knowledge of the rocks and of current theories4 ,it is addressed rather to that large class of readers to whom geology is only an incident in larger problems1 and who are not quite wholly satisfied with those explanations of the universe which are now commonly accepted on the testimony of biological science4 ,i am free to say that my own conviction of the higher value and surer truth of other data outside of the biological sciences have always been given formative power in my own private opinions1 and that in this way ,i have long held that there must be something wrong with the ,evolution ,theory1 and also that there must be a surer way of gauging the value of that ,theory1 even from the scientific standpoint1 than the long devious processes connected with ,darwinism and biology4 ,some years ago1 when compelled to investigate the subject more fully than ,i had hitherto done1 ,i discovered1 somewhat to my own surprise1 the phenomenal weakness of the geological argument4 ,the results of that investigation have grown into the present work4 ,though mostly critical and analytic1 it is not wholly so4 ,but so far as it is constructive there is one virtue which can rightly be claimed for it4 ,it is at least an honest effort to study the foundation facts of geology from the inductive may be standpoint1 and whether or not ,i have succeeded in this1 it is1 so far as ,i know1 the only work published in the ,english or any other language which does not treat the science of geology more or less as a cosmogony4 ,that such a statement is possible is1 ,i think1 my chief justification in giving it to the public4 ,it would seem as if the twentieth century could afford at least one book built up from the present1 instead of being postulated from the past4 ,,george ,mc,c,r,e,a,d,y ,,price4 #beg ,south ,hill ,street1 ,los ,angeles1 ,california1 ,june1 #aijf4 ,,contents ,,part ,i ,i ,,the ,,abstract ,,idea #aa ,,ii ,,history ,,of ,,the ,,idea #ad ,,iii ,,fact ,,number ,,one #bj ,,iv ,,fact ,,number ,,two #bd ,v ,,turned ,,upside ,,down #bg ,v ,,fact ,,number ,,four #ca ,,vii ,,extinct ,,species #cd ,,viii ,,skipping #db ,,part ,,ii ,,ix ,,graveyards #ec ,x ,,change ,,of ,,climate #fd ,,xi ,,degeneration #gj ,,xii ,,fossil ,,men #gd ,,xiii ,,inductive ,,methods #ha ,,appendix #hi ,,introduction ,a brief outline of the argument which ,i have used in the following pages will be in order here4 ,darwinism1 as a part1 the chief part1 of the general ,evolution ,theory1 rests logically and historically on the succession of life idea as taught by geology4 ,if there has actually been this succession of life on the globe1 then some form of genetic connection between these successive types is the intuitive conclusion of every thinking mind4 ,but if there is no positive evidence that certain types are essentially older than others1 if this succession of life is not an actual scientific fact1 then ,darwinism or any other form of evolution has no more scientific value than the vagaries of the old ,greeks--in short1 from the standpoint of true inductive science it is a most gigantic hoax1 historically scarce second to the ,ptolemaic astronomy4 ,in ,part ,one ,i have examined critically this succession of life theory4 ,it is improper to speak of my argument as destructive1 for there never was any real constructive argument to be thus destroyed4 ,it is essentially an exposure1 and ,i am willing to give a thousand dollars to any one who will1 in the face of the facts here presented1 show me how to prove that one kind of fossil is older than another4 ,in ,part ,two ,i have attempted to build up a true1 safe induction in the candid1 unprejudiced spirit of a coroner called upon to hold a post mortem4 ,the abnormal character of most of the fossiliferous deposits1 the sudden world-wide change of climate they record1 the marked degeneration in all organic forms in passing from the older to the modern world1 together with the great outstanding fact that human beings1 with thousands of other living species of animals and plants have at this great world-crisis left their fossils in the rocks all over the world1 prove beyond a possible doubt that our once magnificently stocked world met with a tremendous catastrophe some thousands of years ago1 before the dawn of history4 ,as for the origin of the living beings that existed before that event1 we can only suppose a direct creation1 since modern science knows nothing of the spontaneous generation of life1 or of certain types of life having originated before other types1 and thus being able to serve as the source of origin of other alleged succeeding types4 ,with the myth of a life succession dissipated once and for ever1 the world stands face to face with creation as the direct act of the ,infinite ,god4 ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,abstract ,,idea ,how many of us have ever tried to think out a statement of just how we would prove that there has been a succession of life on the globe in a particular order8 ,herbert ,spencer did#a and he did not seem to think the way in which it is usually attempted a very praiseworthy example of the methods to be pursued in natural science4 ,he starts out with ,werner1 of ,neptunian fame1 and shows that the latter's main idea of the rocks always succeeding one another over the whole globe like the coats of an onion was untenable if analyzed1 and physically absurd1 for among other things it is incomprehensible that these very different kinds of rocks could have been precipitated one after another by the same chaotic menstrum4 ,but he then proceeds to show that the science is still swayed by the crude hypotheses it set out with2 so that even now1 old doctrines that are abandoned as untenable in theory1 continue in practice to mould the ideas of geologists1 and to foster sundry beliefs that are logically indefensible4 ,werner had taken for his data the way in which the rocks happened to occur in a narrow district of ,germany1 and had at once jumped to the conclusion that they must always occur in this relative order over the entire globe4 ,thus on a very incomplete acquaintance with a thousandth part of the earth's crust1 he based a sweeping generalization applying to the whole of it4 ,werner classified the rocks according to their mineral characters1 but when the fossils were taken as the prime test of age1 the original nomenclature of periods and formations kept alive the original idea of complete envelopes encircling the whole globe one outside each other like the coats of an onion4 ,so that now1 instead of ,werner's successive ages of sandstone making or limestone making1 and successive suites of these rocks1 we have successive ages of various types of life1 with successive systems or groups of formations which everywhere succeed each other in a given order2 and are severally everywhere of the same age4 ,though it may not be asserted that these successive systems are universal1 yet it seems to be tacitly assumed that they are so4444 ,though1 probably1 no competent geologist would contend that the ,european classification of strata is applicable to the globe as a whole2 yet most1 if not all geologists1 write as though it were so4 ,spencer then goes on to show how dogmatic and unscientific it is to say that when the ,carboniferous flora1 for example1 existed in some localities1 this type of life and this only must have enveloped the world4 ,now this belief1 he says1 that geologic 'systems' are universal1 is quite as untenable as the other4 ,it is just as absurd when considered a priori3 and it is equally inconsistent with the facts1 for all such systems of similar life-forms must in olden time have been of merely local origin1 just as they are now4 ,in other words1 we have no scientific knowledge of a time in the past when there were not zoological provinces and zones as there are to-day1 one type of life existing in one locality1 while another and totally different type existed somewhere else4 ,then1 after quoting from ,lyell a strong protest against the old fancy that only certain types of sandstone and marls were made at certain epochs1 he proceeds3 ,nevertheless1 while in this and numerous passages of like implication1 ,sir ,c4 ,lyell protests against the bias here illustrated1 he seems himself not completely free from it4 ,though he utterly rejects the old hypothesis that all over the earth the same continuous strata lie upon each other in regular order1 like the coats of an onion1 he still writes as though geologic 'systems' do thus succeed each other4 ,a reader of his ',manual' would certainly suppose him to believe1 that the ,primary epoch ended1 and the ,secondary epoch commenced1 all over the world at the same time4444 ,must we not say that though the onion-coat hypothesis is dead1 its spirit is tractable1 under a transcendental form1 even in the conclusions of its antagonists4 ,spencer then examines at considerable length the kindred idea that the same or similar species lived in all parts of the earth at the same time4 ,this theory1 he says1 is scarcely more tenable than the other4 ,he then shows how in some localities there are now forming coral deposits1 in some places chalk1 and in others beds of ,molluscs2 while in still other places entirely different forms of life are existing4 ,in fact1 each zone or depth of the ocean has its particular type of life1 just as successive altitudes do on the sides of a mountain2 and it is a dogmatic and arbitrary assumption to say that such conditions have not existed in the past4 ,on our own coasts1 the marine remains found a few miles from shore1 in banks where fish congregate1 are different from those found close to the shore1 where only littoral species flourish4 ,a large proportion of aquatic creatures have structures that do not admit of fossilization2 while of the rest1 the great majority are destroyed1 when dead1 by the various kinds of scavengers that creep among the rocks and weeds4 ,so that no one deposit near our shores can contain anything like a true representation of the fauna of the surrounding sea2 much less of the co-existing faunas of other seas in the same latitude2 and still less of the faunas of seas in distant latitudes4 ,were it not that the assertion seems needful1 it would be almost absurd to say that the organic remains now being buried in the ,dogger ,bank can tell us next to nothing about the fish1 crustaceans1 mollusks1 and corals that are now being buried in the ,bay of ,bengal4 ,this author evidently found it difficult to keep within the bounds of parliamentary language when speaking of the absurd and vicious reasoning at the very basis of the whole current geological theory2 for1 unlike the other physical sciences1 the great leading ideas of geology are not generalisations framed from the whole series or group of observed facts1 but are really abstract statements supposed to be reasonable in themselves1 or at the most very hasty conclusions based on wholly insufficient data1 like that of ,werner in his narrow district of ,germany4 ,sir ,henry ,howorth#b has well expressed the urgent need that there is of a complete reconstruction of geological theory3 ,it is a singular and a notable fact1 that while most other branches of science have emancipated themselves from the trammels of metaphysical reasoning1 the science of geology still remains imprisoned in a priori theories4 ,but ,huxley#c also has left us some remarks along the same line which are almost equally helpful in showing the essential absurdity of the assumption that when one type of life was living and being buried in one locality another and very diverse type could not have been doing the same things in other distant localities4 ,this is how he expresses it3 ,all competent authorities will probably assent to the proposition that physical geology does not enable us in any way to reply to this question--,were the ,british ,cretaceous rocks deposited at the same time as those of ,india1 or were they a million of years younger1 or a million of years older8 ,this phase of the idea1 however1 is not so bad1 for the human mind refuses to believe that distant and disconnected groups of similar forms were not connected in time and genetic relationship4 ,it is really the reverse of this proposition that contains the most essential absurdity1 and this is the very phase that is most essential to the whole succession of life idea4 ,huxley1 indeed1 seems to have caught a glimpse of this truth1 for he says3 ,a ,devonian fauna and flora in the ,british ,islands may have been contemporaneous with ,silurian life in ,north ,america1 and with a ,carboniferous fauna and flora in ,africa4 ,geographical provinces and zones may have been as distinctly marked in the ,palaeozoic epoch as at present4 ,certainly2 but if this be true1 it is equally certain that the ,carboniferous flora of ,pennsylvania may have been contemporaneous alike with the ,cretaceous flora of ,british ,columbia and the ,tertiary flora of ,germany and ,australia4 ,but in that case what becomes of this succession of life which for nearly a century has been the pole star of all the other biological sciences--,i might almost say of the historical and theological as well8 ,must it not be admitted that in any system of clear thinking this whole idea of there having really been a succession of life on the globe is not only not proved by scientific methods1 but that it is essentially unprovable and absurd8 ,huxley1 in point of fact1 admits this1 though he goes right on with his scheme of evolution1 just as if he never thought of the logical consequences involved4 ,his words are3 ,in the present condition of our knowledge and of our methods 7sic7 one verdict--'not proven and not provable'--must be recorded against all grand hypotheses of the palaeontologist respecting the general succession of life on the globe4 ,in view of these startling facts1 is it not amazing to see the supernatural knowledge of the past continually and quietly assumed in every geological vision of the earth's history8 ,,footnotes3 #a ,illogical ,geology2 ,illustrations of ,universal ,progress1 pp4 #cbi-chj2 ,d4 ,appleton ,co41 #ahij4 #b ,the ,glacial ,nightmare and the ,flood1 ,preface ,,vii4 #c ,discourses ,biol4 and ,geol41 pp4 #bgi-bhh4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,history ,,of ,,the ,,idea ,among the few stray principles that the future will probably be able to save from the wreck of ,spencer's philosophy1 is the advisability of looking into the genealogy of an idea4 ,what has been its surroundings8 ,what is its family history8 ,does it come of good stock1 or is its family low and not very respectable8 ,this is especially true in the case of a scientific idea1 which above all others needs to have a clean bill of health and a good family record4 ,but1 unfortunately1 the idea we are here considering has a bad record1 very bad in fact2 for the whole family of ,cosmogonies1 of which this notion is the only surviving representative1 were supposed to have been banished from the land of science long ago1 and were all reported dead4 ,some of them had to be executed by popular ridicule1 but most of them died natural deaths1 the result of inherited taint1 in the latter part of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries4 ,it is perfectly astonishing how any of the family could have survived over into the twentieth century1 in the face of such an antecedent record4 ,for one of the chief traits of the family as a whole is that of mental disorder of various stages and degrees4 ,some of them were raving crazy2 others were mild and comparatively harmless1 except that their drivel had such a disturbing effect on scientific investigations that they had to be put out of the way4 ,it seems such a pity that when this last fellow1 early in life1 was up before ,doctors ,huxley and ,spencer for examination1 he was not locked up or put in limbo forthwith4 ,this is especially unfortunate1 because this survivor of an otherwise extinct race has since then produced a large family1 some of which it is true have already expired1 while the eldest son1 ,darwinism1 was reported in #aija to be at its last gasp1#d and was even said last year to have had its tombstone inscription written by von ,hartmann of ,germany4 ,but the succession of life idea itself1 the father of all this brood1 is still certified by those in authority to be healthy and compos mentis4 ,the ,cosmogony ,family is a very ancient one1 running back to the time of ,plato and ,thales of ,miletus4 ,indeed the cuneiform inscriptions of ,babylonia seem to indicate that a tribe with very similar characteristics existed several millenniums before the ,christian era4 ,but discarding all these1 the first men that we need to mention are perhaps ,burnet and ,whiston1 who knew no other way of arriving at geological truth than to spin a yarn about how the world was made4 ,woodward seems to have had a little better sense1 and is named along with ,hooke and ,john ,ray as one of the real founders of the science4 ,unfortunately the brood of ,cosmogonists was not dead1 for ,moro and ,de ,maillet were at this same period spinning their fantastic theories about the origin of things2 or as ,zittel puts it1 accepted the risks of error1 and set about explaining the past and present from the subjective standpoint4#e ,this tendency we will find to be a birthmark in the family1 and will serve to invariably identify any of them wherever found4 ,we must remember this1 and apply the test to the modern survivors4 ,buffon seems to have been really the founder of the family in the modern form4 ,he is credited with the sarcastic remark that geologists must feel like the ancient ,roman augurs who could not meet each other without laughing2 though in view of his fantastic scheme of seven epochs1 in which he endeavors to portray the beginning1 the past1 and the future 7sic7 of our planet1#f one is reminded of the common symptom which manifests itself in thinking all the rest of the world crazy4 ,the ,heroic ,age of ,geology succeeded this period1 and was characterized largely by a determination to discard speculation1 and to seek to build up a true science of actual fact and truth4 ,we have already seen from ,spencer's remarks that ,a4 ,g4 ,werner1 who was1 however1 one of the leaders in ,germany at this time1 was very far from following true inductive methods4 ,and the following language of ,sir ,arch4 ,geikie shows that in him the family characteristics were decidedly prominent3 ,but never in the history of science did a stranger hallucination arise than that of ,werner and his school1 when they supposed themselves to discard theory and build on a foundation of accurately-ascertained fact4 ,never was a system devised in which theory was more rampant2 theory1 too1 unsupported by observation1 and1 as we now know1 utterly erroneous4 ,from beginning to end of ,werner's method and its applications1 assumptions were made for which there was no ground1 and these assumptions were treated as demonstrable facts4 ,the very point to be proved was taken for granted1 and the geognosts1 who boasted of their avoidance of speculation1 were in reality among the most hopelessly speculative of all the generations that had tried to solve the problem of the theory of the earth4#g ,in fact this author says that3 ,the ,wernerians were as certain of the origin and sequence of the rocks as if they had been present at the formation of the earth's crust4 7pp4 #bhh-i47 ,here we see the family characteristics very strongly developed4 ,in speaking of ,werner's five successive suites or onion-coats in which he wrapped his embryo world1 ,zittel complains3 ,unfortunately1 ,werner's field observations were limited to a small district1 the ,erz mountains and the neighboring parts of ,saxony and ,bohemia4 ,and his chronological scheme of formations was founded upon the mode of occurrence of the rocks within these narrow confines4 7p4 #ei47 ,and yet1 as we have seen1 it is precisely such a charge as this that ,spencer and ,huxley bring against the modern phase of the doctrine of successive ages based on the succession of life idea4 ,werner1 from observations limited to a small district1 constructed his scheme of exact chronological sequence1 basing it entirely upon the mineral or mechanical character of his suites4 ,and hundreds of enthusiastic followers long declared that the rocks everywhere conformed to this classification1 even so great an observer as von ,humboldt thinking that the rocks which he examined in ,central and ,south ,america fully confirmed ,werner's chronological arrangement4 ,but such notions to-day only cause a smile of pity1 for it is now well known that1 take the world over1 the rocks do not occur as ,werner imagined1 though1 as ,geikie says1 he and his disciples were as certain of the matter as if they had been present at the formation of the earth's crust4 ,besides1 as already pointed out1 we moderns ought now to have pretty well assimilated the idea that while one kind of mineral or rock was forming in one locality1 a totally different kind of deposit may have been in process of formation in another spot some distance off at the very same time1 and we cannot imagine a time in the past when this principle would not hold good4 ,but in a precisely similar way the idea of a time value was1 as we shall see1 transferred from the mechanical and mineral character of the rocks to their fossil contents2 and from observations again limited to a small district1 ,william ,smith and ,cuvier conceived the idea that the fossils occurred only in a certain order2 that only certain fossils lived at a certain time2 that1 for example1 while ,trilobites were living and dying in one locality1 ,nummulites or ,mammals positively were not living and dying in another locality1 though in any system of clear thinking this latter notion is just as irrational as that of ,werner4 ,hence ,spencer is compelled to say1 though the onion-coat hypothesis is dead1 its spirit is still traceable1 under a transcendental form1 even in the conclusions of its antagonists4 ,the two cases are exactly parallel2 only it has taken us nearly a hundred years1 it seems1 to find out that the fossils do not follow the prearranged order of ,smith and ,cuvier any better than the rocks and minerals do the scheme of ,werner4 ,if hundreds of geologists still seem to think that the fossils in general agree with the standard order1 we must remember how many sharp observers said the same thing for decades about ,werner's scheme4 ,the taint of heredity will always come out sooner or later2 and both of these schemes exhibit very strongly the family history of the whole tribe of ,cosmogonies1 viz41 the facts refuse to certify that they are of sound mind4 ,it was ,william ,smith1 an ,english land surveyor1 who first conceived the idea of fixing the relative ages of strata by their fossils4 ,just how far he carried this idea it seems difficult to determine exactly4 ,lyell#h says nothing along this line about him1 save that he followed the leading divisions of the ,secondary strata as outlined by ,werner1 though he claims independently of the latter4 ,whewell#i remarks rather pityingly on his having had no literary cultivation in his youth1 but has nothing about the degree in which he is responsible for the modern scheme of life succession of which many modern geologists have made him the father4 ,geikie and ,zittel are much more explicit4 ,the former#aj says that he had reached early in life the conclusions on which his fame rests1 and he never advanced beyond them4 ,his plain1 solid1 matter-of-fact intellect never branched into theory or speculation1 but occupied itself wholly in the observation of facts4 ,zittel#aa says pretty much the same thing1 remarking that ,smith confined himself to the empirical investigation of his country1 and was never tempted into general speculations about the history of the formation of the earth--words which to my mind are the very highest praise1 for they seem to indicate that he was only in a very limited way responsible for the unscientific and illogical scheme of a phylogenic series or complete life-history of the earth1 which now passes as the science of geology4 ,doubtless like his little bright-eyed ,german contemporary1 ,a4 ,g4 ,werner1 he had not had his imagination sufficiently cultivated in his youth to be able to appreciate the beauty of first assuming your premises and then proving them by means of your conclusion1 i4e41 first assuming that there has been a gradual development on the earth from the lowest to the highest1 and then arranging the fossils from scattered localities over the earth in such a way that they cannot fail to testify to the fact4 ,the following may be taken as a fair statement of what he actually accomplished and taught3 ,after his long period of field observations1 ,william ,smith came to the conclusion that one and the same succession of strata stretched through ,england from the south coast to the east1 and that each individual horizon could be recognized by its particular fossils1 that certain forms reappear in the same beds in the different localities1 and that each fossil species belongs to a definite horizon of rock4#ab ,but even granting the perfect accuracy of this generalization of ,smith's for the rocks which he examined1 ,i fail to see how it is any better than ,werner's scheme1 which ,zittel characterizes as weak and premature1 and of which ,whewell 7p4 #eba7 says that he promulgated1 as respecting the world1 a scheme collected from a province1 and even too hastily gathered from that narrow field4 ,quoting again from ,zittel's criticism of ,werner's work 7,hist4 of ,geology1 p4 #ei71 we must admit that ,smith's observations also were limited to a small district1 and his chronological scheme of formations was founded upon the mode of occurrence of the rocks 7fossils7 within these narrow confines4 ,there is1 as we have shown1 a monstrous jump from this to the conclusion that even these particular fossils must always occur in this particular relative order over the whole earth4 ,how can any one deny that if we had a complete collection of all the fossils laid down during the last thousand years--when all admit that the so-called phylogenic series is complete--particular fossils would in many cases be found to occur only in particular rocks1 and we could still arrange them in this same order from the lowest to the highest forms of life1 while we might even happen to find small districts where the mode of occurrence of the rocks within these narrow confines would have all the appearance of showing a true phylogenic order4 ,this of itself ought to be sufficient to show us the weakness of this subjective method of study1 and the purely hypothetical and imaginary value of the fossils in determining the real age of a rock deposit4 ,the name of ,baron ,cuvier is the next that we have to consider4 ,an examination of part of his teaching will come naturally a little later when considering extinct species4 ,that part of his work which related to the doctrine of ,catastrophism is somewhat aside from the subject of our study2 while with regard to his influence on the succession of life idea per se there is not very much that need be said4 ,and yet ,cuvier is the real founder of modern cosmological geology1 and thus in a certain sense the father of biological evolution4 ,but if the absence of the architectonic mania for building a cosmogony will serve to remove in a great measure any suspicions with regard to ,william ,smith's results1 we cannot say the same for those of ,cuvier4 ,in his scheme the hereditary ,cosmological taint1 which is such an invariable characteristic of the family1 is very strong1 though disguised and almost transfigured by learning and genius4 ,it is doubtless these latter qualities which have secured for the theory such a phenomenal length of life1 though of course we know that nothing born of this whole brood can ever secure a permanent home in the kingdom of science4 ,how glorious1 wrote this otherwise truly great man in his famous ,preliminary ,discourse1 it would be if we could arrange the organized products of the universe in their chronological order1 as we can already 7,werner's onion-coats7 do with the more important mineral substances6 ,his work 7with that of his co-laborer ,brongniart7 on the fossils of the ,paris basin was probably accurate and logical enough for that limited locality4 ,it was only when he quietly assumed as ,werner had done1 that the rocks must always occur in this particular order all over the world1 or as ,whewell expresses it1 promulgated as respecting the world1 a scheme collected from a province1 and 7perhaps7 even too hastily gathered from that narrow field--it was only1 ,i say1 when this monstrous assumption was incorporated into his scheme1 and he began to call into being his vision of organic creation on the instalment plan1 as ,werner had done with the minerals1 that his great and valuable work for science became tainted with the deadly ,cosmological virus1 dooming it to death sooner or later4 ,sherlock ,holmes might attempt to diagnose a disease by a mere glance at his patient's boots1 but even this gave him more data and was a more logical proceeding than the facts and methods of ,cuvier supplied for constructing a scheme of organic creation4 ,it will not be necessary to detail the manner in which the modern phylogenic series was gradually pieced together from the scattered fragments here and there all over the globe2 but it should be noted here that the whole chain of life was practically complete before any serious attempt was made to study the rocks on the top of the ground1 and to find out how this marvellous record of the past joined on to the modern period1 thus reversing completely the true inductive method1 and leaving the most important of all1 viz41 the rocks containing human remains and other living species1 over till the last1 with the result that we have for over half a century been laboring under a ,glacial ,nightmare1 and these deposits on the top of the ground still remain in many respects the despair of geology4 ,then came ,lyell1 ,agassiz1 and ,darwin2 and now in the light of the keen discussions instituted by ,weismann in the later eighties of the last century1 the modern world is pretty well agreed on two results1 viz41 that so far from natural selection being able to originate a species1 it can't possibly originate anything at all1 and also that no individual can transmit to his descendants what he has himself acquired in his lifetime1 and hence it is hard to see how he can transmit what he has not got himself and what none of his ancestors ever had4 ,i have not the space to show how ,agassiz further complicated the problem immensely by his absurdly illogical use of his three laws of comparison1 when the prime fact of there ever having been a succession of life on the globe in any order whatever had never been proved2 but ,i am free to say that if ,cuvier's system of creation on the instalment plan had been fact instead of fancy1 some scheme of evolution would undoubtedly be implied in this general fact4 ,it is this instinctive feeling on the part of modern scientists which makes them to-day1 while confessing the failure of ,darwinism1 still cling to the general idea of evolution somehow4 ,hence it seems quite evident that1 having deviated from strict inductive methods by pursuing this ignis fatuus of a cosmological history of creation1 it was essential in the interests of true science to go the whole journey and make a complete investigation of the biological side of the question1 in order to complete the demonstration that science was on a wrong tack entirely4 ,darwin and ,weismann were inevitable in view of the wholly unscientific course on which biology entered under the guidance of ,buffon and ,cuvier4 ,what then can we take as the general lesson to be learned from the stubborn way in which1 for over a hundred years1 the world has followed this hypnotic suggestion of folly1 that we might explain our genesis and being from the scientific standpoint8 ,one of the lessons--there may be others--is that science knows nothing about origins1 and that1 in speculating along these lines1 the cosmological taint will always vitiate the accuracy of our conclusions and debauch the true spirit of induction4 ,a hundred years ago1 they thought they knew all about how the world was made4 ,the keen investigations inspired by ,darwinism were necessary to convince us that we know nothing at all about it4 ,modern biology has simply developed a gigantic reductio ad absurdum argument against the easy assumptions of the earlier geologists that it occurred by a progression from the low to the high4 ,a hundred years--nay fifty years ago--this assumption did not appear so unscientific1 for we did not then have the biological evidence to refute such an idea4 ,now1 however1 in the light of the modern progress of science1 this awful mystery of our existence1 of our creation and destiny1 is borne in upon us from every dividing cell1 from every sprouting seed1 from countless millions of the eloquent voices of nature1 which our forefathers were too blind to see1 too deaf to understand2 and with weary1 reluctant sadness does science confess that about it all she knows absolutely nothing4 ,,footnotes3 #d ,nature1 ,nov4 #bh1 #aija1 pp4 #gf1 #gg4 #e ,history of ,geology1 p4 #bc4 #f ,zittel1 p4 #db4 #g ,founders of ,geology1 p4 #aab2 ,johns ,hopkins ,press1 #aija4 #h ,principles1 p4 #ej1 #hth ,ed4 #i ,history of the ,inductive ,sciences1 vol4 ii41 p4 #eba4 #aj ,founders of ,geology1 pp4 #bcg-h4 #aa ,history1 p4 #aab4 #ab ,zittel1 ,history1 p4 #aaj4 ,it should be noted that all these rocks in ,england thus examined by ,smith make up only a small fraction of the total geological series--largely what we now call the ,jurassic and ,cretaceous rocks4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,fact ,,number ,,one ,hitherto we have been dealing only with the a priori aspects of the succession of life idea4 ,we have seen that it is really based on two primary assumptions1 viz43 7#a7 ,that over all the earth the fossils must always occur in the particular order in which they were found to occur in a few corners of ,western ,europe2 and also-- 7#b7 ,that in the long ago there were no such things as zoological provinces and zones1 and totally different types of fossils from separated localities could not possibly have been contemporaneous with one another as we know they are to-day in recent deposits4#ac ,on the blending of these two assumptions1 the latter essentially absurd1 and the former long ago disproved by the facts of the rocks1 has been built up the towering structure of a complete phylogenic series from the ,cambrian to the ,pleistocene4 ,the way in which1 as we have been1 ,spencer and ,huxley treated this subject1 reminds us very much of the old advice1 ,when you meet with an insuperable difficulty1 look it steadfastly in the face--and pass on4 ,for neither they nor any of their thousands of followers have ever1 so far as ,i know1 pointed out the horrible logic in taking this immense complex of guesses and assumptions as the starting-point for new departures1 the solid foundation for detailed investigations as to just how this wonderful phenomenon of development has occurred4 ,for after ,agassiz and his contemporaries had built on these large assumptions of ,cuvier1 and had arranged the details and the exact order of these successive forms by comparison with the embryonic life of the modern individual1 the evolutionists of our time1 led by such men as ,spencer and ,haeckel1 with their philogenetic principle1 prove their theory of evolution by showing that the embryonic life of the individual is only a brief recapitulation1 as it were from memory1 of the geological succession in time4 ,there would really seem to be little hope of reaching with any arguments a generation of scientists who can elaborate genealogical trees of descent for the different families and genera of the animal kingdom1 based wholly on such a series of assumptions and blind guesses1 and then palm off their work on a credulous world as the proved results of inductive science4 ,and yet ,i am tempted to make some effort in this direction4 ,and since we have now examined the a priori aspects of the question1 it remains to test the two above mentioned assumptions by the facts of the rocks4 ,the second1 indeed1 involving as it does a profound supernatural knowledge of the past1 and being so positively contrary to all that we know of the modern world as to seem essentially absurd1 is yet by its very nature beyond the reach of any tests that we can bring to bear upon it4 ,hence it remains to test by the facts of the rocks the assumption that all over the earth the fossils invariably occur in the particular order in which they were first found in a few corners of ,western ,europe by the founders of the science4 ,have we already a sufficiently broad knowledge of the rocks of the world to decide such a question8 ,i think we have4 ,to begin then at the beginning1 let us try to find out how we can fix on the rocks which are absolutely the oldest on the globe4 ,we would expect to find a good many patches of them here and there1 but there must be some common characteristic by which they may be distinguished wherever found4 ,of course1 when ,i say rocks here ,i mean fossils1 for as has long been agreed upon by geologists1 mineral and mechanical characters are of practically no use in determining the age of deposits1 and we are here dealing only with life and the order in which it has occurred on the globe4 ,accordingly our problem is really to find that typical group of fossils which is essentially older than all dissimilar groups of fossils4 ,in most localities we do not have to go very far down#ad into the earth to find granite or other so-called igneous rocks1 which not only do not contain any traces of fossils1 but which we have no proper reason for supposing ever contained any4 ,these ,azoic or ,archaean rocks constitute practically all the earth's crust1 there being only a thin skim of fossiliferous strata on the outside somewhat like the skin on an apple4 ,now it would be natural enough to suppose that those fossils which occur at the bottom1 or next to the ,archaean1 are the oldest4 ,this is doubtless what the earlier geologists had in mind1 or at least ought to have had1 for it is not quite certain that they had any clear thoughts on the matter whatever4 ,they did not really begin at the bottom1 but half way up1 so to speak1 at the ,mesozoic and ,tertiary rocks1 and ,sedgwick and ,murchison1 who undertook to find bottom1 got too excited over their ,cambro-,silurian controversy to attend to such an insignificant detail as the logical proof that any type of fossils was really older than all others4 ,if they had really stopped to consider that some type of fossil might occur next to the ,archaean in ,wales1 and another type occur thus in ,scotland1 while still another type altogether might be found in this position in some other locality1 and so on over the world1 leading us to the very natural conclusion that in the olden times as now there were zoological provinces and districts1 the history of science during the nineteenth century might have been very different1 and this chapter might never have been written4 ,but this commonplace of modern geology1 that any type of fossil whatever1 even the very youngest1 may occur next to the ,archaean1 was not then considered or understood2 and when about #ahcj it came to be recognized1 other things were allowed to obscure its significance1 and the habit of arranging the rocks in chronological order according to their fossils was too firmly established to be disturbed by such an idea4 ,but the ,fact ,number ,one1 which ,i have chosen as the subject of this chapter1 is the now well established principle that any kind of fossil whatever1 even young ,tertiary rocks1 may rest upon the ,archaean or ,azoic series1 or may themselves be almost wholly metamorphosed or crystalline1 thus resembling in position and outward appearance the so-called oldest rocks4 ,the first part of this proposition1 about any rocks occurring next to the ,archaean1 is covered by the following quotation from ,dana3#ae ,a stratum of one era may rest upon any stratum in the whole of the series below it1--the ,coal-measures on either the ,archaean1 ,silurian1 or ,devonian strata2 and the ,jurassic1 ,cretaceous1 or ,tertiary on any one of the earlier rocks1 the intermediate being wanting4 ,the ,quaternary in ,america in some cases rests on ,archaean rocks1 in others on ,silurian or ,devonian1 in others on ,cretaceous or ,tertiary4 ,it would be tedious to multiply testimony on a point so universally understood4 ,as for the other half of this fact1 that even the so-called youngest rocks may be metamorphic and crystalline just as well as the oldest1 it also is now a recognized commonplace of science4 ,dana#af says that as early as #ahcc ,lyell taught this as a general truth applicable to all the formations from the earliest to the latest4 ,the first reference ,i can find to any disproof of this old fable of ,werner's1 that only certain kinds of rock are to be found next to the ,primitive or ,archaean1 is in the observations of ,studer and ,beaumont in the ,alps1 7#ahbf-bh71 who found relatively young fossils in crystalline schists1 which1 as ,zittel says1 was a very great blow to the geologists who upheld the hypothesis of the ,archaean or pre-,cambrian age of all gneisses and schists4 ,james ,geikie1 doubtless referring to the same series of rocks1 tells us that3-- ,in the central ,alps of ,switzerland1 some of the ,eocene strata are so highly metamorphosed that they closely resemble some of the most ancient deposits of the globe1 consisting1 as they do1 of crystalline rocks1 marble1 quartz-rock1 mica schist1 and gneiss4#ag ,hence we need not be surprised at the following statement of the situation by ,zittel4#ah ,the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century witnessed very great advances in our knowledge of rock-deformation and metamorphism4 ,it has been found that there is no geological epoch whose sedimentary deposits have been wholly safeguarded from metamorphic changes1 and1 as this broad fact has come to be realized1 it has proved most unsettling1 and has necessitated a revision of the stratigraphy of many districts in the light of new possibilities4 ,the newer researches scarcely recognize any theory2 they are directed rather to the empirical method of obtaining all possible information regarding microscopic and field evidences of the passage from metamorphic to igneous rocks1 and from metamorphic to sedimentary rocks4 ,but in addition to what ,zittel means by recognizing no theory as to the origin of the various sorts of igneous rocks1 it seems to me that this broad fact ought surely to prove most unsettling1 to the traditional theories about certain fossils being intrinsically older than others4 ,with our minds divested of all prejudice1 and this broad ,fact ,number ,one well comprehended1 that any kind of fossil whatever may occur next to the ,archaean1 and the rocky strata containing it may in texture and appearance closely resemble some of the most ancient deposits on the globe1 where on this broad earth shall we look for the place to start our life-succession ,that is1 where can we now go to find those kinds of fossils which we can prove1 by independent arguments1 to be absolutely older than all others8 ,it may seem very difficult for some of us to discard a theory so long an integral part of all geology2 but until it can be proved that this broad fact as stated by ,zittel and ,dana is no fact at all1 ,i see no escape from the acknowledgment that the doctrine of any particular fossils being essentially older than others is a pure invention1 with absolutely nothing in nature to support it4 ,or1 to state the matter in another way1 since the life succession theory rests logically and historically on ,werner's notion that only certain kinds of rocks 7fossils7 are to be found at the bottom or next to the ,archaean1 and it is now acknowledged everywhere that any kind of rocks whatever may be thus situated1 it is as clear as sunlight that the life succession theory rests logically and historically on a myth1 and that there is no way of proving what kind of fossil was buried first4 ,of course1 the reason the followers of ,cuvier and his life succession now find themselves in such a fix as this is because they have not been following true inductive methods4 ,theirs has been a geology by hypothesis instead of by observed fact4 ,they started out with a pretty scheme ready-made about the origin and formation of the world1 perfectly innocent of any evil intent in such a method of procedure1 and unconscious of its speculative character2 and for nearly a hundred years they have supposed that they were following inductive methods in ,geology4 ,but in view of what we have now learned ,i think we are perfectly justified in adapting and applying to ,cuvier and the modern school of geologists what ,geikie#ai says about ,werner and his school3 ,but never in the history of science did a stranger hallucination arise than that of ,cuvier and the modern school1 when they supposed themselves to discard theory and build on a foundation of accurately ascertained fact4 ,never was a system devised in which theory was more rampant2 theory1 too1 unsupported by observation1 and1 as we now know1 utterly erroneous4 ,from beginning to end of ,cuvier's method and its applications1 assumptions were made for which there was no ground1 and these assumptions were treated as demonstrable facts4 ,the very point to be proved was taken for granted1 and the evolutionary geologists who boasted of their avoidance of speculation1 were in reality among the most hopelessly speculative of all the generations that had tried to solve the problem of the theory of the earth4 ,,footnotes3 #ac ,the onion-coat hypothesis1 which is the only other alternative1 modern science professes to have abandoned4 #ad ,when the text-books speak of ten or twelve miles thickness of the fossiliferous rocks1 the reader should remember how the rocks have to be patched up together from here and there to make this incredible thickness1 as only a small fraction of such a thickness exists in any one place4 #ae ,manual1 p4 #cii1 ,fourth ,ed4 #af ,manual1 p4 #djh4 #ag ,manual of ,historical ,geol41 p4 #gd4 #ah ,hist41 p4 #cfj4 #ai ,founders of ,geology1 p4 #aab4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,fact ,,number ,,two ,if we had ample evidence that a certain man was personally acquainted with ,julius ,caesar1 that they were born in the same town1 went to school together1 served in the same wars1 and later carried on an extensive mutual correspondence1 would we not conclude that they must have lived in the same age of the world's history8 ,i confess that the conclusion seems quite unavoidable4 ,who would dream that eighteen centuries or more had separated the two lives1 and that while one was an old ,roman the other was an ,american of the latter nineteenth century8 ,some such a puzzle as this is presented in geology under the general subject of conformability4 ,let me define this term4 ,strata laid down by water are in the first place in a horizontal position4 ,some subsequent force may have disturbed them1 so that we may now find them standing up on edge like books in a library4 ,but all human experience goes to show that they were not deposited in this position4 ,some disturbing cause must have taken hold of them since they were laid down1 for the water in which they were made must have spread them out smooth and horizontal1 each subsequent layer or stratum fitting like a glove on the preceding4 ,thus when we find two successive layers agreeing with one another in their planes of bedding1 with every indication that the lower one was not disturbed in any way before the upper one was spread out upon it1 the two are said to be conformable4 ,but if the lower bed has evidently been upturned or disturbed before the other was laid down1 or if its surface has even been partly eroded or washed away by the water1 the strata are said to be unconformable1 or they show unconformability in bedding4 ,of course1 in all this we are dealing only with relative time4 ,when we find one bed or stratum lying above another in their natural position1 the lower one is of course the older of the two2 but whether laid down ten minutes earlier1 or ten million years earlier1 how are we to determine8 ,ignoring the matter of the fossils they contain1 must we not own that1 though there is no way of telling just how much longer the lower one was deposited before the next succeeding1 yet if the two are conformable to one another1 and the bottom one shows no evidence of disturbance or erosion before the other was fitted upon it1 the strong presumption would seem to be that no great length of time could have elapsed between the laying down of the two layers4 ,to say that we have here a geological example similar to that of a modern ,american having been personally acquainted with ,julius ,caesar1 would seem to be quite inexplicable1 as ,herbert ,spencer used to say4 ,but if the life succession theory be true1 we have just such a conundrum in our ,fact ,number ,two1 which is that any formation whatever may rest conformably upon any other older formation4 ,the lower may be ,devonian1 ,silurian1 or ,cambrian1 and the upper one ,cretaceous or ,tertiary1 and thus according to the theory millions on millions of years must have elapsed after the first1 and before the following bed was laid down1 but the conformability is perfect1 and the beds have all the appearance of having followed in quick succession4 ,sometimes1 too1 though less frequently1 these age-separated formations are lithologically the same1 and can only be separated by their fossils6 ,but before going into the minute description of any of these cases1 we must notice some general statements4 ,thus as long ago as the date of the publication of ,the ,origin of ,species1 ,darwin1 in speaking of the ,imperfection of the ,geological ,record1 could speak of ,the many cases on record of a formation conformably covered1 after an immense interval of time1 by another and later formation1 without the underlying bed having suffered in the interval by any wear and tear4#bj ,also ,geikie1#ba in speaking of how fossil evidence may be made to prove the existence of gaps which are not otherwise apparent1 says that ,it is not so easy to give a satisfactory account of those which occur where the strata are strictly conformable1 and where no evidence can be observed of any considerable change of physical conditions at the time of deposit4 ,a group of quite conformable strata having the same general lithological characters throughout1 may be marked by a great discrepance between the fossils of the upper and the lower part4 ,in many cases he says these conditions are not merely local1 but persistent over wide areas4444 ,they occur abundantly among the ,european ,palaeozoic and ,secondary rocks1 and are traceable over wide regions4 ,we have seen how ,dana admits that ,a stratum of one era may rest upon any stratum in the whole series below it1 444 the intermediate being wanting4 ,he classes this under the head of the ,difficulties of the science1 quite naturally as it would seem1 though he does not expressly assert that these age-separated formations are often conformable to one another1 as ,geikie and ,darwin have said in the above given quotations4 ,the literature really teems with illustrations of these facts1 and the more detailed accounts contained in the various ,geological ,reports are often quite charmingly naive in their description of the conditions4 ,two examples1 however1 must suffice1 both from the ,canadian ,north ,west4 ,the first is from the ,report on the region about ,banff1 in ,alberta1 near the line of the ,canadian ,pacific ,railway1 and just east of the ,rockies4 ,east of the main divide the ,lower ,carboniferous is overlaid in places by beds of ,lower ,cretaceous age1 and here again1 although the two formations differ so widely in respect to age1 one overlies the other without any perceptible break1 and the separation of one from the other is rendered more difficult by the fact that the upper beds of the ,carboniferous are lithologically almost precisely like those of the ,cretaceous 7above them47 ,were it not for fossil evidence1 one would naturally suppose that a single formation was being dealt with4#bb ,the other example is from the ,district of ,athabasca4 ,the ,devonian limestone is apparently succeeded conformably by the ,cretaceous1 and with the possible exception of a thin bed of conglomerate of limited extent1 which occurs below ,crooked ,rapid on the ,athabasca1 the age of which is doubtful1 the vast interval of time which separated the two formations1 is1 so far as observed1 unrepresented either by deposition or erosion4#bc ,of course1 some geological writers labor to explain this thundering rebuke of their theory1 just as the ,ptolemaic astronomers had their deterrents and epicycles for every new difficulty4 ,but surely the detailed records of such observations as these are fearful examples of the power of tradition to blind the minds of investigators to the meaning of the very plainest facts4 ,on a previous page 7,id4 p4 #ea17 the author last quoted gives us some idea of the remarkable persistence of this instructive case of conformability1 which extends from the ,athabasca in a broad band around the southern end of ,birch ,mountains1 and across ,lake ,claire to ,peace ,river1 and up the latter stream to a point two miles above ,vermillion ,falls4 ,the distance1 as ,i judge from the map1 can not be less than #aej miles in a straight direction1 thus making a district of probably several thousand square miles in extent where1 according to the theory of a life succession1 nature must have put an injunction on the action of the elements1 and they had to continue in the status quo for millions of ages1 or from the ,devonian to the ,cretaceous age1 the water neither wearing away nor building up over any part of this consecrated ground during all this time4 ,nor is this all1 for from ,part ,e1 ,report 7p4 #bji7 of this same volume1 we are told of strata near ,lake ,manitoba1 over #ejj miles away1 in almost the same wonderful relationship1--,devonian rocks very similar in character to those in ,athabasca still overlaid directly by the ,cretaceous1 though in this case as it happens unconformably4 ,it would almost seem to be a bona fide case of ,werner's onion coats cropping out4 ,and all this incredible picture of nature's inconsistent behaviour in past ages is necessitated solely by the loving allegiance with which the infallibility of the life succession theory is regarded by modern geologists4 ,,footnotes3 #bj ,origin1 ,vol4 ,,ii41 p4 #eh3 ,sixth ,ed4 ,the first edition1 ,i believe1 contains the same language4 #ba ,text-,book1 p4 #hdb4 #bb ,canadian ,annual ,report1 ,new ,series1 ,vol4 ,,ii41 ,part ,a1 p4 #h4 #bc ,annual ,report1 ,new ,series1 ,vol4 ,v41 ,part ,d1 p4 #eb4 ,,chapter ,v ,,turned ,,upside ,,down ,how many of us have ever seen a mountain fall8 ,not very many4 ,and yet events even more wonderful than this have frequently occurred in the past1 as we are confidently assured by the leaders in geological science4 ,thus1 in speaking of a certain region in the ,alps1 ,dana#bd says that one of the overthrust folds has put the beds upside down over an area of #dej square miles4 ,it is well worth our while to try to understand this statement4 ,our first and most natural inquiry is1 ,what is it that leads scientists to think so8 ,the details of this particular case are not very accessible1 and so we are driven to reasoning from analogy from the known methods and constructions employed in this science4 ,we must agree that none of the authorities who report this circumstance can testify as eye-witnesses of this marvellous event3 they were not there on the spot when old ,mother ,earth turned this huge calcareous and silicious pancake4 ,and yet there must be some kind of evidence by which these eminent men have arrived at this conclusion4 ,what kind of evidence can it be8 ,we cannot imagine any physical evidence which could even remotely suggest such an idea4 ,in fact from the universal custom of making the contained fossils the supreme test of the age of a rock deposit1 we are perfectly safe in concluding that it is solely because the fossils occur here in the reverse of the accepted order1 that we have this astounding picture of an immense mountain mass having been put upside down over an area of #dej square miles4 ,the older fossils are evidently here on top1 while the younger ones are underneath1 and of course some explanation must be given of this flat contradiction of the life succession theory4 ,but let us retrace our steps somewhat1 and pick up the thread of our argument4 ,we have already found quite serious reason to question the accuracy of this life succession theory3 but there is still another way of testing its rationality4 ,if certain fossils are not necessarily older than certain others1 it might reasonably be expected that we would now and then find them reversed as to position1 i4e41 with the younger below and the older above4 ,accordingly we have the following very necessary caution from ,prof4 ,nicholson3#be ,it may even be said that in any case where there should appear to be a clear and decisive discordance between the physical and the palaeontological 7fossil7 evidence as to the age of a given series of beds1 it is the former that is to be distrusted rather than the latter4 ,to meet all ordinary cases of this character1 where the differences involve only a few formations representing a few ages or a few million years1 the theory of pioneer colonies was invented by ,barrande in #aheb4 ,but for extreme cases1 say where ,silurian or ,cambrian fossils occur above ,jurassic1 ,cretaceous or ,tertiary1 there is in such a predicament always an anxious search made for faults and displacements2 or gigantic thrust-faults or overthrust folds1 like the example already quoted from ,dana1 are described in picturesque language1 many miles in extent--inventions which1 as ,i have already suggested of a similar expedient to explain away evidence1 deserve to rank with the famous epicycles of ,ptolemy1 and will do so some day4 ,here is ,geikie's highly instructive statement regarding the same conditions3-- ,we may even demonstrate that in some mountainous ground1 the strata have been turned completely upside down1 if we can show that the fossils in what are now the uppermost layers ought properly to lie underneath those in the beds below them4#bf ,some day1 ,i fancy1 a statement like this will be regarded as a literary curiosity4 ,there are plenty of examples under this head1 though two or three ought to be as good as a dozen4 ,in the part of ,alberta east of the ,rockies already referred to1 is a section of country of about fourteen square miles at least--and we know not how much more--where ,cambrian fossils are found above ,cretaceous1 and the inevitable thrust fault is thus described by one of the officers of the ,canadian ,geological ,survey4 ,he has just been speaking of a series of these gigantic thrust faults3-- ,one of the largest and most important of these occurs along the eastern base of the chain1 and brings the ,cambrian limestones of the ,castle ,mountain group over the ,cretaceous of the foot hills4 ,this fault has a vertical displacement of more than #ae1jjj feet 78 three miles71 and an estimated horizontal displacement of the ,cambrian beds of about seven miles in an easterly section4 ,the actually observed overlap amounts to nearly two miles4 ,the angle of inclination of its plane to the horizon is very low1 and in consequence of this its outcrop follows a very sinuous line along the base of the mountains1 and acts exactly like the line of contact of two nearly horizontal formations4 ,the best places for examining this fault are at the gaps of the ,bow and of the south fork of the ,ghost ,river4 ,at the former place the ,cretaceous shales form the floor of the bay which the ,bow has cut in the eastern wall of the range1 and rise to a considerable height in the surrounding slopes4 ,their line of contact with the massive gray limestones of the overlying ,castle ,mountain group is well seen near the entrance of the gap in the hills to the north4 ,the fault plane here is nearly horizontal1 and the two formations1 viewed from the valley1 appear to succeed one another conformably4#bg ,but what an amazing condition of affairs is this4 ,here are great mountainous masses of rock1 very similar in mechanical and mineral make-up to thousands of examples elsewhere4 ,the line of bedding between them acts exactly like the line of contact of two nearly horizontal formations1 and in a natural section cut out by a river the two appear to succeed one another conformably4 ,and yet we are asked to believe that all this is merely an optical illusion4 ,the rocks could not possibly have been deposited in this way1 for the lower ones contain ,benton fossils 7,cretaceous71 and the upper ones are ,cambrian1 and almost the whole geological series and untold millions of years occurred after the upper one1 and before the lower one was formed4 ,solely on the strength of the infallibility of a theory invented a hundred years ago in a little corner of ,western ,europe1 which promulgated1 as respecting the world1 a scheme collected from that province1 and assumed that over all the world the rocks must always follow the order there observed1 we are here asked to deny the positive evidence of our senses because these rocks do not follow this accepted order4 ,i must confess that ,i cannot see the force of such a method of reasoning4 ,it is carrying the argument several degrees beyond the reasoning of the three little green peas in the little green pod1 as narrated in the exquisite fable of ,eugene ,field4 ,these wise little fellows noticed that their little world was all green1 and they themselves green likewise1 and they shrewdly concluded from this that the whole universe must also be green4 ,but we are not told of their travelling abroad and persisting in a systematic attempt to explain all subsequently observed facts in terms of their theory4 ,this government ,report last quoted from says that in the eastern part of ,tennessee the ,appalachian ,chain presents an almost identical structure1 and refers to a similar state of things in the ,highlands of ,scotland4 ,dana1 in the last edition of his ,manual 7p4 #cfi71 refers to this report1 and reproduces some of its plates showing some of the structures referred to2 and on another page1 in speaking of this similar example in ,scotland1 says that a mass of the oldest crystalline rocks1 many miles in length from north to south1 was thrust at least ten miles westward over younger rocks1 part of the latter fossiliferous2 and further declares that the thrust planes look like planes of bedding1 and were long so considered4#bh ,geikie quite naturally devotes several pages in his ,text-,book to a description of these conditions in the ,highlands2 but from one of his first reports on these observations1 published in ,nature#bi we get some much more suggestive details4 ,the thrust-planes1 he says1 are difficult to be distinguished from ordinary stratification planes1 like which they have been plicated1 faulted1 and denuded4 ,here and there1 as a result of denudation1 a portion of one of them appears capping a hill-top4 ,one almost refuses to believe that the little outlier on the summit does not lie normally on the rocks below it1 but on a nearly horizontal fault by which it has been moved into its place4 ,speaking of some similar conditions in ,ross ,shire1 which he himself had previously described as naturally conformable1 he declares3-- ,had these sections been planned for the purpose of deception they could not have been more skillfully devised 444 and no one coming first to this ground would suspect that what appears to be a normal stratigraphical sequence is not really so4 ,when a geologist finds things in this condition1 he says1 he may be excused if he begins to wonder whether he himself is not really standing on his head4 ,but ,i would only weary the reader by attempting to pursue this subject further4 ,those who wish to do so will find many additional examples in the larger works of ,dana1 ,le,conte1 ,prestwich1 and ,geikie1 to say nothing of the more detailed statements buried in numerous ,government ,reports and special monographs in ,german and ,french4 ,from the very same set of beds different observers try to explain these puzzles in very different ways4 ,some1 like ,helm1 will describe gigantic overthrust folds1 and will draw immense arcs of circles several miles high in the air1 as the place where the rocks must once have been4 ,others1 like ,rothpletz1 from an examination of the very same rocks1 will cut the mountain up into sections with imaginary fault-planes1 and will tell how1 in the district about ,glarus for example1 an enormous mass of mountains travelled from east to west a distance of about twenty-five miles from the ,rhine valley to the ,linth1 or how the ,rhatikon ,mountain mass travelled from ,montafon valley to the ,rhine valley1 about nineteen miles from east to west4#cj ,with regard to some at least of these conditions in the ,alps1 ,geikie virtually admits that these incredible and self-contradictory earth-movements are necessitated by and described from fossil evidence only1 for he says3-- 444 the strata could scarcely be supposed to have been really inverted1 save for the evidence 7sic7 as to their true order of succession supplied by their included fossils4 444 portions of ,carboniferous strata appear as if regularly interbedded among ,jurassic rocks1 and indeed could not be separated save after a study of their enclosed organic remains4#ca ,in fact1 we are perfectly safe in concluding in all similar cases that we may encounter in the literature of the science that it is the reversed order of the fossils which constitutes the whole evidence2 for1 as ,i have said1 we can imagine no possible physical evidence competent to form a foundation for such ideas1 nor do ,i know of anything save the exigencies of this venerable theory of life succession1 for which otherwise competent observers will thus freely sacrifice their common sense4 ,when the dividing line between two sets of strata acts exactly like the line of contact between two nearly horizontal formations1 so much so that in a natural section cut out by a river the two appear to succeed one another conformably1 a calm judicial mind1 divested of all theoretical prejudice1 instead of talking about these conditions having been planned by nature for the purpose of deception1 will find no difficulty at all in believing that these rocks were really laid down in the reverse order in which we now find them1 with the younger below and the older above1 and only one under the hypnotic spell of a preconceived theory would at the suggestion of such a fact begin to wonder whether he himself is not really standing on his head4 ,,footnotes3 #bd ,manual1 p4 #cfg4 #be ,ancient ,life-,history of the ,earth1 p4 #dj4 #bf ,text-,book1 p4 #hcg1 ,ed4 of #aijc4 #bg ,annual ,report1 ,new ,series1 ,vol4 ,,ii41 ,part ,d1 pp4 #cc-cd4 #bh pp4 #aaa1 #ecd4 #bi ,nov4 #ac1 #ahhd1 pp4 #bi-ce4 #cj ,see ,nature1 ,jan4 #bd1 #aija1 p4 #bid4 #ca ,text-,book1 p4 #fgh4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,fact ,,number ,,four ,there is only one class of agents now working upon the rocks of the globe which have been in business continuously ever since the dry land appeared1 and which have left us a legible record of approximately the amount of business they have been doing all these centuries4 ,and my ,fact ,number ,four1 which will complete this line of argument in illustrating the antagonism between the facts of the rocks and the theory of life succession1 is that the rivers of the world1 which of course are the agents to which ,i have referred1 in traveling across the country1 act precisely as if they knew nothing of the varying ages of the rocks1 but on the contrary treat them all alike as if they were of the same age1 and as if they began sawing at them all at the same time4 ,of course it is1 evidently1 in only a few cases where the records are so free from ambiguity as to be quite incapable of being misunderstood1 that is1 the cases of rivers with steep rocky gorges1 or those that cut through mountain ranges2 but there are several such rivers in the world1 and they all seem to tell the same story4 ,the famous ,colorado ,river is a good example4 ,it flows from younger strata into older in its deep cutting across the ,arizona plateau4#cb ,stated in terms of the current theory1 this means that when the region of country about the lower part of this river's course first became dry land1 the upper part was still sea1 and that thus there was no such river in existence here until the very youngest of these rocks was formed4 ,for otherwise the river must have started running from the sea toward the dry land1 i4e41 running up hill4 ,stated in terms neutral as to theory1 it means that the whole of this region of country1 drained by this large river1 with its rocks of many varying ages1 was all elevated practically as it is now before this river began its work of erosion4 ,it treats all these rocks as if they were of the same age1 and as if it began sawing at them all at the same time4 ,also its companion1 the ,green ,river1 cuts through the ,uinta ,range in the same manner4 ,similar conditions are said to occur on the ,danube1 and in the river-courses of the ,himalayas1 and elsewhere4 ,in the case of the ,colorado1 ,zittel says that3 ,powell's explanation of the apparent enigma is that after the river had eroded its channel rocks were uplifted in one portion of its course1 but so slow was the rate of uplift that the river was enabled to deepen its channel1 either proportionately or more rapidly1 so that it was never diverted from its former course4 ,it was by similarly cunning inventions that the early writers on astronomy1 alchemy1 and medicine evaded the force of accumulated facts which told against their absurd theories4 ,we have now completed our survey of the strictly stratigraphical phases of this question1 and have found four very remarkable principles about the rocks1 which ,i wish to summarize here before proceeding further4 7#a7 ,the broad fact1 as stated by ,zittel and ,dana1 that any kind of rocks whatever1 i4e4 containing any kinds of fossils1 even the youngest1 may rest on the ,archaean1 and may thus in position1 as also in texture and appearance1 resemble the very oldest deposits on the globe4 7#b7 ,that any kind of beds may rest in such perfect conformability on any other so-called older beds over vast stretches of country that1 were it not for fossil evidence1 one would naturally suppose that a single formation was being dealt with1 while the vast interval of time intervening is unrepresented either by deposition or erosion4 ,the youngest seem to have followed the oldest in quick succession4 7#c7 ,that in very many cases and over many square miles of country these conditions are exactly reversed1 and such very ancient rocks as ,cambrian limestones are on top of the comparatively young ,cretaceous1 while the lime between them acts exactly like the line of contact of two nearly horizontal formations1 and in a natural section made by a river the two appear to succeed one another conformably4 ,to any one ignorant of the theory of life succession they have every appearance of having been deposited as we find them4 7#d7 ,that the rivers of the world1 in cutting across the country1 completely ignore the varying ages of the rocks in the different parts of their courses1 and act precisely as if they began sawing at them all at the same time4 ,now ,i know not what additional fact can be demanded or imagined to complete the demonstration that there is no particular order in which the fossils can be said to occur as regards succession in time4 ,it is true1 some fossiliferous deposits1 metamorphosed almost beyond recognition1 and buried deep beneath thousands of feet of subsequent deposits1 have enough appearance of remote antiquity about them in all conscience4 ,but to increase this antiquity by saying that other equally prodigious masses of rocks elsewhere were deposited long after these1 or by pointing to still other deposits in another region which are said to be older than any of the others1 is an illogical and wholly unscientific procedure4 ,i fear ,i could scarcely confine myself within the bounds of parliamentary language were ,i to attempt to express an opinion regarding any effort that may now be made to justify the life succession theory in view of the above acknowledged facts4 ,and surely it is scarcely necessary in this enlightened age to point out how completely this vitiates any biological argument 7such as that of ,darwinism7 which has incorporated into its system the results of such illogical reasoning1 or which in any way is dependent upon the conclusions of such a theory of geology4 ,in view of the laws of evidence1 which every intelligent person is supposed to understand now-a-days1 surely some strange things passed for scientific proof during the nineteenth century4 ,for1 as we have seen1 the earlier geologists did little better than assume the succession of life bodily2 than ,agassiz and his contemporaries arranged the details and the exact order of these successive life forms by comparison with the embryonic life of the modern individual2 and now the evolutionists of our day1 led by such men as ,spencer and ,haeckel with their phylogenetic principle1 prove their theory of evolution by showing that the embryonic life of the modern individual is only a brief recapitulation1 as it were1 from memory1 of the 7assumed7 geological succession in time4 ,surely this will some day make a more amazing record for posterity than those of phlogiston or the epicycles of ,ptolemy4 ,if ,i am now asked3 ,what do the rocks have to tell us1 in view of the fact that they refuse to testify to a life succession8 ,i can only say that we are not as yet in a position to decide this question4 ,there are several other matters connected with the character and mode of occurrence of the fossils1 which are almost equally important with anything already considered1 in forming a true scientific induction regarding this matter4 ,these facts must be considered in subsequent chapters4 ,already1 however1 we can say this much1 that we have in the rocks almost as complete a world1 in some respects vastly more complete1 than the living world of to-day4 ,with the life succession theory repudiated1 we have still to deal with the fossils themselves which have been thus systematically classified2 but this geological series becomes only the taxonomic or classification series of an older state of our present world1 buried somehow and at some time or times in the remote past--the how and the when of which we have not as yet the means to determine4 ,but ,i think we are now prepared to enter the mazes of the biological argument1 and to study the subject of extinct species1 which by many is supposed to furnish a line of independent evidence in favor of the life succession theory4 ,,footnote3 #cb ,see ,zittel1 ,history of ,geol41 pp4 #baj1 #baa4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,extinct ,,species ,let us now test the value of this assumed life succession by another very simple question4 ,in ,eocene times1 so we are told1 ,england was a land of palms1 with a semi-tropical flora and fauna4 ,in fact at this time1 cycads1 gourds1 proteads 7like the ,australian shrubs and trees71 the fig1 cinnamon1 screw-pine1 and various species of acacias and palms1 abounded in ,england and ,western ,europe2 while turtles1 monkeys1 crocodiles1 and other sub-tropical and warm-temperate forms were equally abundant4 ,then again1 in the ,pleistocene deposits of the same countries1 we find various species of elephant and rhinoceros1 with a hippopotamus1 lion1 and hyena1 identical with species now living in the tropics1 although1 as ,dana says1 these modern kinds are dwarfs in comparison4 ,now1 how are we to prove that these various forms of animal life did not exist together in these countries at the same time as the trees and plants before mentioned8 ,lions and monkeys1 hippopotami and crocodiles1 with elephants1 hyenas1 and rhinoceroses1 now live beneath the palms1 mimosas1 acacias1 and other tropical plants represented in the ,eocene and ,miocene beds4 ,what is there to hinder us from believing that they all lived there together in that olden time8 ,surely it would be the very irony of scientific fate if forms now so closely connected in life should in death be so divided4 ,or1 to present it in another form1 why should we be asked to believe that these acacias1 cinnamons1 palms1 etc41 lived and died ages or millions of years before the lions1 elephants1 rhinoceroses and hippopotami1 came into existence to enjoy their shade2 and then1 after these unnumbered ages had dragged their slow length along and vanished into the dim past1 and all these semi-tropical plants had shifted to the tropics or been turned into lignite1 these lions1 elephants1 and hippopotami came into existence in these same localities1 when no such plants existed anywhere in ,europe8 ,surely we ought to expect some pretty substantial evidence for such a violation of the observed uniformity of nature4 ,we generally boast that we have outgrown the crude ideas of the earlier years of the science when they spoke of ages of limestone making or of sandstone making2 but it seems that some of us have not yet attained to that broad view of the essential unity of nature in which the flora and fauna of our world are seen to be just as indissolubly connected with each other4 ,but nature could as easily be persuaded to produce for a whole age nothing in the way of rock but limestone or conglomerate1 as to adjust her powers to such an unbalanced state of affairs as is spoken of above1 with the animals in one age and the complementary plants in another4 ,but in considering this question as to why the ,eocene plants and the ,pleistocene animals may not be supposed to have lived contemporaneously together1 we are brought face to face with the second supposed argument in favor of there having been a succession of life on the globe4 ,the answer given is that all the animals of these early ,tertiary beds are extinct species1 also very many of the plants2 while the hyena1 lion1 hippopotamus1 etc41 of the ,pleistocene are identical with the living species1 and even the mammoth is so closely like its nearest surviving relative1 the ,asiatic elephant 7,e4 indicus71 that these also might be classed as identical4#cc ,this point being considered by many as so important1 and having such a vital connection with the whole life succession theory1 we must go into the matter somewhat in detail1 even at the risk of appearing rather technical to some4 ,if the ,palaeozoic and ,mesozoic strata are often of enormous extent1 spreading in vast sheets over wide regions1 so that their stratigraphical order in any particular district is quite readily made out1 it is in most cases altogether different with the ,tertiary and ,pleistocene deposits4 ,for these resemble one another so much in everything except their fossils1 and occur so generally in detached and fragmentary beds1 holding no stratigraphical relation to one another1 that ,lyell devised the plan of distinguishing them from one another and arranging them in the accustomed order of successive ages1 by their relative percentages of living and extinct mollusca4 ,with only unimportant changes1 ,lyell's divisions are still followed in classifying off the ,tertiary and post-,tertiary beds4 ,those with all the species extinct1 or less than #e per cent4 living1 are classed as ,eocene2 those containing few extinct forms1 or nearly all living species1 are classed as ,pleistocene or post-,tertiary4 ,the ,miocene and ,pliocene represent the intermediate grades1 and all are supposed to be a true chronological order4 ,it goes without saying that in actual practice it is often so extremely difficult to adjust these differences that beds are assigned to an early or a late division on general principles by what the literary critics would call tact or intuition1 rather than by the strict percentage system1 though for these large and important divisions of ,tertiary and post-,tertiary rocks1 these are absolutely the only professed grounds on which the subdivisions are distinguished and arranged in the customary order of time4 ,in the words of ,dr4 ,david ,page3 ,as there is often no perceptible mineral distinction between many clays1 sands and gravels1 it is only by their imbedded fossils that geologists can determine their ,tertiary or post-,tertiary character4#cd ,now to say that a set of beds1 ninety-five per cent4 of whose fossils belong to extinct species1 and only five per cent4 are now living1 must be vastly older than another set where these percentages are reversed1 i4e4 where the species are nearly all living1 seems at first thought an eminently reasonable idea1 and we immediately begin to imagine the long ages it must have taken for these exceedingly numerous and apparently vigorous species to wear out and become extinct in the alleged ordinary way by the merciless struggle for existence with forms more fitted to survive4 ,but it is hardly necessary to point out that all this is based on the assumption of ,uniformity in its most extreme type1 a doctrine which not only denies that these living forms are merely the lucky survivors of tremendous changes in which their contemporaries perished1 but which in essence is taking for granted beforehand the very point which ought to be the chief aim of all geological inquiry1 viz41 ,how did the geological changes take place8 ,it would not be considered a very scientific procedure for a coroner1 called upon to hold a post mortem1 to content himself with interesting statistics about the percentage of people who die of old age1 fever1 and other causes1 while there was clear and decisive evidence that the poor fellow had been shot4 ,in this case1 as in geology1 it is not merely the result that is wrong1 but the whole method of investigation4 ,for1 as in the latter case we don't want to know how people generally die1 but how this particular person actually did die1 so1 in our study of geology1 we do not wish to know merely the rate at which changes of surface and extinctions of species are now going on1 and then project this measure backward into the past as an infallible guide1 but we wish to know for sure just what changes of this nature have taken place4 ,a true induction is1 ,i think1 capable of deciding very positively whether or not the tools of nature have always worked at the same rate and with the same force as at present2 and this method of arranging the fossils in supposed chronological order on the percentage basis mentioned above1 is only an extreme form of methods claiming to be inductive which in this age of the world ought to be considered a shame and a disgrace1 because1 as ,howorth says1 they are based1 not upon induction1 but upon hypotheses1 and have all the infirmity of the science of the ,middle ,ages4 ,then again1 it occurs to us1 that this method1 of attaching a time-value to percentages of extinct or living species1 would make the sub-fossil remains of the bison on the ,western prairies almost infinitely older than those of the lion1 hippopotamus1 etc41 in the ,pleistocene beds of ,europe2 for 7except for some few specimens artificially preserved1 and which may be ignored in this connection7 the bison is to-day absolutely extinct1 while the ,pleistocene mammals are found by the thousand in the proper localities and show no signs of surrender in the struggle for existence4 ,similar comparisons might be made between the great wingless birds of ,madagascar1 ,mauritius and ,new ,zealand1 and the many cases of persistent forms which have survived unchanged from ,carboniferous1 ,silurian1 or ,cambrian times1 a period of time which1 in the language of the current geology1 means quite a large fraction of eternity4 ,but all of these considerations show that the mere fact of certain species being extinct and others being now alive1 is no trustworthy guide in determining the relative age of their remains1 until we first find out how they happened to become extinct4 ,the inquiry as to the how and the when 7relatively7 is an absolutely essential preliminary in any such investigation2 and is inseparably united in nature with the general question of how the great geological changes have taken place in the past4 ,of course1 if everything like a world-catastrophe is a priori denied2 if1 in other words1 it is settled from the first that all these fossils living and extinct did not live contemporaneously with each other1 the living ones being simply the lucky survivors of stupendous changes in which the others perished1 then all pretense of a scientific investigation of the subject is at an end4 ,if a coroner has it settled beforehand that an accident or a murder could not possibly have occurred1 then his profession of a candid post mortem examination is only a farce2 for he does not hold it to find out anything1 since he knows everything essential about it beforehand4 ,uniformitarians would certainly make poor coroners1 or for that matter poor investigators of law or history1 or anything else4 ,will some one please give us a reasonable explanation of why the lion1 hippopotamus1 rhinoceros1 and elephant shifted from ,england to the tropics8 ,or will they explain how1 at this same general time1 some elephants and rhinoceroses got caught in the merciless frosts of ,northern ,siberia so suddenly that their flesh has remained untainted all these centuries1 and is now1 wherever exposed1 greedily devoured by the dogs and wolves8 ,an abundant warm-climate vegetation once mantled all the polar regions1 and its fossils have been found just about as far north as explorers have ever gone2 while ,dana says that1 ,the encasing in ice of huge elephants1 and the perfect preservation of the flesh1 shows that the cold finally became suddenly extreme1 as of a single winter's night1 and knew no relenting afterwards4#ce ,now1 if no one can deny this sudden change of climate over half the world or so at least1 is it not extremely unscientific to deny that this same cause1 whatever it may have been1 was quite competent to bring about a good many other changes1 and the extinction of numerous other species which we are so often reminded must imply the lapse of untold ages of time8 ,the economizing of energy1 or the famous law of parsimony as stated by ,leibnitz1 is quite appropriate in this case1 and may be referred to again in the sequel4 ,the principle upon which ,i must here insist is that the mere fact of certain species being extinct1 and others being now alive1 gives no clue whatever to the relative age of these remains1 until we first ascertain why1 how and when this extinction was brought about4 ,and yet1 though every one admits the fact of tremendous changes of climate1 etc41 having intervened between that ancient world and our own 7the true extent and character of which1 as ,i have said1 ought to be the chief point of all geological investigation71 no allowance seems ever to be made for this as a powerful cause of extermination of all forms of life4 ,but in the utter absence of any such explanation as to how and when1 and in the very teeth of these facts assuming a dead-level uniformitarianism1 the presence of ten1 fifty or a hundred per cent4 of extinct forms in a set of beds is manifestly of no scientific value in determining age4 ,it would be many degrees more reasonable and accurate to arrange all the ,greek and ,latin books of the world in chronological order according to the percentage of their words which have survived into the ,english language4 ,indeed1 it would be much like a coroner1 at the inquest following a railway disaster1 attempting to arrange the exact order in which the various victims had perished by the proportionate number of surviving relatives which each had left behind him4 ,and the completely worthless character of such evidence of age becomes1 if possible1 more apparent when we consider that very many of these so-called extinct forms are not really distinct species from their living representatives of to-day4 ,it is notorious1 says ,darwin1 on what excessively slight differences many palaeontologists have founded their species4 ,and even to-day1 in spite of all that we have learned about variation1 little or no allowance seems ever to be made for the effects of a certainly greatly changed environment4 ,if the fossil forms among the mollusks and other shell fish for instance1 are not precisely like the modern ones in every respect1 they are always classed as separate species1 the older forms thus being extinct1 in utter disregard of the striking anatomical differences between the huge ,pleistocene mammals and their dwarfish descendants of to-day1 which for a hundred years or so were declared positively to be distinct from one another1 but are now acknowledged to be identical4 ,of course no one denies that there are numerous extinct forms among the invertebrates1 just as we know there are among the huge vertebrates of the ,mesozoic and ,tertiaries1 none of which we moderns have ever seen alive4 ,other forms do not appear familiar to our modern eyes1 because larger or of somewhat different form2 but to say that they are really distinct species from their modern representatives1 or to say that no human being ever saw them alive1 are statements utterly incapable of proof4 ,up to about the year #ahfi it was stoutly maintained that man had never seen any of these fossil forms in life4 ,but no one now maintains this view1 for human remains have now been found along with undisturbed fossils of the ,pleistocene1 or even middle ,tertiaries1 while the paintings on the cave walls of ,southern ,france seem conclusive that they were copied from life when the mammoth and reindeer lived side by side with man in that latitude4 ,hence the only question now is1 and it is the supreme question of all modern geology1 ,,with ,,how ,,much ,,of ,,that ,,ancient ,,fossil ,,world ,,were ,,these ,,equally ,,fossil ,,men ,,acquainted8 ,if ,man lived in ,pliocene or perhaps ,miocene times1 when a luxuriant vegetation was spread out over all the ,arctic regions1 what possible evidence is there to show that his companions1 the rhinoceros1 hippopotamus1 mammoth1 etc41 were not also living then and browsing off just such plants1 when the ,arctic frosts caught them in the grip of death and put their mummies in cold storage for our astonishment and scientific information8 ,things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other2 why should not the plants and animals1 contemporary with the same creature 7man71 be just as truly contemporary with one another8 ,if man was contemporary with the ,miocene plants1 and the ,pleistocene mammals were contemporary with man1 what is there to forbid the idea that the ,pleistocene mammals and the middle ,tertiary flora were contemporary with each other8 ,for nearly half a century geologists have never had the courage to face this problem fairly and squarely1 with all preconceived prejudices about uniformity cast aside4 ,is it possible that all the plants and animals of the ,tertiaries and the ,pleistocene may have really lived together in the same world after all8 ,but the trouble would then be that1 with this much conceded1 the whole phylogenic series would tumble with it1 and become only the taxonomic or classification series of that ancient world with which these fossil men were acquainted4 ,to appropriate the words of one who has done much to clear the ground for a common-sense study of geology1 ,i know of nothing against such an idea save the almost pathetic devotion of a large school of thinkers to the religion founded by ,hutton1 whose high priest was ,lyell1 and which in essence is based on a priori arguments like those which dominated ,mediaeval scholasticism and made it so barren4#cf ,baron ,cuvier's work in the line of comparative osteology has never been surpassed1 perhaps never equalled since1 and he is said to have been the greatest naturalist and comparative anatomist of that1 or perhaps of any time4 7,le,conte1 ,evol4 and ,rel4 ,thought1 pp4 #cc1 #cd72 and yet he maintained till the last that all those which we now call the ,pleistocene mammals were distinct species from the modern ones2 and it is only of recent years and with extreme reluctance that many of them have been admitted to be identical with the ones now living4 ,all of which tends to show how unreliable are those assertions commonly found in the text-books about all the species of the so-called older rocks being extinct4 ,it is only with hesitation that such specific distinctions are surrendered even to-day1 though during the last few decades a steady progress has been made in bringing the palaeontology of the higher vertebrates into line with our increased knowledge of zoology1 thus breaking down many of the specific distinctions which have long been maintained between the fossil and the living forms4 ,even the mammoth has been found to have so many characters identical with the modern elephant of ,india1 and such a complete gradation exists between the two types1 that ,flower and ,lydekker acknowledge the transition from one to the other is almost imperceptible1 and express a doubt whether they can be specifically distinguished from one another4#cg ,but the extreme reluctance with which anything like a confession of this fact leaks out in our modern literature can be readily understood when we try the hopeless task of splicing the environment of the modern form with that of the ancient on any basis of uniformity4 ,zittel gives us a peep behind the scenes which helps us to appreciate the value of a percentage of extinct species as a test of the age of a rock deposit4 ,he pictures the uncritical work of the earlier writers on fossil botany1 until ,august ,schink 7#ahfh-ia7 made a great reform in this science2 and ,zittel declares that now the author of a paper on any department of fossil botany is expected to have a sound knowledge of the systematic botany of recent forms4 ,but he adds3 ,it cannot be said that palaeozoology 7the science of fossil animals7 has yet arrived at this desirable standpoint4 ,but he justifies this charge of want of confidence by saying3 ,comparatively few individuals have such a thorough grasp of zoological and geological knowledge as to enable them to treat palaeontological researches worthily1 and there has accumulated a dead weight of stratigraphical-palaeontological literature wherein the fossil remains of animals are named and pigeon-holed solely as an additional ticket of the age of a rock-deposit1 with a willful disregard of the much more difficult problem of their relationships in the long chain of existence4 ,the terminology which has been introduced in the innumerable monographs of special fossil faunas in the majority of cases makes only the slenderest pretext of any connection with recent systematic zoology2 if there is a difficulty1 then stratigraphical arguments are made the basis of a solution4 ,zoological students are1 as a rule1 too actively engaged and keenly interested in building up new observations to attempt to spell through the arbitrary palaeontological conclusions arrived at by many stratigraphers1 or to revise their labors from a zoological point of view4#ch ,doubtless this scathing impeachment of the common mania for creating new names for the fossils has especial reference to the case of the lower forms of life4 ,for if1 in spite of the brilliant and withal careful work of ,cuvier1 ,owen1 ,wallace1 ,huxley1 ,ray ,lankester1 and ,leith ,adams1 with numerous others that might be mentioned1 there are still grounds for such grave doubts of the values of specific distinctions in the case of the mammals1 whose general anatomy and life-history are so well known and their almost countless variations so well studied out1 what must be the confusion and inaccuracy in the case of the lower vertebrates1 and especially of the invertebrates1 whose general life-history in so many instances is so dimly understood1 and the limits of their variations absolutely unknown8 ,remembering all this1 what is our amazement when we read in this same volume by ,professor ,zittel#ci that the tendency among many modern writers in dealing with these lower forms of life1 is toward the erection of the closest possible distinctions between genera and species1 until recent palaeontological literature is fairly inundated with new names2 and all this with the purpose1 unblushingly avowed1 of enhancing the value of such distinctions as a means of determining the relative ages of strata1 and to bring the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of the various forms into more apparent correspondence4 ,i do not exaggerate in the least1 as the reader may see by referring to ,zittel's book2 though not wishing to make my readers spell through another quite technical paragraph ,i have refrained from direct quotation4 ,but surely we have here a most amazing style of reasoning4 ,it is another clear case of first assuming one's premises1 and then proving them by means of one's conclusion4 ,the method here employed seems about like this3 ,first assume the succession of life from the low to the high as a whole2 then in any particular group1 as of ,brachiopods or ,mollusks1 decide the momentous question as to which came first and which later in geological time by comparing them as to size1 shape1 etc41 with the live modern individual in its development from the egg to maturity2 and lastly1 take the results of this alleged chronological arrangement to prove just how the modern forms have evolved4 ,surely it is a most fearful example of otherwise intelligent men being hypnotized by their theory into blind obedience to its suggestions and necessities4 ,not long ago ,i had occasion to write to a well-known geologist about a ,lower ,cambrian mollusk which appears strikingly like a modern species4 ,i give below an extract from his reply which bears directly upon this point4 ,i withhold the name1 for the information was given in a half-confidential manner1 but ,i may say that the author's work on the ,palaeozoic fossils is recognized on both sides of the ,atlantic4 ,some geologists make it a point to give a new name to all forms found in the ,palaeozoic rocks1 i4e4 a name different from those of modern species4 ,i was taken to task by a noted palaeontologist for finding a pupa 7a kind of land snail7 in ,devonian beds2 but ,i could not find any point in which it differed from the modern genus 8 species4 ,yet if ,i could have had more perfect specimens ,i might have found differences4 ,such disclosures speak volumes for those able to understand2 and lead one to receive with a smile the familiar assertion that all the species of the ,palaeozoic and other older rocks are extinct4 ,and we can now form a truer estimate of the high scientific accuracy of ,lyell's ingenious division of the ,tertiary beds1 according to the percentage of living or extinct ,mollusks which they contain4 ,but from the inherent weakness of the argument about extinct species as thus revealed1 it follows that chronological distinctions based on any proportionate number of extinct species have absolutely no scientific value2 and hence that the life succession theory finds no support from these chronological distinctions1 just as we have already seen that it is without a vestige of support from the stratigraphical argument4 ,the life succession theory has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature4 ,it is not the result of scientific research1 but purely the product of the imagination4 ,,footnotes3 #cc ,see p4 #ci of this volume4 #cd ,intro4 ,text-,book1 p4 #ahi4 #ce ,manual1 p4 #ajjg4 ,prof4 ,dana has italicized the word suddenly4 #cf ,howorth1 ,the ,glacial ,nightmare and the ,flood1 preface1 xx1 xxi4 #cg ,mammals1 ,living and ,extinct1 pp4 #dbh-i4 #ch ,hist4 of ,geol41 pp4 #cge-f4 #ci pp4 #djj1 #djc1 #dje4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,skipping ,we have now to deal with another absurdity involved in the life succession theory1 the discussion of which grows naturally out of the subject of extinct species4 ,as preliminary to the subject here to be presented1 we must bear in mind that the present arrangement of the fossils in alleged chronological order1 as well as the naming of thousands of typical specimens1 was all well advanced while as yet little or nothing was known of the contents of the depths of the ocean1 or even of the land forms of ,africa1 ,australia1 and other foreign countries4 ,in most of the important groups of both plants and animals1 the detailed knowledge of the fossil forms preceded the knowledge of the corresponding living forms1 just as ,zittel says that the theories of the igneous origin of the crystalline rocks had been laid without the assistance of chemistry and the knowledge of the microscopic structure of these rocks4#dj ,on pp4 #abh-acg of his ,history1 this author shows how1 up to #ahbj1 little or nothing of a scientific character was known of any of the classes of living animals save mammals4 ,during the last half century1 however1 the progress of science has been steadily showing case after case where families and genera1 long boldly said to have been extinct since ,palaeozoic time1 are found in thriving abundance and in little altered condition in unsuspected places all over the world4 ,and the point for consideration here is the manifest absurdity of these inhabitants of the modern seas and the modern land skipping all the uncounted millions of years from ,palaeozoic times down to the recent1 for1 though found in profuse abundance in these ,older rocks1 not a trace of many of them is to be found in all the subsequent deposits4 ,the proposition here to be considered and proved ,i shall venture to formulate as follows3 ,there is a fossil world1 and there is a modern living world2 the two resembling one another in various details as well as in a general way2 but to get the ancestral representatives of many modern types1 e4g41 countless invertebrates1 with other lower forms of animals and plants1 we must go clear back to the ,mesozoic or the ,palaeozoic rocks1 for they are not found in any of the more recent deposits4 ,i have already remarked that the blending of the doctrine of life succession with that of uniformity1 must inevitably have given birth to the evolution theory1 for it is evident that the succession from the low to the high could only have taken place by each type blending with those before and those after it in the alleged order of time4 ,that such is not the testimony of the rocks1 even when arranged with this idea in view1 is too notorious to need any words of mine1 for it has been considered by many#da the greatest of all objections to the theory of evolution4 ,this abruptness in the disappearance of old and the first appearance of new forms1 has brought into being that geological scape-goat1 as ,james ,geikie has called the doctrine of the imperfection of the record4 ,but ,dawson has well disposed of this argument in the following words3 ,when we find abundance of examples of the young and old of many fossil species1 and can trace them through their ordinary embryonic development1 why should we not find examples of the links which bound the species together8#db ,but it is equally evident that each successive series ought to contain1 in addition to its own characteristic or new species1 all the older forms which survived into any later deposits1 or are now to be found living in our modern world4 ,such no doubt was the idea of those of the early geological explorers who discarded ,werner's onion-coat theory1 and they tried to arrange their series accordingly4 ,this reasonable demand is still recognized as good2 and the principle is alluded to by ,dana when he attempts to show how strata might be discovered and proved to be older than the present ,lower ,cambrian rocks4#dc ,it is1 ,i say1 still recognized in theory that the younger deposits ought to contain samples of the older types which were still surviving1 in addition to their own characteristic species2 but with the progress of geological discovery it has long since been found that such an arrangement was utterly impossible4 ,indeed1 it would almost seem as if modern writers had forgotten the principle altogether4 ,for1 as already said1 according to the present chronological arrangement1 many kinds of invertebrates1 both terrestrial and marine1 occurring in comparative abundance in our modern world1 are found as fossils only in the very oldest rocks and are wholly absent from all the rest666 ,others which date from ,mesozoic times are wholly absent from the ,tertiaries1 though abundant in our modern world4 ,this ,i regard as another crucial test of the rationality of this idea of a life succession4 ,of course there are certain limitations which must be borne in mind4 ,if we find a series of beds made up largely of deep sea deposits1 we cannot reasonably expect to find in them examples of all the land forms of the preceding ages which then survived1 nor even of the shallow water types4 ,nor1 conversely1 can we demand that1 in beds crowded with the remains of the great mammals and plants1 and thus probably of fresh or shallow water formation1 we ought to find examples of all the marine types still surviving4 ,we now know that each level of ocean depth has its characteristic types of life1 just as do the different heights on a mountain side4 ,this doctrine of rock facies was1 ,i believe1 enunciated first in #ahch4 ,edward ,forbes also did much for this same idea1 showing how at the present time certain faunas are confined to definite geographical limits1 and particular ocean depths4 ,jules ,marcou about #ahdh applied this principle to the fossils and showed how such distinctions must have prevailed during geological time4 ,here it seems that we are at last getting a refreshing breath of true science2 but if carried out in its entirety how shall we assure ourselves that in the long ago very diverse types of fossils1 e4g41 gratolites and nummulites1 or even trilobites and mammals1 could not have been contemporary with each other8 ,this principle of rock facies1 if incorporated into the science in its early days1 would have saved the world from a large share of the nonsense in our modern geological and zoological text-books4 ,but in answer to any pleadings about the imperfection of the record1 or any protests about the injustice of judging all the life-forms of an age by a few examples of local character1 i4e41 of fresh1 shallow1 or deep water as the case may be1 the very obvious retort is1 ,why then are such local and fragmentary records given a time value8 ,why1 for example1 should the ,carboniferous and associated formations be counted as representing all the deposits made in a certain age of the world1 when we know from the ,cambrian and ,silurian and also from the alleged subsequent ,jurassic that there must have been vast open sea deposits formed contemporaneously8 ,as ,dana expresses it3 ,the ,lias and ,oolyte of ,britain and ,europe afforded the first full display of the marine fauna of the world since the era of the ,subcarboniferous4 ,very partial exhibits were made by the few marine beds of the ,coal measures3 still less by the beds of the ,permian1 and far less by the ,triassic4 ,the seas had not been depopulated4 ,the occurrence of over #d1jjj invertebrate species in ,britain in the single ,jurassic period is evidence1 not of deficient life for the eras preceding1 but of extremely deficient records4#dd ,surely these words exhibit the phylogenic series in all its native1 unscientific deformity4 ,it is because the ,coal-measures1 the ,permian1 and the ,triassic1 are necessarily extremely deficient records of the total life-forms then in the world1 that ,i am writing this chapter1 and this book4 ,but it seems like perverseness to plead about the imperfection of the record1 and yet refuse the evidently complementary deposits when they are presented4 ,if1 as this illustrious author says1 ,the seas had not been depopulated1 what would he have us think they were doing8 ,were they forming no deposits all these intervening ages that the ,carboniferous1 ,permian1 and ,triassic were being piled up8 ,were the fishes and invertebrates all immortalized for these ages1 or were they1 when old and full of days translated to some supermundane sphere1 thus escaping deposit in the rocks8 ,did the elements continue in the status quo all these uncounted millions of years8 and if so1 how did they receive notice that the ,triassic period was at last ended1 and that it was time for them to begin work again8 ,i do not like to appear trivial2 but these questions serve to expose the folly of taking diverse1 local1 and partial deposits1 and attaching a chronological value to each of them separately1 and then pleading in a piteous1 helpless way about the imperfection of the record4 ,and yet ,i cannot promise to present a tithe of the possible evidence1 because of two serious handicaps4 ,first1 the ordinary literature of the science is silent and meagre enough in all conscience1 even though the bare fact may be recorded that a genus of the ,cambrian or ,silurian is closely allied to some genus now living4 ,it may be even admitted that according to some it is not genetically distinct from the modern genus so-and-so2 but the authors never descend below the genus1 and in most cases forget to tell us whether or not it occurs in other later formations1 though of course the presumption is that it does not1 but has skipped all the intervening ages1 or it would hardly be named as a characteristic type of the formation in which it occurs4 ,but this disadvantage1 serious though it be1 is scarcely worth speaking of when we remember the significant words of a well-known authority already quoted3 ,some geologists make it a point to give a new name to all forms found in the ,palaeozoic rocks1 i4e4 a name different from those of modern species4 ,or ,zittel's confession that3 ,the terminology which has been introduced in the innumerable monographs of special fossil faunas in the majority of cases makes only the slenderest pretext of any connection with recent systematic zoology2 if there is a difficulty1 then stratigraphical arguments are made the basis of a solution4 ,zoological students are as a rule too actively engaged and keenly interested in building up new observations to attempt to spell through the arbitrary palaeontological conclusions arrived at by many stratigraphers1 or to revise their labors from a zoological point of view4 ,hence ,i have no reluctance in saying that1 in the present confused state of the science1 it is utterly impossible to find out the truth as to how many hundreds of these genera of the ,paleozoic rocks may have survived to the present1 though having skipped perhaps all the formations of the intervening millions of years4 ,i doubt not that the number is enormously large1 though as ,i have not attempted to spell through the arbitrary palaeontological conclusions scattered through the literature1 ,i can only depend on a few though striking examples that lie on the open pages of the ordinary text-books4 ,the larger mammals can of course furnish us no examples1 for the age in which they abounded is quite conveniently modern1 and is separated from the present by no great lapse of time4 ,of the smaller marsupials1 quite a number of jaw-bones have been found in the ,jurassic and ,triassic1 one from the latter being strikingly like the living ,myrmecobius of ,australia4 ,they are scarcely more numerous in the ,cretaceous of ,america1 while in the foreign rocks of this system ,dana says that ,only one species had been reported up to #ahid4 ,those strange1 sad-eyed creatures called ,lemurs deserve a passing notice1 for though now confined as to their typical forms to the island of ,madagascar1 their fossils seem as exclusively confined to the temperate regions of the ,new and the ,old ,world4 ,flower and ,lydekker enumerate about fifteen fossil species1 and add that3 444 it is very noteworthy that all these types seem to have disappeared from both regions with the close of the upper portion of the ,eocene period4#de ,but this jump from the ,eocene period to the present is as nothing compared with the secular acrobatics of some of the fishes and especially of the invertebrates4 ,the living ,cestraciont sharks1 of which there are four species found in the seas between ,japan and ,australia1 seem to disappear with the ,cretaceous1 skipping the whole ,tertiary ,epoch1 as do also a tribe of modern barnacles which1 as ,darwin says1 coat the rocks all over the world in infinite numbers4 ,the ,dipnoans or ,lung-fishes 7having lungs as well as gills1 such as the ,ceratodus and ,lepidosiren71 which are represented by several living species in ,australia and ,south ,africa1 are the remains of a tribe found in whole shoals in the ,carboniferous1 ,triassic and ,jurassic rocks1 but not1 so far as ,i know1 in any of the intervening rocks4 ,the living ,ceratodus was only discovered in #ahgj1 and was regarded as a marvel of persistence4 ,on a pinch1 as when his native streams dry up1 this curious fellow can get along all right without water1 breathing air by his lungs like a land animal4 ,if in the meantime he was off on a trip to the moon1 he must have persisted a few million years without either4 ,but his cousin1 the ,polypterus of the ,upper ,nile1 has a still more amazing record1 for he has actually skipped all the formations from the ,devonian down to the modern2 while the ,limuloids or sea scorpions have jumped from the ,carboniferous down4 ,the ,mollusks and ,brachiopods would afford us examples too numerous to mention4 ,how is it possible that these numerous families disappear suddenly and completely with the ,mesozoic or even the early ,palaeozoic1 and are not found in any later deposits1 though alive now in our modern world8 ,parts of ,europe and ,america have1 we are told1 been down under the sea and up again a dozen times since then2 why then should we not expect to find abundant remains of these persistent types in the ,mesozoic and ,tertiaries8 ,surely these feats of time-acrobatics show the folly of arranging contemporaneous1 taxonomic groups in single file and giving to each a time value4 ,the ,chalk points a similar lesson4 ,it was not till the time of the ,challenger ,expedition that the modern deposits of ,globigerina ooze1 made up of species identical with those of the ,chalk1 were known to be now forming over vast areas of the ocean floor4 ,in the words of ,huxley1 these modern species bridge over the interval between the present and the ,mesozoic periods4#df ,as for the silicious sponges found in the ,chalk1 which were such puzzles for the scientists during the first half of the nineteenth century1 because their living forms were unknown1 the deep-sea investigations have solved the problem1 for in #ahgg ,sollas demonstrated the identity of their structure with that of living ,hexactinellids1 ,lithistids1 and ,monactinellids4#dg ,and yet with all the alleged vicissitudes of the continents during the millions of years since the ,cretaceous age1 there is so far as ,i am aware not a trace of either the chalk or the sponges in any of the subsequent rocks4 ,pieces of ,cretaceous rock are of course found thus sporadically as boulders1 but there is no natural deposit of this kind4 ,but in the light of these modern discoveries why is not the ,chalk of the white dear cliffs of ,dover1 full of modern living species as we now know it to be1 just as recent a deposit as the late ,tertiaries or the ,pleistocene8 ,another good illustration of the absurdity of the present arrangement of the rocks is found in the ,echinoderms--crinoids1 star-fishes1 sea-urchins1 etc4 ,of the latter ,prof4 ,a4 ,agassiz found in the deep waters of the ,west ,indies1 four genera of ,echinids or sea-urchins of the later ,tertiary1 but #bd genera of the early ,tertiary1 #aj of the ,cretaceous1 and #e of the ,jurassic4#dh ,but far from being uncommon we know that similar discoveries have been in almost constant progress during the last half century4 ,and were it not that zoological students are1 as ,zittel says1 too actively engaged and keenly interested in building up new observations to attempt to spell through the arbitrary palaeontological conclusions found in the dead weight of stratigraphical-palaeontological literature1 there is no telling what hosts of similar facts might not be pointed to regarding the forms found in all the older rocks4 ,of the star-fishes and serpent-stars 7,asteridea and ,ophiuridea71 ,zittel says3 ,it would seem that the ,palaeozoic 'sea-stars' differed very little from those in the seas of the present age4 7p4 #cie47 ,the crinoids1 we are told1 are among the earliest in geological history1 making up vast limestones of the ,palaeozoic rocks2 and forms scarcely separable from the modern are found in the ,jurassic1 but so far as the text-books tell us are absolutely unknown in any later deposits4 ,but there are several modern genera1 such as ,pentacrinus1 ,rhizocrinus1 ,bathycrinus1 etc41 found in the deep waters of nearly all the oceans4 ,the genus ,rhizocrinus was discovered off the coast of ,norway about the sixties of the last century4 ,but what were these creatures doing since ,jurassic times1 while the pulsating crust was putting parts of the continents under the sea for ages at a stretch8 ,why did they form no deposits during the ,cretaceous1 ,eocene1 ,miocene or ,pliocene ages8 ,surely the absurdity of the present arrangement is evident to a child4 ,during all these intervening ages the climate of the globe continued of the same remarkable mildness1 fossils of all these formations being found about as far north as explorers have ever gone4 ,why did the crinoids and polyp-corals suspend business from ,jurassic times to the recent1 merely to accommodate a modern theory8 ,dana says that ,the coral reefs of the ,oolyte in ,england consist of corals of the same group with the reef-making species of the existing tropics1#di and he argues from this fact that the mean temperature of the waters must have been about #fi deg4 ,f4 ,but a luxuriant vegetation still continued in the ,arctic regions during the ,cretaceous and the ,tertiaries4 ,how absurd to say that these corals built no reefs about the ,european coasts during all these ages4 ,or1 to put the matter in another way1 considering how many of their characteristic types are alive in our modern seas1 why should we say that the crinoidal or coral limestones of the ,mesozoic or ,palaeozoic rocks are not as recent as the nummulitic limestones of the ,eocene or any late ,tertiary deposits8 ,it is no answer at all to tell us that1 though the general types are the same1 the species of the ,palaeozoic and the ,mesozoic are entirely extinct4 ,i have not had the courage to attempt to spell through all the dead weight of the modern literature1 but ,i think that the world would like more satisfactory proof of this oft-repeated assertion than the customs and traditions of a hundred years1 and the exigencies of a fanciful theory4 ,this worn-out argument of ,cuvier's about extinct species has kept up a running fight with common sense for many decades1 and though driven backward from one point to another over the long thin line of this taxonomic series of the fossil world1 it still contests every inch of ground4 ,but let us try the tree-ferns and cycads of the coal beds of the older rocks4 ,in northern regions they are not found later than the ,triassic and ,jurassic1 and doubtless the same holds good of the rocks in the ,tropics1 where the modern species now live in fair abundance4 ,but how did they come to shift to the ,tropics so many millions of years before the palms1 etc41 of the ,tertiaries thought it time to do the same8 ,the climate had not changed a bit3 how did they come to scent the coming ,glacial ,age so much earlier than their more highly organized fellows8 ,the ,challenger expedition found some ,cyathophylloid corals now building reefs at the bottom of our modern ocean4 ,the geologists had already assigned the last of them to the ,carboniferous and ,permian rocks with the idea that they were extinct4 ,but where have these fellows kept themselves during all the intervening ages while the continents were deep under the ocean time and time again8 or why are not the rocks containing their fossils as recent as any deposits on the globe8 ,and so ,i might go on4 ,there is hardly a tribe found in the older rocks which does not have its living representatives of to-day1 and with1 ,i believe1 a fair proportion of the species identical2 though in hundreds1 perhaps thousands1 of cases these species1 genera1 or even whole tribes1 have somehow skipped all the intervening formations4 ,but let us drop this method of studying our subject1 and look at it from a slightly different standpoint4 ,thus ,dana#ej says that3 ,the absence of ,lamellibranchs in the ,middle ,cambrian1 although present in both ,lower and ,upper1 means the absence of fossils from the rocks1 not of species from the faunas4 ,he puts this in italics by way of emphasis1 for it is certainly a reasonable idea1 and as ,a4 ,r4 ,wallace says1 no one now doubts that where any type appears in two remote periods it must have been in existence during the whole intervening period1 although we may have no record of it4#ea ,but what would be the result if we only extend this idea to its logical conclusion8 ,it seems to be an effort to avoid one of the absurdities of the onion-coat theory1 without1 however1 discarding that theory altogether4 ,in speaking of some corals and crinoids of the ,devonian which were absent from some of the divisions of this formation because the conditions of the seas about ,new ,york were unfavorable1 ,dana says that they were back when the seas were again of sufficient purity4#eb ,in his review of these formations he enlarges on this subject3 ,at the close of the early ,devonian the evidences of clear seas--the corals and crinoids1 with most of the attendant life--disappear1 migrating no one knows whither4444 ,with the variations in the fineness1 or other characteristics of the beds as ,h4 ,s4 ,williams has illustrated1 the species vary4444 ,the faunas of each stratum are not strictly faunas of epochs or periods of time1 but local topographical faunas4 ,after the ,corniferous period1 corals1 crinoids1 and trilobites still flourished somewhere1 as before1 but they are absent from the ,central ,interior until the ,carboniferous age#ec opens4 ,here we are certainly getting a refreshing breath of common-sense geology2 but what would become of current theories if we enlarge a little on this idea8 ,what if the gigantic dinosaurs of the ,cretaceous or the equally marvellous mammals of the early ,tertiaries of the ,western ,states1 described by ,marsh and ,cope1 and the ,pleistocene mammals of other parts of ,america and of ,europe and ,northern ,siberia1 are not strictly faunas of epochs or periods of time1 but local topographical faunas8 ,what if the world-wide limestones of the ,cambrian and ,silurian1 and the no less enormous or widespread nummulitic limestones of the ,eocene1 extending from the ,alps to ,eastern ,asia1 and constituting mountains ten1 fifteen1 or twenty thousand feet high--what if these are possibly contemporaneous with one another8 ,supposing the coal-measures of ,nova ,scotia and ,pennsylvania1 and the ,cretaceous and ,tertiary lignites of ,vancouver ,island1 ,alberta1 and the ,western ,states are not strictly floras of epochs or periods of time1 but local topographical floras8#ed ,but it must be confessed that the logical extension of this broad view of the fossils1 and the projection of our modern zoological provinces and zones back into the fossil world would mean the death-blow to the life succession theory1 and might have a very disturbing effect upon certain theories about human origins and other genetic relationships which have grown quite popular since the middle of the last century4 ,,footnotes3 #dj ,history1 pp4 #cbg1 #cda4 #da ,see ,le,conte1 ,evol4 and ,religious ,thought1 p4 #bec4 #db ,modern ,ideas of ,evol41 p4 #ce4 #dc ,see ,manual1 pp4 #dhg-h4 #dd ,manual1 p4 #ggf4 #de ,mammals1 etc4 p4 #fif4 #df ,discourses ,biol4 and ,geol41 p4 #cdg4 #dg ,zittel1 ,hist4 of ,geo41 p4 #chh4 #df ,dana1 ,manual1 p4 #ei4 #di ,manual1 p4 #gic4 #ej ,manual1 p4 #dhh4 #ea ,distribution of ,life1 p4 #cc4 #eb ,manual1 p4 #faa4 #ec ,manual1 pp4 #fbh-i4 #ed ,note--,this is only carrying the argument a little further than ,huxley does when he says that ,a ,devonian fauna and flora in the ,british ,islands may have been contemporaneous with ,silurian life in ,north ,america1 and with a ,carboniferous fauna and flora in ,africa4 ,geographical provinces and zones may have been as distinctly marked in the ,palaeozoic epoch as at present4 ,discourses1 p4 #bhf4 ,,part ,,ii4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,graveyards ,the crust of our globe1 writes a distinguished scientist1 is a great cemetery1 where the rocks are tombstones on which the buried dead have written their own epitaphs4 ,the reading of these epitaphs is the business of geology2 and too often1 as we shall see1 the record is that of a violent and sudden death4 ,with the doctrine of ,uniformity as a theoretical proposition1 ,i shall have little to say4 ,at best it is a pure assumption that the present quiet and regular action of the elements has always prevailed in the past1 or that this supposition is sufficient to explain the facts of the rocks4 ,in its more extreme form it becomes an iron dogma1 which shuts out all evidence not agreeable to its teachings4 ,but in its essential nature1 whether in its least or its most extreme form1 it is not approaching the subject from the right standpoint4 ,it seeks to show how the past geological changes may have occurred2 it never attempts to prove how they must have occurred4 ,and ,i may say in passing1 that it is largely for the purpose of avoiding the cumulative character of the evidence gathered from every stone quarry and from every section of strata in every corner of the globe1 that the uniformitarians have wished to have these burials take place on the installment plan2 for otherwise the violent and catastrophic character of the events recorded in the rocks would become too plainly manifest4 ,but if a coroner1 called upon to hold an inquest1 were to content himself1 after the manner of ,lyell and ,hutton1 with glittering generalities about how people are all the time dying of old age1 fever1 or other causes1 coupled with assurances of the quiet1 regular habits and good reputation of all his fellow citizens1 ,i do not think that he would be praised for his adherence to inductive methods if we could get at clear and decisive evidence that the poor fellow under examination had been shot4 ,just so with common-sense methods in geology4 ,a true induction is capable of finding out for certain whether or not the present quiet regular action of the elements has always prevailed in the past2 and it is most unscientific to assume1 as the followers of ,hutton and ,lyell have done1 that the comparatively insignificant changes within historic time have always prevailed in the past1 when there is plenty of clear and decisive evidence to the contrary4 ,the general fact which ,i wish to develop in this chapter may be stated somewhat as follows3 ,rocks belonging to all the various systems or formations give us fossils in such a state of preservation1 and heaped together in such astonishing numbers1 that we cannot resist the conviction that the majority of these deposits were formed in some sudden and not modern manner1 catastrophic in nature4 ,but before giving any examples of these abnormal deposits we must first study the modern normal deposits2 before we can rightly understand the sharp contrast between the ancient and the modern action of the elements1 we must become familiar with the way in which fossils are now being buried by our rivers and oceans4 ,one of the many geological myths dissipated by the work of the ,challenger ,expedition1 which1 as ,zittel says1 marks the grandest scientific event of the nineteenth century1 is that about the ocean bottom and the work now being carried on there4 ,the older text-books taught that1 not only was the bottom of the ocean thickly strewn with the remains of the animals which died there and in the waters above1 but also that the oceanic currents were constantly wearing away in some places and building up in others over all the ocean floor1 and hence producing true stratified deposits4 ,accordingly it was said that it was only necessary for these beds to be lifted above the surface to produce the ordinary rocks that we find everywhere about us4 ,but we now know that the ocean currents have1 as ,dana says1 no sensible1 mechanical effects1 either in the way of transportation or abrasion4#ee ,we know also that all kinds of sediment drop so much quicker in salt water than in fresh1 that none of it gets beyond the narrow continental shelf and the classic #ajj fathom line1 which in most cases is not very far from shore4 ,in the north ,atlantic there are sediments found in deeper water produced by ice-floes or icebergs dropping their loads there2 but we cannot suppose such work to have gone on when the ,arctic regions were clothed with a temperate-climate vegetation1 much less that such things occurred over all the earth4 ,on the floor of the open ocean1 and away from the tracks of our modern icebergs1 we have two or three kinds of mud or ooze formed from minute particles of organic matter2 but besides these absolutely nothing save a possible sprinkling of volcanic products1 which of course are limited in their distribution4 ,where then can we find a stratified or bedded structure now being formed over the ocean bottom8 ,dana says there is nothing of the kind now being produced there1 save as the result of possible variations during the passing ages in the organic deposits thrown down1 where a bed of ooze may be supposed to be thrown down directly upon another kind of ooze4 ,there is no gravel1 no sand1 no clay1 but whatever variation there might be in the organic deposits1 the new kind would be laid down immediately upon the preceding similar deposits1 unless a thin sprinkling of volcanic dust happened to intervene4 ,thus to explain practically all the deposits found in the rocks1 we are absolutely limited to the shore deposits and the mouths of large rivers4 ,here we certainly have alternations of sand1 clay and gravel1 producing a true bedded structure4 ,but ,i ask3 ,what kind of organic remains will we get from these modern deposits8 ,certainly nothing like the crowded graveyards which we find everywhere in the ancient ones4 ,darwin1 in his famous chapter on ,the ,imperfection of the ,geological ,record1 has well shown how scanty and imperfect are the modern fossiliferous deposits4 ,the progress of research has only confirmed and accentuated the argument there presented on this point4 ,thus ,nordenskiold1 the veteran ,arctic explorer1 remarks with amazement on the scarcity of recent organic remains in the ,arctic regions1 where such a profusion of animal life exists2 while in spite of the great numbers of cats1 dogs and other domestic animals which are constantly being thrown into rivers like the ,hudson or the ,thames1 dredgings about their mouths have revealed the surprising fact that scarcely a trace of any of them is there to be found4#ef ,even the fishes themselves stand a very poor chance of being buried intact4 ,as ,dana#eg puts it3 ,vertebrate animals1 as fishes1 reptiles1 etc41 which fall to pieces when the animal portion is removed1 require speedy burial after death1 to escape destruction from this source 7decomposition and chemical solution from air1 rain-water1 etc471 as well as from animals that would prey upon them4 ,if a vertebrate fish should die a natural death1 which of itself must be a rare occurrence1 the carcass would soon be devoured whole or bit by bit by other creatures near by4 ,possibly the lower jaw1 or the teeth1 spines1 etc41 in the case of sharks1 or a bone or two of the skeleton1 might be buried unbroken1 but a whole vertebrate fish entombed in a modern deposit is surely a unique occurrence4 ,but every geologist knows that the remains of fishes are1 in countless millions of cases1 found in a marvelous state of preservation4 ,they have been entombed in whole shoals1 with the beds containing them miles in extent1 and scattered over all the globe4 ,indeed1 so accustomed have we grown to this state of affairs in the rocks we hammer up1 that if we fail to find such well-preserved remains of vertebrate fishes1 land animals1 or plants1 we feel disappointed1 almost hurt2 we think that nature has somehow slighted this particular set of beds4 ,but where in our modern quiet earth will we go to find deposits now forming like the copper slate of the ,mansfield district1 the ,jurassic shales of ,solenhofen1 the calcareous marls of ,oeningen on ,lake ,constance1 the black slates of ,glarus1 or the shales of ,monte ,bolca8--to mention some cases from the ,continent of ,europe more than usually famous in the literature for exquisitely preserved vertebrate fishes1 to say nothing of other fossils4 ,according to ,dana1 all these must have met with a speedy burial after death--perhaps before1 who knows8 ,buckland#eh in speaking of the fossil fish of ,monte ,bolca1 which may be taken as typical of all the others1 is quite positive that these fish must have perished suddenly1 by some tremendous catastrophe4 ,the skeletons of these fish1 he says1 lie parallel to the laminae of the strata of the calcareous slate2 they are always entire1 and so closely packed on one another that many individuals are often contained in a single block4444 ,all these fish must have died suddenly on this fatal spot1 and have been speedily buried in the calcareous sediment then in course of deposition4 ,from the fact that certain individuals have even preserved traces of color upon their skin1 we are certain that they were entombed before decomposition of their soft parts had taken place4 ,in many places in ,america as well as ,europe1 where these remains of fish are found1 the shaley rock is so full of fish oil that it will burn almost like coal1 while some have even thought that the peculiar deposits like ,albertite coal and some cannel coals were formed from the distillation of the fish oil from the supersaturated rocks4 ,de ,la ,beche#ei was also of the opinion that most of the fossils were buried suddenly and in an abnormal manner4 ,a very large proportion of them1 he says1 must have been entombed uninjured1 and many alive1 or1 if not alive1 at least before decomposition ensued4 ,in this he is speaking not of the fishes alone but of the fossiliferous deposits in general4 ,there is a series of strata found in all parts of the world which used to be called the ,old ,red ,sandstone1 now known as the ,devonian4 ,in this1 almost wherever we find it1 the remains of whole shoals of fishes occur in such profusion and preservation that the period is often known as the ,age of ,fishes4 ,dr4 ,david ,page1 after enumerating nearly a dozen genera1 says3 ,these fishes seem to have thronged the waters of the period1 and their remains are often found in masses1 as if they had been suddenly entombed in living shoals by the sediment which now contains them4 ,i beg leave to quote somewhat at length the picturesque language of ,hugh ,miller#fj regarding these rocks as found in ,scotland4 ,the river bull-head1 when attacked by an enemy1 or immediately as it feels the hook in its jaws1 erects its two spines at nearly right angles with the plates of the head1 as if to render itself as difficult of being swallowed as possible4 ,the attitude is one of danger and alarm2 and it is a curious fact1 to which ,i shall afterward have occasion to advert1 that in this attitude nine-tenths of the ,pterichthes of the ,lower ,old ,red ,sandstone are to be found4444 ,it presents us1 too1 with a wonderful record of violent death falling at once1 not on a few individuals1 but on whole tribes4 ,at this period of our history1 some terrible catastrophe involved in sudden destruction the fish of an area at least a hundred miles from boundary to boundary1 perhaps much more4 ,the same platform in ,orkney as at ,cromarty is strewed thick with remains1 which exhibit unequivocally the marks of violent death4 ,the figures are contorted1 contracted1 curved1 the tail in many instances is bent round to the head2 the spines stick out2 the fins are spread to the full1 as in fish that die in convulsions4444 ,the record is one of destruction at once widely spread and total1 so far as it extended4444 ,by what quiet but potent agency of destruction were the innumerable existences of an area perhaps ten thousand square miles in extent annihilated at once1 and yet the medium in which they had lived left undisturbed in its operations8 ,conjecture lacks footing in grappling with the enigma1 and expatiates in uncertainty over all the known phenomena of death4 ,i shall not taunt the uniformitarians by asking them to direct us to some modern analogies4 ,but ,i would have the reader remember that these ,devonian and other rocks are absolutely world-wide in extent4 ,surely ,howorth is talking good science when he says that his masters ,sedgwick and ,murchison taught him that no plainer witness is to be found of any physical fact than that ,nature has at times worked with enormous energy and rapidity1 and that the rocky strata teem with evidence of violent and sudden dislocations on a great scale4 ,i have spoken only of the class ,fishes4 ,but what other class of the animal kingdom will not point us a similar lesson8 ,the ,reptiles and ,amphibians1 to say nothing of the larger ,mammals1 are also found in countless myriads1 packed together as if in natural graveyards4 ,everybody knows of the enormous numbers and splendid preservation of the great reptiles of the ,western and ,southern ,states1 untombed by ,leidy1 ,cope and ,marsh4 ,one patch of ,cretaceous strata in ,england1 the ,wealden1 has afforded over thirty different species of dinosaurs1 crocodiles1 and pleisosaurs4 ,mr4 ,chas4 ,h4 ,sternberg1 one of ,zittel's assistants1 recently reported great quantities of ,amphibians from the ,permian of ,texas4 ,they are of all sizes1 some frogs being six feet long1 others ten4 ,besides these he found three bone-beds full of minute forms an inch or less in length4 ,of the small ones1 which ,i judge must represent whole millions of young ones suddenly entombed1 he says3 ,i got over twenty perfect skulls1 many with vertebrae attached1 and thousands of small bones from all parts of the skeleton4 ,in one case1 a complete skull1 one-fourth of an inch in length1 had connected with it nearly the entire vertebral column1 with ribs in position1 coiled upon itself1 bedded with many bones of other species in a red silicious matrix4 ,so perfectly were they weathered out that they lay in bas-relief as white and perfect as if they had died a month ago2 a single row of teeth1 like the points of cambric needles1 occupied both sets of jaws4#fa ,how many more such cases there may have been in these three bone-beds full of similar remains1 it would be interesting to know4 ,but though somewhat aside from the present subject1 ,i cannot refrain in passing from referring to the wonderful preservation of these remains4 ,it is preposterous to say that these bones have lain thus exposed to the weather for the millions of years postulated by the popular theory4 ,there is not a particle of scientific evidence to prove that they are not just as recent as any specimen from the ,tertiaries or the ,pleistocene4 ,buffon and ,cuvier proved the mammals to be of recent age1 because they occurred in the superficial deposits4 ,they never heard of the ,triassic1 ,jurassic1 and ,cretaceous of ,colorado and ,wyoming1 nor these ,permian of ,texas4 ,think of this frog's teeth like the points of cambric needles1 and he and his fellows as perfect as if they had died a month ago4 ,of one of the big six-foot specimens this author says3 ,its head was so beautifully preserved1 and cleaned under long erosion1 it was difficult to believe it was not a recent specimen4 ,while of the little six-inch fellow referred to above he says3 ,the bones of the skull are perfectly preserved1 quite smooth1 and show the sutures distinctly2 there is no distortion1 some red matrix attached below seems absolutely necessary to convince the mind that it is not a thing of yesterday4 ,james ,geikie#fb mentions the case of the ,elgin sandstones formerly classed as ',old ,red1' but which are now called ,triassic1 from the fact that they have yielded reptilian remains of a higher grade than one would expect to meet with in old ,red ,sandstone4 ,since these strata slide up and down so easily1 we have here far more urgent scientific reasons for calling these amphibian remains of ,texas among the most recent geological deposits on the globe4 ,but ,i must return to my subject4 ,the ,invertebrates are also eloquent to the fact of abnormal conditions having prevailed when their remains were entombed4 ,we could go through the whole list1 but it is the same old story of abnormal deposits1 essentially different from anything that is being made to-day4 ,where1 for instance1 in the modern seas1 will we find the remains of polyp-corals now being intercalated between beds of clays or sands over vast areas1 as we find them in the ,lias and ,oolyte of ,england and elsewhere8 ,corals require a definite depth of water1 neither too deep nor too shallow1 but it must be clear and pure2 and nothing but some awful catastrophe could place a bed of coral remains a few feet or a few inches in thickness over the vast areas that we find them4 ,crinoids require the same clear1 pure water1 but much deeper1 some of the modern kinds living over a mile down1 but every student of the science knows that the ,subcarboniferous limestone of both ,europe and ,america 7called ,mountain ,limestone in ,england71 so noted for its crinoids and its corals1 is constantly found intercalated between shale or sandstone1 or between the coal beds themselves as at ,springfield1 ,ill41 or in the ,lower ,coal ,measures of ,westmorland ,county1 ,pa4 ,there are of course1 here and there1 great masses of these rocks which represent an original formation by growth in situ2 but no sane man can say this for these great sheets perhaps only a few inches in thickness1 for in many cases they show a stratified or bedded structure just as much as a sandstone or a shale4 ,in some tables given by ,dana on pp4 #fea-b of his ,manual1 compiled from four different localities1 ,i count no less than #bc beds of limestone thus intercalated1 though we are not told how many of them contain corals or crinoids4 ,such details are generally omitted as of little consequence4 ,next1 let us try the ,lamellibranchs1 such as the clam1 oyster1 and other true bivalves4 ,these creatures have an arrangement in the hinge region by which the valves of the shell tend to open1 but during life are held together by the adductor muscles4 ,when dead1 however1 these muscles relax and decay1 and then the valves spread wide open4 ,of course there are some1 such as certain kinds of clams1 which burrow in the mud or sand1 and the shells of these1 if they happened to die a natural death in their holes1 could not spread very far apart4 ,however some mud must even then wash into their burrows and into their empty shells4 ,but many kinds of bivalves do not thus burrow in the ground2 and when the fossils of such kinds are found in quantity with the valves applied and often hollow1 as is so frequently the case in many of the older rocks1 ,i cannot see how we are to understand any ordinary conditions of deposit4 ,and yet we are gravely assured by a high authority1 that ,a sudden burial is not necessary to entombment in this condition4 ,or1 let us take the ,brachiopods4 ,these have a bivalve shell1 the parts of which1 however1 are not pulled apart after death1 and only need to open a little way even in life to admit the sea water which brings them their food4 ,yet1 though the valves do not gape after death1 there is when dead and empty a hole at the hinge or beak1 which would readily admit mud if such were present in the water1 or if the shells after death were subject to the ordinary movements of tide1 wave and current4 ,yet ,dawson#fc says of the ,brachiopods1 ,spirifer and ,athyris3 ,i may mention here that in all the ,carboniferous limestones of ,nova ,scotia the shells of this family are usually found with the valves closed and the interior often hollow4 ,of course he tries to explain how this state of things might occur in deep and clear water--for some of the modern species are found in the clear depths #ah1jjj feet down--and he thinks that their entombment in this condition does not prove that the death of the animals was sudden4 ,but we now know that there is no means of producing a stratified formation in this deep and clear water1 and hence that some revolution of nature is implied by the conditions in which we find them4 ,some people seem to have converted ,david ,hume's famous sentence into a scientific formula1 thus3 ,anything contrary to ,uniformity is impossible3 hence no amount of evidence can prove anything contrary to ,uniformity4 ,for the trouble in this case is that1 not only do such conditions prevail in all the ,carboniferous limestones of ,nova ,scotia1 which must be several thousands of square miles in extent1 but in the ,devonian shales and ,silurian limestones of ,ontario and the ,middle ,states at least--perhaps over the rest of the world--the ,brachiopods are found in this same tell-tale condition1 and it would establish a very dangerous precedent to admit abnormal conditions in even a single case4 ,i have only touched upon the voluminous evidence that might be adduced in the case of the lower forms of life4 ,had ,i the space1 ,i might show how the marvelously preserved plants of the coal beds tell the same story4 ,but we must pass on to consider the remains of the larger land animals4 ,i have already given a quotation from ,dana about the mammoth and rhinoceros in ,northern ,siberia1 where he says that their encasing in ice and the perfect preservation of their flesh shows that the cold finally became suddenly extreme1 as of a single winter's night1 and knew no relenting afterward4 ,not very many serious attempts have been made to account for this remarkable state of things1 which is a protest against uniformity that can be appreciated by a child1 and ,i never heard of any theory which attempted to account for the facts without some kind of awful catastrophe4 ,many1 however1 seem to have little idea of the extent of these remains in the ,arctic regions4 ,they are not all thus perfectly preserved1 for thousands of skeletons are found in localities where the ground thaws out somewhat in the short summer1 and here of course1 the skin and tissues could not remain intact4 ,remains of these beasts occur in only a little less abundance over all ,western ,europe1 and the mammoth also in ,north ,america1 well preserved specimens having been obtained from the ,klondike region of ,alaska2 and there is nothing to forbid the idea that many1 if not most of these latter specimens were also at one time enshrined as mummies in the ice1 which has since melted over the more temperate regions4 ,but we must confine ourselves to the remains in ,siberia4 ,flower and ,lydekker tell us that since the tenth century at least1 these remains have been quarried for the sake of the ivory tusks1 and a regular trade in this fossil ivory1 in a state fit for commercial purposes1 has been carried on both eastward to ,china1 and westward to ,europe1 and that fossil ivory has its price current as well as wheat4 ,they are found at all suitable places along the whole line of the shore between the mouth of the ,obi and ,behring ,straits1 and the further north the more numerous do they become1 the islands of ,new ,siberia being now one of the favorite collecting localities4 ,the soil of ,bear ,island and of ,liachoff ,islands is said to consist only of sand and ice with such quantities of mammoth bones as almost to compose its chief substance4 ,the remains are not only found around the mouths of the great rivers1 as would be the case if the carcasses had been washed down from more southern localities in the interior of the continent1 but are imbedded in the frozen soil in such circumstances as to indicate that the animals had lived not far from the localities in which they are now found1 and they are exposed either by the melting of the ice in unusually warm summers1 or by the washing away of the sea cliffs or river banks by storms or floods4 ,in this way the bodies of more or less nearly perfect animals1 even standing in the erect position1 with the soft parts and hairy covering entire1 have been brought to light4#fd ,but these remains of the mammoth1 though the best known1 are not the only ones attesting extraordinary conditions3 though of course in warmer latitudes we do not find perfect mummies with the hide and flesh preserved untainted4 ,let us go to a warmer climate1 to ,sicily1 and read a description of the remains of the hippopotamus found there4 ,i quote from ,sir ,joseph ,prestwich3 ,the chief localities1 which centre on the hills around ,palermo1 arrest attention from the extraordinary quantity of bones of ,hippopotami 7in complete hecatombs7 which have there been found4 ,twenty tons of these bones were shipped from around the one cave of ,san ,ciro1 near ,palermo1 within the first six months of exploiting them1 and they were so fresh that they were sent to ,marseilles to furnish animal charcoal for use in the sugar factories4 ,how could this bone breccia have been accumulated8444 ,the only suggestion that has been made is that the bones are those of successive generations of ,hippopotami which went there to die4 ,but this is not the habit of the animal1 and besides1 the bones are those of animals of all ages down to the foetus1 nor do they show traces of weathering or exposure4444 ,my supposition is1 therefore1 that when the island was submerged1 the animate in the plain of ,palermo naturally retreated1 as the waters advanced1 deeper into the amphitheatre of hills until they found themselves embayed1 as in a seine1 with promontories running out to sea on either side and a mural precipice in front4 ,as the area became more and more circumscribed the animals must have thronged together in vast multitudes1 crushing into the more accessible caves1 and swarming over the ground at their entrance1 until overtaken by the waters and destroyed4#fe ,our author then adds this summary of his argument3 ,the extremely fresh condition of the bones1 proved by the retention of so large a proportion of animal matter1 and the fact that animals of all ages were involved in the catastrophe1 shows that the event was geologically1 comparatively recent1 as other facts show it to have been sudden4 ,that it must have been a good deal more sudden than even this author will admit1 is evident from the nature of the hippopotamus4 ,i never thought that it was particularly afraid of the water1 or likely to be drowned by any such moderate catastrophe as ,prestwich invokes in this singular volume4 ,the reader must1 however1 note that this affair1 like the entombment of the mammoth1 certainly took place since man was upon the globe1 even according to the uniformitarians4 ,would it not be economy of energy to correlate the two together8 ,but if man dates from ,miocene times1 as some contend1 he must have witnessed half a dozen awful affairs like these1 for there is scarcely a country on the globe that has not been under the ocean since then4 ,let us proceed4 ,but whither shall we turn to avoid finding similar phenomena8 ,the vast deposits of mammals in the ,rocky ,mountains may occur to the reader4 ,as ,dana says1 they have been found to be literally ,tertiary burial grounds4 ,i need not go into the details of these deposits1 nor of those in other places containing the great mammals which must have been contemporary with ,tertiary man1 for ,i would only weary the reader with a monotony of abnormal conditions of deposit--unlike anything now being produced this wide world over4 ,we shall be stating the case very mildly indeed1 if we conclude that the vast majority of the fossils1 by their profuse abundance and their astonishing preservation1 tell a very plain story of speedy burial after death1 and are of an essentially different character from modern deposits4 ,prof4 ,nicholson1 in speaking of the remains of the ,zeuglodon1 says3 ,remains of these gigantic whales are very common in the ',jackson beds' of the ,southern ,united ,states4 ,so common are they that1 according to ,dana1 'the large vertebrae1 some of them a foot and a half long and a foot in diameter1 were formerly so abundant over the country in ,alabama that they were used for making walls1 or were burned to rid the fields of them4'#ff ,shortly before his death in #ahie1 ,dana prepared a revised edition of his ,manual1 and in it he gives us quite a rational explanation of this case1 as follows3 ,vertebrae were so abundant1 on the first discovery1 in some places that many of these ,eocene whales must have been stranded together in a common catastrophe1 on the northern borders of the ,mexican ,gulf--possibly by a series of earthquake waves of great violence2 or by an elevation along the sea limit that made a confined basin of the border region1 which the hot sun rendered destructive alike to ,zeuglodons and their game2 or by an unusual retreat of the tide1 which left them dry and floundering under a tropical sun4 7p4 #ijh47 ,that is1 this veteran geologist in his old age would not attempt to account for such abnormal conditions without a catastrophe of some kind4 ,but if we use similar explanations for similar conditions1 where shall we stop through the whole range of the rocks from the ,cambrian to the ,pleistocene8 ,dana became very fond of this idea of earthquake waves1 and invoked them to account for the universality and abruptness with which the species disappear at the close of ,palaeozoic time1 using as the generating cause the uplifting of the ,appalachian ,mountains1 with flexures miles in height and space1 and slips along newly opened fractures that kept up their interrupted progress through thousands of feet of displacement1 from which he says incalculable violence and great surgings of the ocean should have occurred and been often repeated4444 ,under such circumstances the devastation of the sea border and the low-lying lands of the period1 the destruction of their animals and plants1 would have been a sure result4 ,the survivors within a long distance of the coast line would have been few4#fg ,but as this sudden break in the life-chain was so general and extensive that no ,carboniferous species is known to occur among the fossils of succeeding beds1 not only in ,america and ,europe1 but also over the rest of the world 7p4 #gce71 he is obliged to make his catastrophe by earthquake waves positively world wide4 ,hence he adds3 ,the same waves would have swept over ,european land and seas1 and there found coadjutors for new strife in earthquake waves of ,european origin4 ,at the close of the ,mesozoic he uses similar language1 though in this case he has the whole range of the mountains on the west of both ,north and ,south ,america1 the ,rockies and the ,andes1 in length a third of the circumference of the globe1 undergoing simultaneous orogenic movements1 with like grand results4 7p4 #hge47 ,the deluging waves sent careering over the land would1 he thinks1 have been destructive over all the coasts of a hemisphere1 and may have made their marches inland for hundreds of miles 7p4 #hgh71 sweeping all before them4 ,i should think so2 but then what becomes of this doctrine of uniformity8 ,personally1 ,i have not the slightest objection to these deluging waves sent careering over the land1 for ,i feel sure that just such things have occurred1 and on just such a scale as our author pictures1 for1 as he says1 the destruction of species was great1 world-wide1 and one of the most marvelous events in geological history4 7p4 #hgg47 ,but it seems to me that here we have an enormous amount of energy going to waste4 ,others have demanded a continent to explain the appearance of a beetle in a certain locality2 but here we have a great world-wide catastrophe to explain the sudden disappearance of merely a few species4 ,why not utilize this surplus energy in doing other necessary work1 that has certainly been accomplished somehow1 but has hitherto gone a-begging for a competent cause8 ,the only thing ,i object to in ,dana's view of the case is his way of having these exterminations take place on the installment plan4 ,for in that way we have to work up a great world catastrophe to do only a very limited amount of work1 and then have to repeat the thing another time for a similarly limited work1 when one such cosmic convulsion is competent to do the whole thing4 ,i plead for the law of parsimony1 and the economizing of energy4 ,the vast shoals of carcasses which seem to be piled up in almost every corner of the world are prima facie evidence that our old globe has witnessed some sort of cosmic convulsion4 ,the exact cause1 nature1 and extent of this event we may never have sufficient facts to determine1 though two or three additional facts having a bearing on the subject will be considered in the following chapters4 ,,footnotes3 #ee ,manual1 p4 #bbi4 #ef ,pop4 ,sci4 ,mo41 ,vol4 xxi1 pp4 #adc1 #fic4 #eg ,manual1 p4 #ada4 #eh ,geol4 and ,min41 ,vol4 ,i41 pp4 #abd-e4 ,ed4 #aheh4 #ei ,theoretical ,geol41 p4 #bfe4 ,london1 #ahcd4 #fj ,old ,red ,sandstone1 pp4 #dh1 #bba-b4 #fa ,pop4 ,sci4 ,news1 ,may1 #aijb1 pp4 #ajf-g4 #fb ,histor4 ,geol41 p4 #ec4 #fc ,acadian ,geol41 p4 #bfj4 #fd ,mammals1 p4 #dcj4 #fe ,on ,certain ,phenomena1 etc41 pp4 #ej-eb4 #ff ,ancient ,life-,history1 p4 #cjj4 #fg ,manual1 p4 #gcf4 ,,chapter ,x ,,change ,,of ,,climate ,another great general fact about the fossil world may be stated about as follows3 ,all of the fossils 7save a very few of the so-called ,glacial ,age1 and they admit of other easy explanation7 give us proofs of an almost eternal spring having prevailed in the ,arctic regions1 and semi-tropical conditions in north temperate latitudes2 in short give us proofs of a singular uniformity of climate over the globe which we can hardly conceive possible1 let alone account for4 ,the proofs of this are almost unnecessary1 as this subject of climate has been pretty well discussed of late years4 ,and it was the overwhelming evidence on this point which forced ,lyell and so many others to decide against the theory of ,croll1 which called for a regular rotation of climates1 for they said that the fossil evidence was wholly against such a view4 ,howorth has given an admirable argument on this point in ,chapter ,,xi of his second work on the ,glacial ,theory#fh and to it ,i would refer the reader for details which ,i have not the space to reproduce here4 ,this author first remarks3 ,the best thermometer we can use to test the character of a climate is the flora and fauna which lived while it prevailed4 ,this is not only the best1 but is virtually the only thermometer available when we inquire into the climate of past geological ages4 ,other evidence is always sophisticated by the fact that we may be attributing to climate what is due to other causes2 boulders can be rolled by the sea as well as by sub-glacial streams1 and conglomerates can be formed by other agencies than ice4 ,but the biological evidence is unmistakable2 cold-blooded reptiles cannot live in icy water2 semi-tropical plants1 or plants whose habitat is in the temperate zone1 cannot ripen their seeds and sow themselves under arctic conditions4444 ,we may examine the whole series of geological horizons1 from the earliest ,palaeozoic beds down to the so-called ,glacial beds1 and find1 so far as ,i know1 no adequate evidence of discontinuous and alternating climates1 no evidence whatever of the existence of periods of intense cold intervening between warm periods1 but just the contrary4 ,not only so1 but we shall find that the differentiation of the earth's climate into tropical and arctic zones is comparatively modern1 and that in past ages not only were the climates more uniform1 but more evenly distributed over the whole world4 ,without attempting to follow through the whole series of formations we may note a few characteristic statements of the text-books4 ,thus ,dana says of the ,cambrian3 ,there was no frigid zone1 and there may have been no excessively torrid zone4 ,while of the ,silurian coral limestones of the ,arctic regions he says3 ,the formation of thick strata of limestone shows that life like that of the lower latitudes not only existed there1 but flourished in profusion4#fi ,howorth thus quotes ,colonel ,fielden1 the ,arctic explorer1 regarding the fossil ,sclerodermic corals of the ,silurian1 widely distributed in the ,arctic regions3 ,these undoubted reef-forming corals of the ,silurian epoch were just as much inhabitants of warm water in northern latitudes at that period as are the ,sclerodermata of to-day in the ,indo-,pacific and ,atlantic oceans4444 ,these corals were forms of life which must have been tropical in habits and requirement4 ,in fact coral limestones of the ,carboniferous system are the nearest known fossiliferous rocks to the ,north ,pole1 and from the strike of the beds must underlie the ,polar ,sea4 ,in the words of ,howorth1 ,coal strata with similar fossils have occurred all round the ,polar basin 444 and may be said1 therefore1 to have occupied a continuous cap around the ,north ,pole4#gj ,again ,i quote from ,howorth regarding the ,mesozoic rocks3 ,this very widespread fauna and flora proves that the high temperature of the ,secondary era prevailed in all latitudes1 and not only so1 it pervaded them apparently continuously without a break4 ,there is no evidence whatever1 known to me1 that can be derived from the fauna and flora of ,secondary times1 which points to any period of cold as even possible4 ,there are no shrunken and stunted forms1 and no types such as we associate with cold conditions1 and no changes evidenced by intercalated beds showing vicissitudes of life4 ,the following is from ,nordenskiold1 as quoted by ,howorth1 and refers to the whole geological series3 ,from what has been already stated it appears that the animal and vegetable relics found in the ,polar regions1 imbedded in strata deposited in widely separated geological eras1 uniformly testify that a warm climate has in former times prevailed over the whole globe4 ,from palaeontological science no support can be obtained for the assumption of a periodical alternation of warm and cold climates on the surface of the earth4#ga ,and now we have the equally positive language of ,a4 ,r4 ,wallace3 ,it is quite impossible to ignore or evade the force of the testimony as to the continuous warm climate of the ,north ,temperate and ,polar ,zones throughout ,tertiary times4 ,the evidence extends over a vast area both in space and time1 it is derived from the work of the most competent living geologists1 and it is absolutely consistent in its general tendency 444 ,whether in ,miocene1 ,upper or ,lower ,cretaceous1 ,jurassic1 ,triassic1 ,carboniferous or ,silurian times1 and in all the numerous localities extending over more than half the ,polar regions1 we find one uniform climatic aspect of the fossils4#gb ,of course in all this ,i am taking the various kinds of fossils in the traditional chronological order4 ,but ,i shall presently show on the best of authority that ,man existed in ,pliocene or perhaps ,miocene times1 and in view of such an admission we have1 even from the standpoint of current theory1 a vital1 personal interest in this question of climate4 ,let us take1 then1 the following from ,james ,geikie1 the great champion of the ,glacial theory1 on the climate of the ,arctic regions at this part of the human epoch3 ,miocene deposits occur in ,greenland1 ,iceland1 ,spitzbergen1 and at other places within the ,arctic ,circle4 ,the beds contain a similar 7similar to the most luxuriant vegetation of ,switzerland7 assemblage of plant-remains2 the palm-trees1 however1 being wanting4 ,it is certainly wonderful that within so recent a period as the ,miocene1 a climate existed within the ,arctic regions so mild and genial as to nourish there beeches1 oaks1 planes1 poplars1 walnuts1 limes1 magnolias1 hazel1 holly1 blackthorn1 logwood1 hawthorn1 ivy1 vines1 and many evergreens1 besides numerous conifers1 among which was the sequoia1 allied to the gigantic ,wellingtonia of ,california4 ,this ancient vegetation has been traced up to within eleven degrees of the ,pole4#gc ,according to ,dana and other ,american geologists the ,glacial ,period is only a variation intervening between the warm ,tertiary and the equally warm ,champlain ,period1 and it was during the latter that the mammoth1 mastodon1 etc41 roamed over ,europe1 ,asia1 and ,america4 ,of the climate then indicated1 when all acknowledge that ,man was in existence1 this author says3 ,the genial climate that followed the ,glacial appears to have been marvelously genial to the species1 and alike for all the continents1 ,australia included4 ,the kinds that continued into modern time became dwindled in the change wherever found over the globe1 notwithstanding the fact that genial climates are still to be found over large regions4#gd ,in his ,geological ,story ,briefly ,told1 he uses even stronger language3 ,the brute mammals reached their maximum in numbers and size during the warm ,champlain ,period1 and many species lived then which have since become extinct4 ,those of ,europe and ,britain were largely warm-climate species1 such as are now confined to warm temperate and tropical regions2 and only in a warm period like the ,champlain could they have thrived and attained their gigantic size4 ,the great abundance of their remains and their condition show that the climate and food were all the animals could have desired4 ,they were masters of their wanderings1 and had their choice of the best4#ge ,the genial climate of the ,champlain period was abruptly 7italics ,dana's7 terminated4 ,for carcasses of the ,siberian elephants were frozen so suddenly and so completely at the change1 that the flesh has remained untainted4 7,id4 p4 #bcj47 ,i quite agree with this author that the evidence is conclusive as to the climate and food being all the animals could have desired1 and that they must have had their choice of the best4 ,but it seems to me that in following out their theory these authors have not left the poor creatures very much to choose from4 ,for as the inevitable result of their theory in arranging the plants as well as the animals in chronological order according to the percentages of living and extinct forms1 they have already disposed of1 and consigned to the early ,tertiaries1 etc41 all the probable vegetation on which these animals lived1 and thus have nothing left on which to feed the horse and bison1 rhinoceros and elephant1 etc41 away within the ,arctic ,circle1 except the few miserable shrubs and lichens which now survive there4 ,but this strange1 inconsistent notion of ,dana's that the so-called ,glacial phenomena lie in between the warm ,tertiary and the equally warm ,champlain period1 is easily understood as the survival of the notion1 so tenaciously held even later than the middle decades of the nineteenth century1 that ,man was not a witness of any of the great geological changes4 ,when the evidence became overwhelming that ,man lived while the semi-tropical animals roamed over ,england1 the ,glacial period still remained as a sort of buffer against the dangerous possibility of extending the human period back any further4 ,i am not aware that this venerable scientist ever became quite reconciled to the idea of ,tertiary ,man1 though in his ,manual he mentions a few evidences in favor of this now almost universally accepted opinion4 ,as for the real teachings of the ,drift phenomena there is no need of explanation here4 ,at the very most they are confined to a quite limited part of the northern hemisphere1 there being no trace of them in ,alaska1 nor on the plains of ,siberia1 where now almost eternal frosts prevail4#gf ,in fact they are practically confined between the ,rocky ,mountains and the ,missouri ,river on the west1 and the ,ural ,mountains on the east2 and with a little common sense infused into the foundation principles of the science we will cease to be tormented with a ,glacial ,nightmare4 ,much of the ,drift phenomena with the raised beaches are certainly later events than most of the other geological work1 but are inseparably connected with the general problem in their explanation4 ,even from the ordinary standpoint1 ,i am not aware that the elaborate argument of ,howorth has even been satisfactorily answered4 ,indeed1 ,i feel almost like saying that this writer's various contributions to the cause of inductive geology mark the beginning of the dawn4 ,hence it may suffice here to merely call attention to the great simplicity introduced into this vast complexity of the glacialists1 by the positive assurance of this author that the ,drift period and the ,pleistocene end together1 and join onto the modern2 or perhaps ,i ought rather to say that the so-called ,glacial phenomena lie in between the true fossil world and our modern one4 ,thus1 in regard to the ,pleistocene mammals1 the view is now generally accepted that1 in every place where they have been found in a contemporary bed1 that bed underlies the till1 and is therefore pre-glacial4 ,as in other places1 so here 7,scotland71 teeth and bones of mammals have occurred in the clay itself2 but in all such cases they occur sporadically and as boulders4 ,as ,mr4 ,james ,geikie says1 ',they almost invariably afford marks of having been subjected to the same action as the stones and boulders by which they are surrounded2 that is to say1 they are rubbed1 ground1 striated1 and smoothed4'#gg ,and again3 ,the ,pleistocene fauna1 so far as ,i know1 came to an end with the so-called ,glacial age4 7,id4 p4 #dfc47 ,from a recent notice in ,nature#gh it would seem that even ,dr4 ,h4 ,woodward1 of the ,british ,museum1 supports this general view in his ,table of ,british ,strata1 by the statement that the glacial deposits contain only derived fossils4 ,but this is such a decided simplification of the problem of climate that ,i am utterly at a loss to understand how any one can still cling to the complex and highly artificial arrangement of numerous interglacial periods1 to account for a few bones of mammals or a few pockets of lignite2 and how they can even place between the ,glacial period and our times the genial ,champlain period1 with it1 as ,dana says1 abruptly terminated1 and becoming suddenly extreme as of a single winter's night4 ,howorth1 in the latter part of the chapter already quoted from 7pp4 #dfj-dgh71 gives a good review of this subject of intermittent climates1 and strongly supports his contention that the stratigraphical evidence all points to the fact that the ,pleistocene forms are always older than the ,drift-beds1 and where the flora and fauna of the ,pleistocene occur in the ,drift1 they do so only as boulders2 that1 in fact1 as he says in his ,preface1 ,the ,pleistocene ,flood 444 forms a great dividing line in the superficial deposits1 separating the true fossil world from the modern4 ,i have hardly the space to repeat here my argument about the extremely fanciful way in which geologists classify the various members of the ,tertiary group and the ,pleistocene4 ,and yet ,i must say a few words4 ,i have tried to show the utter nonsense of the common custom of classifying these beds according to the percentage of living and extinct forms which they contain1 when the real fact is that the number and kinds of the ancient life-forms which have survived into the modern era is a purely fortuitous circumstance1 being limited solely to those lucky ones which could stand the radical change from a tepid water or a genial air to the ice and frosts which they now experience1 to mention only one circumstance of that cosmic convulsion which we now know to have really intervened between that ancient world and our own4 ,,yet ,,it ,,is ,,on ,,such ,,evidence ,,only that these ,pleistocene forms are separated from the ,tertiaries1 or that the ,tertiaries themselves are classified off--at least as far as the invertebrates and the plants are concerned4 ,no one claims that the so-called ,glacial beds can be sharply distinguished from other deposits on purely mechanical make-up4 ,indeed1 ,i am strongly of the opinion that very many ,archaean soils1 totally unfossiliferous themselves1 and resting on unfossiliferous rocks1 have been assigned to the ,glacial age1 merely because their discoverers did not know what else to do with them4 ,when beds contain fossils1 the latter are the one and only guide in determining age2 but in view of the purely arbitrary character of this method of classifying off the ,tertiary and post-,tertiary rocks1 ,i do not see where we are going to draw the line when we once admit that the post-,tertiary beds contain only derived fossils4 ,it seems to me truly astonishing that shrewd reasoners1 like ,howorth and ,dr4 ,woodward1 have not seen the dangerous character of this precedent which they have admitted4 ,for with that marvelous climate of all geological time continuing right up to that fatal day when it was abruptly terminated1 and the mammoth and his fellows were caught in the merciless frosts which now hold them1 the percentage of all the lucky forms of life1 plants1 invertebrates1 or mammals1 which could stand such a change and persist into our modern world1 must be utterly nonsensical as a test of age even from their standpoint4 ,in resuming the main argument of this chapter1 ,i need only summarize by saying that the evidence is conclusive that all geological time down to this sharp dividing line was characterized by a surprisingly mild and uniform climate over all the earth4 ,the modern period is characterized by terrific extremes of heat and cold2 and now little or nothing can exist where previously plant and animal life flourished in profusion4 ,this radical and world-wide change in climate1 therefore1 demands ample consideration when seeking a true induction as to the past of our globe4 ,that it was no gradual or secular affair1 but that the climate became suddenly extreme as of a single winter's night1 the ,siberian mummies are unanswerable arguments4 ,that it occurred within the human epoch all are now agreed4 ,,footnotes3 #fh ,the ,glacial ,nightmare and the ,flood1 pp4 #dbf-dgi4 #fi ,manual1 pp4 #dhd1 #ebd-e4 #gj ,op4 cit41 pp4 #dcd-e4 #ga ,id41 p4 #de4 #gb ,island ,life1 pp4 #ahb1 #aie-f2 ,nightmare1 pp4 #dee-f4 #gc ,historical ,geology1 p4 #gf4 #gd ,manual1 p4 #iig4 #ge p4 #bbe1 ,edition of #ahge4 #gf ,see ,dana's ,manual1 pp4 #ide1 #igg2 also ,the ,glacial ,nightmare1 pp4 #de-b1 #eaa1 etc4 #gg ,great ,ice ,age1 p4 #abi2 ,nightmare1 p4 #dgc4 #gh ,see ,nature ,april #aa1 #aija1 p4 #efj4 ,,chapter ,,xi ,,degeneration ,there is another great general fact about the fossil world which seems to be a natural corollary from the one already given about climate4 ,it is this3 ,the fossils1 regarded as a whole1 invariably supply us with types larger of their kind and better developed in every way than their nearest modern representatives1 whether of plants or animals4 ,this fact also is so well known that it needs no proof4 ,through the whole range of geological literature ,i do not know of a word of dissent from this general fact by any writer whatever4 ,proof therefore is not necessary1 though a brief review of a little of the evidence may refresh our memories4 ,to begin with the ,cambrian1 ,dana says3 ,the ,pteropods1 among ,mollusks1 were much larger than the modern species of the tribe4 ,the ,trilobites even of the ,lower ,cambrian comprise species as large as living ,crustaceans4 ,the ,ostrapods are generally larger than those of recent times4#gi ,again1 in speaking of the general character of the ,cambrian fossils1 he says3 ,the types of the early ,cambrian are mostly identical with those now represented in existing seas1 and although inferior in general as to grade in the ,phylogenic series1 they bear no marks of imperfect or stunted growth from unfit or foul surroundings4 7p4 #dhe47 ,the well known ,mollusk1 ,maclurea magna1 which is so enormously abundant in the ,silurian1 is often eight inches in diameter1 and the astounding ,cephalopod genus1 ,endoceras1 consisting of twenty species1 found only in two divisions of the ,lower ,silurian1 has left shells over a foot in diameter1 and ten or twelve feet long6 ,of the fishes of the ,devonian we have1 among other remarks of a similar character1 the following3 ,the ,dipnoans1 or ',lung-fishes1' were represented by gigantic species called by ,newberry ,dinichthys and ,titanichthys1 from their size and formidable dental armature4444 ,a still larger species is the ,titanichthys clarki of ,newberry1 in which the head was four feet or more broad1 the lower jaw a yard long4 ,this jaw was shaped posteriorly like an oar blade1 and anteriorly was turned upward like a sled runner4#hj ,one of the ancient ,eurypterids from the ,old ,red ,sandstone of ,europe has a length of six feet1 which is more than three times that of any ,crustacean now living4 ,while a gigantic ,isopod ,crustacean from the same strata had a leg the basal joint of which was three inches long1 and three-quarters of an inch through1 which is larger than the whole body of any modern species4 ,the ancient ,horse-tails1 ,ground-pines1 ,ferns and ,cycads were trees from #cj to #ij feet high1 and their carbonized stems and leaves make up many of our largest and best beds of coal4 ,compared with them the modern representatives are mere herbs or shrubbery4 ,of the gigantic insects of the ,devonian and ,carboniferous beds we might make similar remarks4 ,some of the ancient locusts had an expanse of wing of over seven inches2 while many of the ancient ,dragon-flies had bodies from a foot to sixteen inches long1 with wings a foot long and over two feet in spread from tip to tip4 ,here is ,james ,geikie's summary of the leading types of the ,palaeozoic3 ,many ,palaeozoic species were characterized by their large size as compared with species of the same groups that belong to later times4 ,thus1 some ,trilobites and other ,crustaceans were larger than any modern species of ,crustaceans4 ,the ,palaeozoic ,amphibians also much exceeded in size any living members of their class4 ,again1 the modern club-mosses1 which are insignificant plants1 either trailing on the ground or never reaching more than two feet in height1 were represented by great lepidodendroid trees4 ,sternberg1 in speaking of some of the frogs which he found in the ,permian of ,texas1 says3 ,i found several skulls that measured over a foot from the end of the chin to the distal point of the horns4444 ,i think when alive the frog must have been six feet long4#ha ,he mentions another specimen which was about #aj feet long1 the head of which was about #bj inches in length1 with jaws more powerful than those of an ox4 ,of the monstrous ,dinosaurs of the ,mesozoic rocks one hardly needs to speak4 ,they were the most gigantic of terrestrial animals1 in some cases reaching a length of #gj or #hj feet1 while at the same time they had a height of body and massiveness of limb that1 without evidence from the bones1 would have been thought too great for muscle to move4#hb ,they abound in both the ,old and the ,new ,world4 ,of the gigantic ,mammals of the ,tertiary beds of the ,western ,states1 it would also be superfluous to speak2 their gigantic size is known by every high school pupil1 or every one who has visited any important museum in ,europe or ,america4 ,we may perhaps be reminded again that all the species of these older rocks are extinct species4 ,i have already suggested the grave doubts on this point1 regarding the great mass of the lower forms of life1 plant and animal2 but we will let that pass4 ,but let us take some of the late ,tertiary and ,pleistocene mammals1 which cannot be distinguished from living species1 and how do we fare8 ,it is the same old story2 the moderns are degenerate dwarfs4 ,the hippopotamus 7,h4 major7 is a good one to start with1 for ,flower and ,lydekker#hc say that it cannot be specifically distinguished from ,h4 amphibius of ,africa4 ,this gigantic brute used to live in the rivers of ,england and ,western ,europe4 ,the text-books generally say in ,pliocene times1 because1 ,i suppose1 no one has the courage to suggest that it lived under the ice of the ,glacial period4 ,we are always pointed to the wool on the rhinoceros and the mammoth as indicating a somewhat cool climate1 but the well known amphibious habits of the hippopotamus cannot be so easily disposed of4 ,but if1 as ,i believe1 this world never saw a foot of ice at the sea level till the end of the ,pleistocene period1 to speak after the current manner1 the problem becomes very simple4 ,in that case the time of the ,hippopotamus in ,england was neither earlier nor later than that of the palms and acacias of the early ,tertiary or ,mesozoic rocks1 or than that of the mammoth1 lion1 and hyena of the ,pleistocene4 ,there is as we now know absolutely nothing but an out-of-date hypothesis to indicate that they did not all live there together4 ,we may1 if we choose1 try to dovetail those conditions into the present on the basis of uniformity and slow secular change1 by assuming a few million years for the process1 but there is neither a particle of evidence nor of probability that the hippopotamus was not contemporary alike with the palms of the ,eocene and the elephants and lions of the post-,tertiary4 ,as for the mammoth itself1 which ,flower and ,lydekker have intimated may turn out identical with ,e4 ,columbi and ,e4 armeniacus1 and thus the direct ancestor of the modern ,asiatic elephant 7,e4 indicus71 some have argued that its average size was not greater than that of the existing species of ,india and ,africa4 ,but ,nicholson says that it was3 444 considerably larger than the largest of living elephants1 the skeleton being over sixteen feet in length1 exclusive of the tusks1 and over nine feet in height4#hd ,dana is equally positive3 ,the species was over twice the weight of the largest modern elephant1 and nearly a third taller4#he ,the upper incisors or tusks were very much longer than in the modern species1 being from ten to twelve feet long1 and sometimes curved up and back so as to form an almost complete circle4 ,as these tusks continue to grow throughout life1 their enormous length is1 ,i take it1 a proof of much greater longevity and thus of greater vitality than in the cases of the modern species4 ,the latter is simply a degenerate4 ,and so ,i might go on with the ,edentates1 the ,ungulates1 the ,rodents1 the ,carnivores1 etc41 for the same thing must be said of all4 ,as ,sir ,william ,dawson#hf remarks3 ,nothing is more evident in the history of fossil animals and plants of past geological ages than that persistence or degeneracy are the rule rather than the exception4444 ,we may almost say that all things left to themselves tend to degenerate1 and only a new breathing of the ,almighty ,spirit can start them again on the path of advancement4 ,in spite of the long popular views of ,cuvier1 every modern scientist admits that the great lion and hyena of the ,pleistocene are identical with the living species of ,africa4 ,many say the same thing of the fossil bear as compared with the modern brown bear and the grizzly1 though1 as ,dana remarks of all three1 lion1 hyena1 and bear1 these modern kinds are dwarfs in comparison4 ,i quote again from ,dana3 ,thus the brute races of the ,middle ,quaternary on all the continents exceeded the moderns greatly in magnitude4 ,why1 no one has explained4#hg ,this was in #ahge4 ,in the last edition of his ,manual1 published shortly after his death1 he has this to say in addition3 ,a species thrives best in the region of fittest climate4 ,in the ,pleistocene1 the fittest climate was universal4 ,geologists have attributed the extinction of most of the species and the dwindling of others to the cold of the ,reindeer epoch4 ,it is the only explanation yet found1 though seemingly insufficient for the ,americas4 7p4 #ajaf47 ,however1 since the discovery of the pictures of the reindeer and the mammoth drawn and even painted side by side on the caverns of ,southern ,france1 undoubtedly from life and by the same artist1 we do not hear so much about the ,reindeer epoch1 and the ,mammoth epoch4 ,a little thought should have suggested long ago that it was more reasonable to suppose the reindeer1 glutton1 musk-ox1 etc41 to have been originally adapted to the high mountains and table lands of that ancient world1 than to imagine all the fauna careering up and down over continents and across seas like a lot of crazy ,scandinavian lemmings1 as the migration theory involved4 ,but most geologists seem never to have had any use for mountains or plateaus1 except to breed glaciers and continental ice-sheets4 ,but the only point which ,i wish to insist upon here is that the cause1 whatever it was1 that made such a zoological break at the close of the ,pleistocene1 and which compelled the shivering1 degenerate survivors1 that could not stand the new extremes of frost and snow1 to shift to the ,tropics--this cause was certainly competent to do a good deal more work in the way of extinction or dwindling of species than the uniformitarians have generally given it credit for4 ,and in summing up this matter regarding the size and physical development of species1 we must confess that we find in geology no indication of inherent progress upward4 ,variation there is and variation there has been1 even mutations and saltations1 but with one voice do the rocks testify that the general results of such variation have not been upward4 ,rather must we confess as a great biological law1 that degeneration has marked the history of every living form4 ,,footnotes3 #gi ,manual1 p4 #dhg4 #hj pp4 #fah-i4 #ha ,pop4 ,sc4 ,news1 ,may1 #aijb1 p4 #ajf4 #hb ,dana1 ,manual1 p4 #gfa4 #hc ,mammals1 etc41 p4 #bha4 #hd ,ancient ,life-,history1 p4 #ceg4 #he ,manual1 p4 #iih4 #hf ,modern ,ideas of ,evolution1 ,appendix4 #hg ,geol4 ,story ,briefly ,told1 p4 #bbi4 ,,chapter ,,xii ,,fossil ,,men ,there is still another fact which we must consider ere we can frame any wise or safe induction regarding the geological changes4 ,it is this3 ,man himself1 to say nothing of numerous living animals and plants1 must have witnessed something of the nature of a cosmic convulsion--how much it is the object of our search to find out4 ,even according to the ordinary text-books1 he must have seen the uplifting of the greater part of the mountain chains of the world2 while he certainly lived in conditions of climate1 and of land and water distribution1 together with plant and animal surroundings1 which preclude the possibility of dovetailing those conditions into the present order of things on any basis of uniformity4 ,by this proposition ,i simply mean that ,man must have witnessed a cosmic geological catastrophe of some character and of some dimensions--the true nature and probable limits of this catastrophe ought to be the chief point of all geological inquiry4 ,but instead of this method1 instead of finding out whether our present world was ever a witness of such an event1 the founders of the science began at the little end of an assumed succession of life 7involving a preposterous supernatural knowledge of the past71 and gradually worked up a habit of explaining everything in terms of ,uniformity long decades before they would acknowledge that ,man or the present order of things had anything to do with this fossil world4 ,the evidence on this latter point finally became overwhelming2 but with their habit of ,uniformity well mastered1 and their long1 single file of life succession all tabulated off and infallibly fixed1 modern geologists have hitherto refused to look at the whole science from this new point of view1 or to reconstruct geological theory if need be in accordance with a true modern induction4 ,and in this proposition the reader will understand that ,i believe in what is called ,tertiary man4 ,i am aware that a few scientists still contest this view1 but the evidence 7from the standpoint of current theory7 seems to me to be overwhelmingly against them4 ,but in this fact1 if it be a fact1 that ,man lived under the wholly strange and different conditions of ,pliocene or perhaps ,miocene times1 is ,,the ,,very ,,strongest ,,possible ,,argument that ,i can conceive of for the necessity of a complete reconstruction of geological theory--,i mean1 of course1 apart altogether from the preposterous way in which the life succession was assumed and built up and then treated as an actual fact4 ,it was when this grim fact of ,man's inseparable connection with the fossil world was borne in upon me1 that ,i began to realize the possibility and imperative necessity of reconstructing the science on a truly inductive basis4 ,i shall not undertake to give a complete up-to-date argument for ,miocene or even ,pliocene ,man4 ,the subject is still under discussion as to just how far back along this thin line of receding life forms ,man actually did live1 and from the peculiar methods now in vogue which are so wholly subjective in character1 it would seem to be capable of settlement in almost any way one chooses4 ,however1 whole volumes are being written on the subject1 and the end is not yet4 ,but there is no denying that human remains have frequently been found in strata which1 but for their presence1 would have been assigned a place far back in ,tertiary time4 ,the existence of strong evidence for ,tertiary ,man no one would think of denying4 ,in all this1 of course1 ,i am considering the question from the common uniformitarian standpoint4 ,but why should it be necessary for us to positively settle the question as to just how far back in geological time ,man actually did live8 ,for those who have attentively read my statement of the unscientific methods of classifying these ,tertiary and post-,tertiary beds--or all the others for that matter--,i need not here add any further argument if the accepted succession of life is1 to put it as mildly as possible1 not quite a scientific certainty2 if the time-honored custom of classifying these so-called superficial beds by their relative percentages of extinct and living forms rests under a shadow of suspicion as to its scientific accuracy2 if1 above all1 we do not at the beginning prejudice the whole case by the assumption of uniformity1 what need is there of determining whether ,pliocene or ,miocene shells are found with these fossil human remains8 ,that ,man lived in ,western ,europe contemporary with those giants of the prime1 the elephant and the musk-ox1 the rhinoceros and the reindeer1 the lion1 the ,cape hyena1 and the hippopotamus1 at which time a very different distribution of land and water prevailed over these parts1 with a radically different mantle of climate spread over all1 no one will deny for a moment4 ,such facts are now found in the primary text-books for our children in the public schools4 ,but since geologists still classify the rocks as they do1 and give a time value to percentages of extinct and living species of marine shells1 etc41 we are in a measure compelled to take the matter where we find it1 and enquire how far back in geological time1 i4e41 among what kinds of fossils1 are human remains found8 ,one of the best popular works on the subject that ,i know of is ,the ,meeting-,place of ,geology and ,history1 7#ahid7 by ,sir ,j4 ,w4 ,dawson2 though1 like all other works of its kind written from the religious standpoint1 it endeavors as far as possible to minimize the evidence in support of ,man's geological antiquity4 ,this author thinks that ,dr4 ,mourlan1 of ,belgium1 has established the strongest case yet on record for the existence of ,tertiary ,man4 7p4 #cj47 ,it is that of some worked flints and broken bones of animals imbedded in sands derived from ,eocene and ,pliocene beds1 and supposed to have been remanie by wind action4 ,prestwich#hh has brought forward similar facts2 and though the evidence in favor of the genuine geological character of these remains seems to me little if any better than that from the auriferous gravels of ,california1 ,i am willing to take them as reported4 ,dawson speaks of the nearly entire human skeleton described by ,quatrefages from the ,lower ,pliocene beds of ,castelnedolo1 near ,brescia1 and only answers it with a sarcastic remark about the well developed skull of this ancient man4 ,unfortunately the skull of the only perfect skeleton is said to have been of fair proportions and superior to those of the ruder types of post-,glacial men4 ,this has cast a shade of suspicion on the discovery1 especially on the part of evolutionists1 who think it is not in accordance with theory that man should retrograde between the ,pliocene and the early modern period instead of advancing4#hi ,lastly1 we have the following about the ,miocene3 ,there are1 however1 in ,france two localities 7,puy1 ,courney and ,thenay71 one in the ,upper and the other in the ,middle ,miocene1 which have afforded what are supposed to be worked flints4 ,he adds that ,the geological age of the deposits seems in both cases beyond question2 but contents himself with a derisive answer about these chipped flints being possibly the handiwork of ,miocene apes4 ,this language1 coming from such a source1 would seem as good evidence as is needed to prove that ,man was contemporary with1 and that his remains are now found among the fossils of the ,middle ,miocene4 ,for it must be remembered that these are reluctant admissions drawn from this illustrious scientist1 who was one of the last champions of the old ideas about the recent origin of ,man4 ,as ,pres4 ,asa ,mahan of ,cornell has said1 ,admissions in favor of truth from the ranks of its enemies constitute the highest kind of evidence4 ,at any rate1 ,i shall treat this point as already proved1 for whether this particular instance is accepted or not1 practically all modern writers admit the fact of ,middle ,tertiary ,man4 ,i have already alluded to the recently discovered paintings on the cave walls of ,southern ,france1 where reindeer1 aurochs1 horses and mammoths have been reproduced with striking accuracy and skill1 and of such an age that they have in places been covered by stalactites over two inches in thickness4 ,the ,marquis ,de ,nadaillac1#ij who has given the best description of these interesting antiquities that ,i have been able to see1 remarks that the drawing is wonderful1 and that we are justly astonished to find such artistic performances in times so distant from ours1 and in which we did not suppose a like civilization4 ,i have not seen the geological date to which these remains have been assigned1 but doubtless it is the very latest part of the ,pleistocene--they show far too high a development for ,miocene or even ,pliocene times4 ,but ,i should like to be shown some good and sufficient reason for saying that these men are not just as likely to have been contemporary with the ,middle ,tertiary fauna and flora as any others4 ,some men were as commonly admitted4 ,and in the name of sacred common sense1 if the human period is thus elastic enough to stretch out over the ,pleistocene1 the ,pliocene1 and clear back to the ,middle ,miocene1 why can't we do the same for all of man's strange companions1 the mammoth and the ,cape hyena1 the reindeer and the hippopotamus1 the lion and the musk-ox1 etc48 ,the usual sneers about it being impossible for this apparently incongruous mixture to live side by side in the same district must now cease4 ,they certainly did live side by side1 as is shown by these companion pictures of the mammoth and the reindeer in the very southern part of sunny ,france1 to say nothing of the numerous cases where the bones of the above mentioned animals are all mixed together indiscriminately4 ,how is it unreasonable to suppose that these elephants1 lions and hippopotami lived beneath the early ,tertiary palms1 cinnamons1 and mimosas of the lower elevations1 while the reindeer1 musk-ox and glutton lived beneath the maples1 birches and beeches of the high mountain sides8 ,some such conditions must have existed1 for that magnificent world1 whose ruins we now find buried beneath our feet1 was a homogeneous and harmonious unit in its plant and animal life1 in spite of the fables upon which we have so long been fed in the name of geological science4 ,things which are equal to the same thing must be equal to one another2 hence the plants and animals which were contemporary with the same creature 7,man7 must have been contemporary with each other2 and hence there is absolutely nothing to forbid the idea that ,man and his ,pleistocene companions were really contemporary with the flora and fauna of the ,middle ,tertiary4 ,hence we may now proceed to inquire what geological changes have occurred since the ,middle of the ,miocene1 according to the accepted teachings of geology4 ,our first point must be that of climate1 and ,i have already given abundant evidence to show that at that time an abundant warm-climate vegetation mantled all the ,arctic regions4 ,as already quoted from ,wallace1 throughout the whole ,arctic regions1 and during the whole of geological time1 we find one uniform climatic aspect of the fossils1 and ,it is quite impossible to ignore or evade the force of the testimony as to the continuous warm climate of the ,north ,temperate and ,polar ,zones throughout ,tertiary times4 ,that this astonishingly mild and uniform climate prevailed over these regions until and during the time of the mammoth1 we ought not to have a shadow of doubt4 ,what single bit of positive evidence is there to show that it did not8 ,that he must have had some such vegetation on which to feed is certain1 and there is no proof of any previous interruption of these conditions save a series of hypotheses4 ,he and his fellows browsed on semi-tropical and warm temperate plants far within the ,arctic ,circle1 if there happened to be land there1 doubtless over the very ,pole itself2 but suddenly66 lo1 something caught him with the grip of death-- ,and wrapped his corpse in winding-sheet of ice1 ,and sung the requiem of his shivering ghost4 ,who has not read of their untainted meat now making food for dogs and wolves8 ,their stomachs are well filled with undigested food1 showing1 as one author remarks1 that they were quietly feeding when the crisis came4 ,dr4 ,hertz recently reported one not only with its stomach full of food1 but with its mouth full1 too4 ,no wonder that even an orthodox geologist like ,prof4 ,dana is compelled to say that these things prove that the cold finally became suddenly extreme1 as of a single winter's night1 and knew no relenting afterward4 ,here then is one very notable geological event which has taken place within the human epoch1 and the only thing of its kind of which geology has an undeniable record1 viz41 a sudden and radical change in the earth's climate2 a cosmic affair1 and not a local phenomenon4 ,i need not here attempt to discuss the how of this world catastrophe as it must have been1 or the other changes inseparably involved4 ,the fact itself is as certain as ,man's own existence4 ,the next division of our subject1 in further consideration of the changes that have taken place since ,man's existence1 as stated at the beginning of this chapter1 relates to the changes of land and water distribution since ,middle ,miocene times4 ,and here again ,i shall try to take the classification of these rocks just as ,i find them4 ,the first thing which impresses us is the extremely fragmentary distribution of the ,miocene and ,pliocene beds4 ,not1 however1 that they are uncommon nor yet of small extent4 ,on the contrary they are scattered over ,america and ,eurasia--and all the rest of the globe for that matter--like the spots on a leopard1 or the warts on a toad's back1 till it becomes one of the unsearchable mysteries of the science how these innumerable patches can be got down under the ocean to receive their load of sediment1 without deluging the surrounding regions in a similar manner4 ,but then1 to be sure1 fresh-water lakes will answer the same purpose1 and are particularly indicated when the proportion of plants and terrestrial animals is in excess of the true marine fossils4 ,and so enormous fresh-water basins are described here and there1 with the great mammals crowding about their margins in their zeal to become fossilized1 that the mountain tops may be saved from going under once more--or perhaps ,i should say to enable the modern writers to get some of these strata puckered up to their full height before these late ,tertiary deposits were made4 ,this mountain making business is another affair that geologists would like to have take place on the installment plan1 but unfortunately it seems to have been nearly all postponed till the very close of geological time4 ,this arrangement of fresh-water lakes saves the central ,rocky ,mountain region from going down again beneath the deep4 ,but it cannot save the ,alps1 ,juras and ,appennines in ,europe1 nor parts of the ,himalayas1 and ,i know not what other mountains in ,asia1 nor the coast region of ,california and ,oregon in ,america1 to say nothing of large parts of the ,andes in ,south ,america1 with regions in ,africa and ,australia4 ,but what is the use of trying to figure out the amount of our earth which has been under the ocean since ,middle ,tertiary times1 and thus since ,man was upon it8 ,to save the northern half of ,europe with all of ,canada from again going under at the close of the ,tertiary period1 geologists have spread out their continental ice sheets1 and have asked them to do duty instead of water4 ,but this is hardly sufficient1 for the upper or later part of the so-called ,glacial deposits are clearly stratified2 and so they either invoke a flood vast beyond conception1 as ,dana does in ,america for the final event in the history of the glacier1 or1 as others prefer1 the whole region is baptized again4 ,as ,dawson says in his ,meeting-,place of ,geology and ,history1 ,no geological event is better established than the post-,pliocene submergence4 ,but ,i must not weary the reader by dwelling on this monotonous repetition of catastrophes--for must they not have been catastrophic if such ups and downs of whole continents are crowded within the human period8 ,we may allow a number of thousands of years for ,man's possible existence1 but ,archaeology and ,history alike protest against the millions of years required to explain these continental oscillations on any basis of uniformity4 ,one such period of horror ought to be enough for us1 and to understand or explain it in a truly scientific manner1 we must with it correlate the sudden and world-wide change of climate already described4 ,one more point demands consideration ere we complete this subject of what ,man has witnessed of geological change4 ,for1 according to current theory almost all the mountains have been either wholly formed or at least completed within quite recent times3 indeed many of the greatest mountain chains have been puckered up from the position of horizontal strata wholly since ,miocene times1 which for us means since ,man was upon the globe4 ,thus ,dana in speaking of the part of ,western ,america which has been elevated since ,miocene times1 says that it-- 444 probably included the whole of the ,pacific mountain border1 from the line of the ,mississippi ,valley to the ,pacific coast line and outside of this line for one or more scores of miles4#ia ,and he adds the significant words3 ,contemporaneously1 similar movements were in progress over the other continents3 along the ,andes1 affecting half1 at least1 of ,south ,america2 the ,pyrenees1 ,carpathian ,alps1 and a large part of ,europe2 the ,himalayas and much of ,asia4 7p4 #cfe47 ,let us now take a brief glance at a few of the details of what these mountains were thus doing while ,man was living in semi-tropical ,england1 or at least ,western ,europe4 ,in speaking of foreign examples of ,tertiary mountain-making this author devotes especial attention to the ,alps and the ,juras1 for their structure is better understood1 having been more carefully studied4 ,and of an example described by ,heim1 already spoken of1 he says3 ,one of the overthrust folds in the region has put the beds upside down over an area of #dej square miles4 ,fifty thousand feet of formations of the ,jurassic1 ,cretaceous1 ,eocene ,tertiary and ,miocene ,tertiary1 were upturned at the close of the ,miocene period4#ib ,with what a whack must this mighty mass of rocks have fallen on itself--miles in thickness1 and turned upside down over an area of #dej square miles666 ,of course ,i am here taking the record just as ,i find it1 as ,i have already discussed this matter of overthrust folds4 ,i need not give further examples from the other great mountain ranges4 ,their structure is not so well understood as that of the ,alps1 though doubtless when examined they will be found just as young1 and just as full of astonishing mountain movements as those already examined4 ,but this much is already certain1 that practically over all the world the mountains were either completed or wholly raised from the sea level during late ,tertiary and early ,quaternary time4 ,no wonder ,dana says that this fact is one of the most marvelous in geological history4 ,it has been thought incredible that the orographic climax should have come so near the end of geological time1 instead of in an early age when the crust had a plastic layer beneath1 and was free to move2 yet the fact is beyond question4 7,manual1 p4 #ajbj47 ,i think ,i have now abundantly proved the various heads of the proposition with which ,i began this chapter1 viz41 that even from the standpoint of the current theories3--#ic 7#a7 ,man must have seen the entire elevation or at least the completion of practically all the great mountains of the world1 such as the ,rockies1 ,andes1 ,alps1 ,himalayas1 etc4 7#b7 ,the relative distribution of land and water surface has--since ,man's advent as commonly stated--changed completely4 ,the land and water have practically changed places over the greater part of the globe4 7#c7 ,man lived while the ,arctic regions had a mild soft climate1 and he lived to see these conditions so suddenly changed that some of his dumb brute companions were caught in the waters and frozen so speedily that their flesh has remained untainted4 ,other considerations show this change of climate to have affected the whole globe4 ,the lesson to be drawn from this as the last fact in the line of cumulative evidence here presented1 will be considered in the following chapter4 ,,footnotes3 #hh ,controverted ,questions of ,geology1 ,article ,,iii41 #ahie4 #hi ,meeting-,place1 pp4 #bh1 #bi4 #ij ,pop4 ,sc4 ,news1 ,feb4 #aijb4 #ia ,manual1 p4 #cfd4 #ib p4 #cfg4 #ic 7,note4 ,in this discussion ,i have purposely ignored the various instances where human remains have been reported from deposits of even greater antiquity than the ,middle ,tertiaries47 ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,inductive ,,methods ,in the ,first ,part of this book ,i tried to examine into the facts and methods which are commonly supposed to prove that there has been a succession of life on the globe4 ,we found that this life succession theory has not a single fact to support it2 that it is not the result of scientific research1 but wholly the product of an inventive imagination2 that no one kind of fossil has even been proved or can be proved to be intrinsically older than another1 or than ,man himself2 and hence that a complete reconstruction of geological theory is imperatively demanded by our modern knowledge4 ,in the ,second ,part ,i have brought out the following additional facts3 #a4 ,the abnormal character of much of the fossiliferous deposits4 #b4 ,a radical and world-wide change of climate4 #c4 ,the marked degeneration in passing from the fossil world to the modern one4 #d4 ,the fact that the human race1 to say nothing of a vast number of living species of plants and animals1 has participated in some of the greatest of the geological changes--we really know not how to limit the number or character of these changes4 ,surely a true spirit of scientific investigation would now begin to inquire1 ,how did these changes take place8 ,discarding the use of stronger language1 it is at least utterly unscientific to begin somewhere at the vanishing point of a past eternity and formulate our pretty theories as to how this deposit was made1 and how that was laid down1 and the exact order in which they all occurred2 while these recent deposits1 in which our race and the plants and animals living about us are acknowledged to be concerned1 are left over till the last1 and we then find that they admit of absolutely no explanation4 ,we ourselves1 to say nothing of thousands of living species of plants and animals1 have participated in some of the very greatest of the geological changes--we know not how many or how great4 ,these things must be first explained4 ,has anything happened to our world that will explain them8 ,are there known forces and changes now in operation which1 granting time enough1 will amply and sufficiently explain these facts1 as simply one in kind with those of the present day8 ,to this last question we must admit that our historic experience1 prolonged over several thousand years1 utters a thundering ,,no6 ,volcanoes are every now and then breaking forth2 but volcanoes and mountain ranges have nothing in common with one another as to structure and origin4 ,no one claims that a single mountain flexure is now being formed or has been formed within the historic period4 ,there are indeed creeps in the rocks in certain places1 but these are not such as to contribute to the height of the mountains in which they occur1 but rather the reverse4 ,sudden changes of level within small areas have occurred1 but neither in extent nor in kind do they furnish any key as to past changes of level2 while the so-called secular changes are so microscopic in extent and so doubtful in character that they are utterly unworthy of consideration in view of the stupendous problems which we are trying to explain4 ,the well-known work of ,eduard ,suess is a standing protest that such geological chances are not now in progress2 for1 in speaking of how the land and ocean have exchanged places in the past1 ,zittel represents him as teaching that their cause of origin until now has not yet been discovered4#id ,or1 to quote the expressive words of ,suess himself1 with which he concludes his discussion of this very subject3 ,as ,rama looks across the ocean of the universe1 and sees its surface blend in the distant horizon with the dipping sky1 and as he considers if indeed a path might be built far out into the almost immeasurable space1 so we gaze over the ocean of the ages1 but no sign of a shore shows itself to our view4 7,id4 p4 #bid47 ,as for climate1 ,i never heard any one suggest that cosmic changes of climate are now known to be going on1 much less that sudden changes of the kind indicated by the ,north ,siberian mummies are in the habit of occurring4 ,in fact1 we must all own that the mountains1 the relative position of land and water1 as well as the climate of our globe1 are each and all now in a state of stable equilibrium1 and have been in this state since the dawn of history or of scientific observation4 ,accordingly ,i ask1 ,how much time is needed to account for the facts before us on the basis of ,uniformity8 ,in common honesty will a short eternity itself satisfy the stern problem before us8 ,i cannot see that it holds out the slightest promise of solving it2 while1 on the other hand1 ,i am sure that1 in dealing with the past of ,man's existence 7theories of evolution and all other theories of origins whatever cast aside71 we are not at liberty to make unreasonable demands of time4 ,the evidence of history and archaeology is all against it4 ,from the latter sciences it can be shown that at their very dawn we have1 over all the continents1 a group of civilizations seldom equalled since save in very modern times1 and all so undeniably related to one another and of such a character that they prove a previous state of civilization in some locality together1 before these scattered fragments of our race were dispersed abroad4 ,we can track these various peoples all back to some region in ,southwestern ,asia1 though the exact locality for this source of inherited civilization has never yet been found1 and it is now almost certain that it is somehow lost in the geological changes which have intervened4 ,for when we cross the well marked boundary line between history and geology1 we have still to deal with men who apparently were not savages1 men who with tremendous disadvantages could carve and draw and paint as no savages have ever done1 and who had evidently domesticated the horse and other animals4 ,but as to time1 history gives no countenance to long time1 i4e41 what geologists would call long4 ,good authentic history extends back a few score centuries1 archaeology may promise us a few more4 ,as for millions of years1 of even a few hundred thousands1 the thing seems too absurd for discussion1 unless we forsake inductive methods1 and assume some form of evolution a priori4 ,hence it ought to be evident that no amount of learned trifling with time will solve our problem without supposing some strange event to have happened our world and our race1 long ago1 and before the dawn of history4 ,i see no possible way for scientific reasoning to avoid this conclusion4 ,ignoring for the present the ,chaldean ,deluge tablets1 and what ,rawlinson calls the consentient belief in a world-catastrophe among members of all the great races into which ethnologists have divided mankind1 which like their civilization has the earmarks of being an inheritance from some common source before their dispersion1 we may note that most geologists now admit the certainty of some sort of catastrophe since man was upon the earth4 ,i might mention ,quatrefages and ,dupont1 ,boyd ,dawkins1 ,howorth1 ,prestwich1 ,wright and ,sir ,william ,dawson1 with many others4 ,even ,eduard ,suess teaches a somewhat similar local catastrophe1 though like the others only as a reluctant concession to the insistent demands of ,chaldean history and archaeological tradition4 ,but all of these affairs are mere makeshifts in view of the tremendous demands of the purely geological evidence1 and all alike 7save perhaps those of ,wright and ,howorth7 labor under the strange inconsistency of supposing that such an event could occur without leaving abundant and indelible marks upon the rocks of our globe4 ,while in view of the evidence given through the previous pages1 ,i insist that the purely geological evidence of a world catastrophe is immeasurably stronger than that of archaeology1 that in fact the whole geological phenomena constitute a cumulative argument of this nature4 ,but if this be granted1 we must then inquire1 ,what was its nature8 and what its extent8 ,the former is quite easily answered3 the latter problem is still somewhat beyond our reach4 ,as to its character1 the evidence is very plain4 ,it was a veritable cataclysm of some sort3 it deals with great changes of land and water surface4 ,if the geological succession is but a hoary myth1 and if we find countless modern living species of plants and animals mixed up in all the older rocks1 we cannot ignore these in a rational and unprejudiced reconstruction of the science4 ,but1 ignoring these1 we must remember that even the ,tertiary and post-,tertiary deposits are absolutely world wide1 and are packed with fossils of living species4 ,not a continent and scarcely a country on the globe but contains great stretches of these deposits1 laid down by the sea where now the land is high and dry4 ,the sea and land have practically shifted places over all the globe since ,man and thousands of other living species left their fossils in the rocks4 ,it is only the stupendous magnitude of these changes which has made our scientists reluctant to admit the possibility of such a catastrophe4 ,with the myth of a life succession dissipated1 a broad view of the fossil world cannot fail to convince the mind of the reality of some such cosmic convulsion1 and convince it with all the force of a mathematical demonstration4 ,great groups of animals have dropped out of sight over all the continents1 and their carcasses have been buried by sea water where we now find high plateaus or mountain ranges4 ,ignoring completely the abundant fossils in the so-called older rocks1 and fixing our attention entirely on the ,tertiary and ,pleistocene beds that are acknowledged to be closely connected with the human race and the modern world1 we still have a problem in race extinction alone that appalls the mind4 ,the mammoth1 rhinoceros and mastodon1 together with not less than thirty distinct species of the horse tribe1 as ,marsh says1 all disappear from ,north ,america at one time1 and the most ingenious disciple of ,hutton and ,lyell has been puzzled to invent a plausible explanation4 ,but when we consider that at this same geological period similar events were occurring on all the other continents--the huge ground-sloths 7megatheriums7 and glyptodons in ,south ,america2 wombats as large as tapirs1 and kangaroos the size of elephants in ,australia2 the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros in ,eurasia2 together with an enormous hippopotamus1 as far as ,england is concerned1 to say nothing of those great bears1 lions and hyenas1 with a semi-tropical vegetation1 all disappearing together at the same time1 or shifting to the other side of the world--it becomes almost like a deliberate insult to our intellectual honesty to be approached with offers of explanations based on any so-called natural action of the forces of nature4 ,but when1 in addition to all this1 we consider the fact that those human giants of the caves of ,western ,europe were contemporary with the animals mentioned above1 and disappeared along with them at this same time1 while mountain masses in all parts of the world crowded with marine forms of the so-called older types positively cannot be separated in time from the others1 it becomes as certain as any other ordinary scientific fact1 like sunrise or sunset1 that our once magnificently stocked world met with some sudden and awful catastrophe in the long ago2 and is it in any way transgressing the bounds of true inductive science to correlate this event with the ,deluge of the ,hebrew ,scriptures and the traditions of every race on earth8 ,we have already seen how ,dana supposes two such events1 one at the close of the ,palaeozoic age1 and the other at the close of the ,mesozoic1 merely to account for the astonishing disappearance of species at these periods when the fossils are arranged in taxonomic order2 but if we once admit such an event with ,man and all the other species contemporary with one another1 where shall we limit its power to disturb the land and water and churn them all up together1 leaving the present simply as the ruins of that previous world8 ,the fact is1 the current ,geology is wholly built up from the ,cambrian to the ,pleistocene on the dogmatic denial that any such catastrophe has occurred to the world in which ,man lived1 for one such event happening in our modern homogeneous world is enough to make the whole pretty scheme found in our text-books tumble like a house of cards4 ,like the patient and exact observations of the ,ptolemaic astronomers1 which accumulated volumes of evidence contradicting their own theories1 and which in the hands of ,copernicus and ,galileo1 ,kepler and ,newton1 sealed the doom of astronomical speculation and laid the foundations of an exact science of the heavens2 so have the indefatigable labors of thousands of geologists accumulated evidence which strikes at the very foundation of the current ,uniformitarianism1 and casts a pall of doubt over every conclusion as to how or when any given deposit of the older rocks was produced4 ,here we must leave the question for the present4 ,the possibility of such a world-wide catastrophe1 which might account for the major part of the geological changes1 needs no apology here4 ,the slightest disturbance of the nice equilibrium of our elements would suffice to send the waters of the ocean careering over the land2 and in the abundance of astronomical causes competent for such disturbance we cease to regard such an event as necessarily contrary to natural law4 ,the possibility of such a thing no competent scientist now denies2 it is the problem of recovery from such a disaster which makes the perplexity4 ,but incredible or not as the latter may be regarded1 ,i claim to have established a perfect chain of scientific argument proving a world-wide catastrophe of some sort since ,man was upon it4 ,but this fact1 if once admitted1 strikes at the very foundation of the current science1 and bids us readjust our theories from this view-point4 ,the venerable scheme of a life succession becomes only the taxonomic or classification series of the world that existed before this disaster1 and it becomes the business of our science to find out how many and what deposits were due to this event1 and what were accumulated during the unknown period of previous existence4 ,those of us who wish to speculate can then let our imaginations have free play as to the uncounted ages before that event2 but the phylogenic series as a rational scientific theory is in limbo forever4 ,inductive geology1 therefore1 deals not with the formation of a world1 but with the ruins of one2 it can teach us absolutely nothing about origins4 ,the latter problem lies across the boundary line in the domain of philosophy and theology1 and to these systems of thought we may cheerfully leave the task of readjustment in view of the facts here presented4 ,a few disconnected thoughts along these lines ,i have ventured to insert here1 not strictly as a part of my purely scientific argument1 but as an appendix4 ,,footnote3 #id ,history1 p4 #cbj4 ,,appendix ,,appendix ,,reflections ,in the preceding pages ,i have endeavored to develop a scientific argument pure and simple4 ,yet ,i do not feel called upon to apologize in any way for attempting now to show the connection between an inductive scheme of ,geology as set forth in the body of this work and the religion of ,christianity2 though my remarks along this line must necessarily be very brief4 ,the most fundamental idea of religion is the fatherhood of ,god as our ,creator4 ,the only true basis of morality lies in our relationship to ,him as ,his creatures4 ,during the latter half of the nineteenth century the ,biblical idea of a creation at some definite and not very remote period in the past became much modified by reason of certain theories of evolution1 which explained the origin of plants and animals as the result of slow-acting causes1 now in operation around us1 prolonged over immense ages of time4 ,these theories1 though built up wholly on the current ,geology as a foundation1 were yet supposed to be firmly established in science1 and after a spirited discussion among biologists for a few years1 were almost universally accepted in some form or other by the religious leaders of ,christendom4 ,and though the ,theistic ,evolution of recent years may be supposed to have modified somewhat the stern heartlessness of pure ,darwinism1 it still leaves the ,christian world quite at variance with the old ,pauline doctrines regarding good and evil1 creation1 redemption1 the atonement1 etc4 ,and these are not the only effects of the general acceptance of these ideas as an explanation of the origin of things4 ,we see their moral effects in the generation now coming on the stage of action--men educated in an atmosphere of ,evolution1 and accustomed from youth to the idea that all progress1 whether in the individual or the race1 is to be reached only by a ceaseless struggle for existence and survival at the expense of others4 ,in the words of ,sir ,william ,dawson1 these doctrines have stimulated to an intense degree that popular unrest so natural to an age discontented with its lot 444 and which threatens to overthrow the whole fabric of society as at present constituted4#ie ,this popular and perfectly natural application of the evolution doctrine to every-day life is certainly intensifying1 as never before1 the innate selfishness of human nature1 and1 in every pursuit of life1 embittering the sad struggle for place and power4 ,perhaps no other one cause and result serve more plainly to differentiate the present strenuous age from those that have gone before4 ,the hitherto undreamed-of advantages and creature comforts of the present day1 instead of tending toward universal peace and happiness1 are apparently only giving a wider range to the discontent and depravity of the natural human heart4 ,so much so1 that any one familiar with the history of nations cannot but feel a terrible foreboding creep over him as he faces the prospect presented to-day by civilised society the world over4 ,the only remedy for the many and increasing evils of our world is the old-fashioned religion of ,christ and ,his apostles4 ,and this applied1 not to the state1 but to the individual4 ,the soul-regenerating truths of ,christianity have always1 wherever given a proper test by the individual1 resulted in moral uplift and blessing4 ,ecclesiastical policies and ideas have always1 wherever allowed to influence civil legislation1 resulted in oppression and tyranny4 ,what has ,geology to do with all this8 ,it has much to do with it4 ,correct ideas of geology will remove a great many vain notions--,i had almost said superstitions--regarding our origin1 which now pass under the name of science4 ,and in thus removing false ideas it leaves the ground cleared for more correct ideas regarding creation1 and thus for truer concepts of morality1 the old idea of must and ought based on our relation to ,god as ,his creatures4 ,mark the words ,i have used4 ,inductive ,geology can never prove creation4 ,it may remove obstructions which have hitherto obscured this idea1 but this is the utmost limit of any true science4 ,inductive ,geology removes forever the succession-of-life idea1 and thus may suggest the only seeming alternative1 viz41 ,creation as the definite act of the ,infinite ,god4 ,before this awful yet sublime fact1 with all the fogs of evolution and metaphysical subtleties cleared away1 the human mind stands to-day as never before within historic times4 ,with a fairly complete knowledge of the chemical make-up of protoplasm1 with a good acquaintance with the life history and reproduction of living cells1 we yet know nothing of the origin of life4 ,with a good working knowledge of variation1 hybridization1 etc41 we know nothing of the origin of species4 ,while with a fairly good understanding of the present geographical distribution of species1 and of where their fossils occur in the rocks1 we are profoundly ignorant of any particular order in which these species originated on our globe1 or whether they all took origin at approximately one and the same time4 ,in short1 having reached out along every known line of investigation1 until we have apparently reached the limits of the human powers in investigation and research1 twentieth century science must stand with uncovered head and bowed form in presence of that most august thought of the human mind1 ,in the beginning ,god created4 ,and yet1 personally1 ,i am firmly convinced that the origin of life and of our cosmos1 was according to law1 and the laws of nature4 ,as has been said1 ,how could the origin of nature be contrary to nature8 ,how could the origin of present forms and conditions be in any way at variance with the laws by which these forms or conditions are maintained8 ,and while ,i do not consider it a very promising field of research1 we ought to have no more reluctance1 per se1 to considering the manner in which the first cell or the first species was formed1 than the way in which a chicken is produced from the egg4 ,of course in either case we must have the materials1 and some outside ,cause to originate the conditions and conduct the process2 they both require the immanent presence and fostering care of the great ,creator4 ,in this connection ,i beg leave to quote somewhat at length from my book1 ,outlines of ,modern ,science and ,modern ,christianity4 ,we are getting no nearer the real mystery in the case by saying that all the tissues of the chick are built up by the protoplasm in the egg4 ,the protoplasm in the toes is the same as that in the little creature's brain4 ,why does the one build up claws and the other brain cells8 ,does memory guide these little things in their wonderful division of labor8 ,but they all started from one original germ cell1 hence they all ought to have the same memory pictures4 ,or have they entered into a mutual-benefit arrangement1 like the members of a community1 as ,haeckel would have us believe1 each contributing by actual desire and effort1 ,i suppose1 an individual share to the general progress of the whole8--,no2 they have all the appearance of being mere automata working at the direct bidding of a ,master ,mind4 ,every step of the process needs a ,creator1 just as much as the first cell division4 ,in the words of one of the highest of scientific authorities1 ',we still do not know why a certain cell becomes a gland-cell1 another a ganglion-cell2 why one cell gives rise to a smooth muscle-fibre1 while a neighbor forms voluntary muscle2' and this also 'at certain1 usually predestined1 times in particular places4'#if ,and in the same way the idea of a ,creator would not be disposed of1 even if we could possibly hit upon the probable process of world-formation4 ,we would not1 by understanding the process1 really get at the cause of the phenomena1 any more than we do now at the real cause of life4 ,from the scientific method the real mystery remains as much behind the veil as ever before4 7pp4 #aaa1 #aab47 ,again ,i quote from this same work3 ,the origin of organic nature could not well have been otherwise than by natural process4 ,do we understand all natural processes8 ,at some time life was not in existence on our globe4 ,all agree that it had a beginning4 ,even if created by the great ,creator1 the living was at some time formed from the not-living or the not-material4 ,it does not take even ,huxley's famous 'act of philosophic faith' to believe that4 ,so that1 in spite of all the haze that has been thrown about this question1 the ,biblical creation of the organic from the inorganic is no more contrary to1 or even outside of1 natural law than is evolution4444 ,but see what we avoid4 ,according to the ,bible1 death in even the lower animals 7and consequently all misery and suffering3 the less is included in the greater7 is only the result of sin on the part of man1 the head of animated nature1 a reflex or sympathetic result1 if you will4 ,but with evolution we have countless millions of years of creature suffering1 cruelty1 and death before man appeared at all1 cruelty and death that 444 have no moral meaning at all1 save as the work of a fiend creator1 or a bungling or incompetent one4#ig ,the author then gives a quotation from ,le,conte1 illustrating the extremely various ways in which matter and energy act on the different planes of their existence1 while ,the passage from one plane upward to another is not a gradual passage by sliding scale1 but at one bound4 ,when the necessary conditions are present1 a new and higher form of force at once appears1 like birth into a higher sphere4444 ,it is no gradual process1 but sudden1 like birth into a higher sphere4#ih ,the argument then proceeds as follows3 ,the living at some time originated from the not-living4 ,we call it creation4 ,can any one find a better name8 ,it is preposterous to call it a process of development or evolution due to the inherent properties of the atoms1 and effected by them alone4 ,and yet it is doubtless as much according to 'natural law' as are the invariable and exact combinations of chemistry4 ,we do not understand the ultimate reasons for chemical affinity any more than we do for gravitation4 ,they are only expressions of the methodical1 order-loving mind of ,deity4 ,creation was only another action of the same mind1 and we are not really finding any new difficulty when we say that the processes or the reasons for creative action are beyond our comprehension4 ,when we can really solve some of the myriad problems right before our eyes1 it will be time enough to complain about creation being incomprehensible or contrary to 'natural law4' ,well1 then1 remembering that1 even according to ,huxley's 'act of philosophic faith1' the origin of the living from the not-living must at some time have taken place according to natural law1 why should we suppose that such a process was confined to one example8 ,if1 when the young planet 'was passing through physical and chemical conditions which it can no more see again than a man can recall his infancy1' the 'necessary conditions' were favorable for one such creation of life1 why not a few billion8 ,would the production of a few billion such beginnings of protoplasm be any less 'natural' than of one alone8 ,remember1 however1 that both the arrangement of these 'necessary conditions1' as well as the endowing of matter with these 'properties1' not only requires a cause1 but this cause must be intelligent1 for there is indisputable design in this first origin of life4444 ,the food for a developing embryo might1 for aught that we know1 be conveyed to it direct from the ultimate laboratories of nature1 and it thus be built up by protoplasm in the usual way1 without the medium of a parent form--other than the great ,father of all4 ,or would it be any less according to natural law to believe that a bird passed through all the usual stages of embryonic development from the not-living up to the full-fledged songster of the skies in one day--the fifth day of creation8 ,and if one example1 why not a million8 ,for1 remember that the youthful earth was then passing through strange conditions1 'which1' as ,huxley says1 'it can no more see again than a man can recall his infancy4'#ii ,omitting some remarks about embryology1 ,i continue this quotation as follows3 ,but what 'law' would be violated in this springtime of the world if1 instead of twenty years or so for full development1 the first man passed through all these stages in one day--the sixth of creation week8 ,he might as well have originated from the not-living as the evolutionist's first speck of protoplasm1 for he certainly now starts from a mass of this same protoplasm1 identical1 as we have seen1 in all plants and animals4 ,and by originating thus1 he would escape that horrible heritage of bestial and savage propensities which he would get through evolution1 a heritage that would make it not his fault1 but his misfortune1 that sin and evil are in the world1 and which would also shift the responsibility for the evidently abnormal condition of 'this present evil world' off from the creature to the ,creator1 and change to us ,his character from that of a loving ,father1 fettered by no conditions in ,his creation1 to that of either a bungling1 incompetent workman or a heartless fiend2 for1 though ,i am almost ashamed to write the words1 the god of the evolutionist must be either the one or the other4 7p4 #aba47 99 99 99 99 99 ,with an appreciation nurtured by centuries of study of ,god's larger book1 baffled often though she has been1 and disappointed many times in the words she has endeavored to spell out1 ,science to-day proclaims its subject1 its title page1 which she has now at last deciphered1 ,in the beginning ,god created the heaven and the earth4 ,,footnotes3 #ie ,modern ,ideas of ,evolution1 p4 #ab4 #if ,nature1 ,may #bc1 #aija1 pp4 #ge1 #gf4 #ig ,outlines1 etc41 p4 #aaf4 #ih ,evolution and ,religious ,thought1 pp4 #cad-caf4 #ii ,outlines1 etc41 p4 #aai1 #abj4 ,,report ,,on ,,illogical ,,geology ,having read the foregoing argument1 will you now do the ,publishers and the author the favor of filling out the following blank and mailing this slip1 or a copy of it1 to us as early as possible8 ,it makes no difference to us even if your opinion is adverse4 ,,the ,,modern ,,heretic ,,co4 #beg ,s4 ,hill ,st41 ,los ,angeles1 ,cal4 ,cut out here ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------- #a4 ,what is your opinion of ,part ,i as an exposure of the ,evolution ,theory8 #b4 ,how can it be improved8 #c4 ,what fact or facts have been omitted from ,part ,,ii that should be included in a true1 safe1 induction regarding the past of our globe8 #d4 ,other remarks4 ,,name4444444444444444444444444444444444 4444444 ,,street ,,and ,,number4444444444444444444444444444 ,,city444444444444444444444 ,profession or ,occupation444444444444444444444444444 ,modern ,science and ,modern ,christianity ,,by ,,george ,mc,c,r,e,a,d,y ,,price ,the ,evolution ,theory in its whole range1 from the ,nebulous ,cloud1 the ,cooling ,earth1 and the ,origin of ,life1 through ,geology and ,biology up to the ,moral ,nature of ,man1 ,carefully discussed in a ,popular ,style4 ,no one1 after reading it1 could for a moment suppose that the ,evolution ,theory had been proved by sound scientific arguments1 while the moral and religious tendencies of the doctrine are shown to be anti-,christian to the last degree4 ,cloth bound1 #bgb pages1 net1 #ge cents4 ,postage extra4 ,god's ,two ,books ,,by ,,george ,mc,c,r,e,a,d,y ,,price ,a pamphlet covering that part of the ,evolution ,theory which deals with ,geology1 ,archology1 ,darwinism1 and ethics4 ,it is especially full on ,geology and ,darwinism1 and presents many facts and arguments on these subjects not found in anything now published4 7,in preparation74 ,,paper ,,covers1 ,,about #abj ,,pages1 #be ,,cents1 ,,postpaid4 ,,the ,,modern ,,heretic ,,co4 #beg ,,so4 ,,hill ,,st41 ,,los ,,angeles1 ,,cal4 ,the ,modern ,heretic ,a ,magazine of ,primal ,orthodoxy ,,george ,,mccready ,,price1 ,,editor ,we believe that the claims of ,evolution1 ,higher ,criticism1 ,new ,theology1 ,new ,thought1 ,spiritism1 etc41 are unscientific and un-,christian4 ,we realize that we are in a small minority1 and that to assail these doctrines is to-day called heresy4 ,but we have chosen our position deliberately1 and shall abide by the consequences4 ,this journal will try to give the most recent discoveries in geology1 biology1 physiology and archology1 and to discuss their bearings on the ,christian religion2 and we think that no intelligent person can afford to be without its regular visits4 ,monthly2 #ej;c per year2 sample copies free4 ,,the ,,modern ,,heretic ,,co4 #beg ,s4 ,,hill ,,st4 ,,los ,,angeles1 ,,cal4 99 99 99 99 99 ,transcriber's ,note3 ,punctuation has been standardised1 in particular1 missing periods have been supplied where obviously required4 ,all other original errors and inconsistencies have been retained1 except as follows2 7the first line is the original text1 the second the passage as currently stands73 must less of the co-existing faunas of other much less of the co-existing faunas of other which it discusses from a purely scientfic which it discusses from a purely scientific works of ,dana1 ,le ,conte1 ,prestwich1 and ,geikie works of ,dana1 ,le,conte1 ,prestwich1 and ,geikie of looking into the geneology of an idea4 of looking into the genealogy of an idea4 history of science did a stranger halucination history of science did a stranger hallucination we know they are today in recent deposits we know they are to-day in recent deposits ,the author then gives a quotation from ,le ,conte1 ,the author then gives a quotation from ,le,conte1 ,but is is equally evident that each successive ,but it is equally evident that each successive dominated ,mediaeval scolasticism and made it dominated ,mediaeval scholasticism and made it ,the ,glacian ,nightmare and the ,flood1 ,the ,glacial ,nightmare and the ,flood1 larger species is the ,titnichthys clarki larger species is the ,titanichthys clarki happening in our modern homogenous world is enough happening in our modern homogeneous world is enough widespread numulitic limestones of the ,eocene widespread nummulitic limestones of the ,eocene of organic creation on the instal ment plan1 of organic creation on the instalment plan1 ,numulites or ,mammals positively were not living ,nummulites or ,mammals positively were not living here and there to make this incredible thicknss1 here and there to make this incredible thickness1 about #ahcj it came to the recognized1 other about #ahcj it came to be recognized1 other the bison is today absolutely extinct1 the bison is to-day absolutely extinct1 ,see ,le ,conte1 ,evol4 and ,religious ,thought1 ,see ,le,conte1 ,evol4 and ,religious ,thought1 they are directed rather to the empyrical method they are directed rather to the empirical method fitting like a glove on the preceeding4 fitting like a glove on the preceding4 ,le ,conte1 ,evol4 and ,rel4 ,thought1 pp4 #cc1 #cd ,le,conte1 ,evol4 and ,rel4 ,thought1 pp4 #cc1 #cd and spcial monographs in ,german and ,french4 and special monographs in ,german and ,french4 ,but to incrase this antiquity by saying ,but to increase this antiquity by saying ,lions and monkys1 hippopotami and crocodiles1 ,lions and monkeys1 hippopotami and crocodiles1 and rhinoceroces1 now live beneath the palms1 and rhinoceroses1 now live beneath the palms1 scientists who can elaborate geneological trees of descent scientists who can elaborate genealogical trees of descent have taken for these excedingly numerous have taken for these exceedingly numerous the ,pleistocene ,mammals and the middle ,tertiary flora the ,pleistocene mammals and the middle ,tertiary flora literature is fairly innundated with new names2 literature is fairly inundated with new names2 a noted paiaeontologist for finding a pupa a noted palaeontologist for finding a pupa the theories of the igenous origin of the crystalline rocks the theories of the igneous origin of the crystalline rocks went to school toegther1 served in the same wars1 went to school together1 served in the same wars1 or are now to be found iiving in our modern world or are now to be found living in our modern world e4g4 gratolites and numulites e4g4 gratolites and nummulites these ,davonian and other rocks are absolutely these ,devonian and other rocks are absolutely it cannot save the ,alps1 ,juras and ,appenines it cannot save the ,alps1 ,juras and ,appennines without leaving abundant and indellible marks without leaving abundant and indelible marks which it can no more see again than a can can recall which it can no more see again than a man can recall and yet refuse the evidently complemntary dposits and yet refuse the evidently complementary deposits pages of the ordinary text-boks4 pages of the ordinary text-books4 these is no telling what hosts of similar facts there is no telling what hosts of similar facts but so far as the text-boks tell us are but so far as the text-books tell us are as recent as the numulitic limestones of the ,eocene as recent as the nummulitic limestones of the ,eocene ,footnote #b3 ,old ,red ,sandstone1 pp4 #dh-bba-b4 ,footnote #b3 ,old ,red ,sandstone1 pp4 #dh1 #bba-b for thousands of skletons are found in localities for thousands of skeletons are found in localities is easily understod as the survival of the notion1 is easily understood as the survival of the notion1 the dim past1 and all these semitropical plants had the dim past1 and all these semi-tropical plants had better established than the post-,piiocene submergence4 better established than the post-,pliocene submergence4 example described by ,helm1 already spoken of1 example described by ,heim1 already spoken of1 ,the former is qulet easily answered3 ,the former is quite easily answered3 race extinction alone that appals the mind4 race extinction alone that appalls the mind4 which in the hands of ,copernicus and ,galilio1 which in the hands of ,copernicus and ,galileo1 ,,chapter ,,xii ,,inductive ,,methods ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,inductive ,,methods ,in the last edition of his ,manual1 ,in the last edition of his ,manual1 pre-conceived theory would at the suggestion of such preconceived theory would at the suggestion of such evolution and metaphysical subtilties cleared away1 evolution and metaphysical subtleties cleared away1