Illogical Geology Part 11

There is still another fact which we must consider ere we can frame any wise or safe induction regarding the geological changes. It is this:

=Man himself, to say nothing of numerous living animals and plants, must have witnessed something of the nature of a cosmic convulsion--how much it is the object of our search to find out.= Even according to the ordinary text-books, he must have seen the uplifting of the greater part of the mountain chains of the world; while he certainly lived in conditions of climate, and of land and water distribution, together with plant and animal surroundings, which preclude the possibility of dovetailing those conditions into the present order of things on any basis of uniformity.

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 inquiry. But instead of this method, instead of finding out whether our present world was ever a witness of such an event, the founders of the science began at the little end of an a.s.sumed succession of life (involving a preposterous supernatural knowledge of the past), 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 world. The evidence on this latter point finally became overwhelming; but with their habit of Uniformity well mastered, and their long, single file of life succession all tabulated off and infallibly fixed, modern geologists have hitherto refused to look at the whole science from this new point of view, or to reconstruct geological theory if need be in accordance with a true modern induction.

And in this proposition the reader will understand that I believe in what is called "Tertiary man." I am aware that a few scientists still contest this view, but the evidence (from the standpoint of current theory) seems to me to be overwhelmingly against them. But in this fact, if it be a fact, that Man lived under the wholly strange and different conditions of "Pliocene" or perhaps "Miocene times," is =THE VERY STRONGEST POSSIBLE ARGUMENT= that I can conceive of for the necessity of a complete reconstruction of geological theory--I mean, of course, apart altogether from the preposterous way in which the life succession was a.s.sumed and built up and then treated as an actual fact. It was when this grim fact of Man's inseparable connection with the fossil world was borne in upon me, that I began to realize the possibility and imperative necessity of reconstructing the science on a truly inductive basis.

I shall not undertake to give a complete up-to-date argument for "Miocene" or even "Pliocene Man." The subject is still under discussion as to =just how far back= along this thin line of receding life forms Man actually did live, and from the peculiar methods now in vogue which are so wholly subjective in character, it would seem to be capable of settlement in almost any way one chooses. However, whole volumes are being written on the subject, and the end is not yet. But there is no denying that human remains have frequently been found in strata which, but for their presence, would have been a.s.signed a place far back in "Tertiary time." The existence of strong evidence for "Tertiary Man" no one would think of denying.

In all this, of course, I am considering the question from the common uniformitarian standpoint. 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 live? For those who have attentively read my statement of the unscientific methods of cla.s.sifying 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 is, to put it as mildly as possible, not quite a scientific certainty; if the time-honored custom of cla.s.sifying these so-called "superficial" beds by their relative percentages of extinct and living forms rests under a shadow of suspicion as to its scientific accuracy; if, above all, we do not at the beginning prejudice the whole case by the a.s.sumption of uniformity, =what need is there of determining whether "Pliocene" or "Miocene" sh.e.l.ls are found with these fossil human remains?=

That Man lived in Western Europe contemporary with those giants of the prime, the elephant and the musk-ox, the rhinoceros and the reindeer, the lion, the Cape hyena, and the hippopotamus, at which time a very different distribution of land and water prevailed over these parts, with a radically different mantle of climate spread over all, no one will deny for a moment. Such facts are now found in the primary text-books for our children in the public schools.

But since geologists still cla.s.sify the rocks as they do, and give a time value to percentages of extinct and living species of marine sh.e.l.ls, etc., we are in a measure compelled to take the matter where we find it, and enquire how far back in geological time, i.e., among what kinds of fossils, are human remains found?

One of the best popular works on the subject that I know of is "The Meeting-Place of Geology and History," (1894) by Sir J. W. Dawson; though, like all other works of its kind written from the religious standpoint, it endeavors as far as possible to minimize the evidence in support of Man's geological antiquity.

This author thinks that Dr. Mourlan, of Belgium, has "established the strongest case yet on record for the existence of Tertiary Man." (p.

30.) It is that of some worked flints and broken bones of animals "imbedded in sands derived from Eocene and Pliocene beds, and supposed to have been remanie by wind action." Prestwich[88] has brought forward similar facts; 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 California, I am willing to =take them as reported=.

Dawson speaks of the nearly entire human skeleton described by Quatref.a.ges from the Lower Pliocene beds of Castelnedolo, near Brescia, and only answers it with a sarcastic remark about the well developed skull of this ancient man.

"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 men. This has cast a shade of suspicion on the discovery, especially on the part of evolutionists, who think it is not in accordance with theory that man should retrograde between the Pliocene and the early modern period instead of advancing."[89]

Lastly, we have the following about the Miocene:

"There are, however, in France two localities (Puy, Courney and Thenay), one in the Upper and the other in the Middle Miocene, which have afforded what are supposed to be worked flints."

He adds that "The geological age of the deposits seems in both cases beyond question;" but contents himself with a derisive answer about these chipped flints being possibly "the handiwork of Miocene apes."

This language, coming from such a source, would seem as good evidence as is needed to prove that Man was contemporary with, and that his remains are now found among the fossils of the Middle Miocene. For it must be remembered that these are reluctant admissions drawn from this ill.u.s.trious scientist, who was one of the last champions of the old ideas about the "recent" origin of Man. As Pres. Asa Mahan of Cornell has said, "Admissions in favor of truth from the ranks of its enemies const.i.tute the highest kind of evidence." At any rate, I shall treat this point as already proved, =for whether this particular instance is accepted or not, practically all modern writers admit the fact of "Middle Tertiary Man."=

I have already alluded to the recently discovered paintings on the cave walls of Southern France, where reindeer, aurochs, horses and mammoths have been reproduced with striking accuracy and skill, and of such an age that they have in places been covered by stalact.i.tes over two inches in thickness. The Marquis De Nadaillac,[90] who has given the best description of these interesting antiquities that I have been able to see, remarks that "the drawing is wonderful," and that "we are justly astonished to find such artistic performances in times so distant from ours, and in which we did not suppose a like civilization."

I have not seen the geological date to which these remains have been a.s.signed, but doubtless it is the very "latest" part of the Pleistocene--they show far too high a development for "Miocene" or even "Pliocene times." 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 others.

=Some men were as commonly admitted.= And in the name of sacred common sense, if the human period is thus elastic enough to stretch out over the Pleistocene, the Pliocene, and clear back to the "Middle Miocene,"

=why can't we do the same for all of man's strange companions=, the mammoth and the Cape hyena, the reindeer and the hippopotamus, the lion and the musk-ox, etc.? The usual sneers about it being impossible for this apparently incongruous mixture to live side by side in the same district must now cease. They certainly did live side by side, as is shown by these companion pictures of the mammoth and the reindeer in the very southern part of sunny France, to say nothing of the numerous cases where the bones of the above mentioned animals are all mixed together indiscriminately. How is it unreasonable to suppose that these elephants, lions and hippopotami lived beneath the "early" Tertiary palms, cinnamons, and mimosas of the lower elevations, while the reindeer, musk-ox and glutton lived beneath the maples, birches and beeches of the high mountain sides? Some such conditions must have existed, for that magnificent world, whose ruins we now find buried beneath our feet, was a =h.o.m.ogeneous and harmonious= unit in its plant and animal life, in spite of the fables upon which we have so long been fed in the name of geological science. Things which are equal to the same thing must be equal to one another; hence the plants and animals which were contemporary with the same creature (Man) must have been =contemporary with each other=; 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 Tertiary.

Hence we may now proceed to inquire what geological changes have occurred since the "Middle of the Miocene," according to the accepted teachings of geology.

Our first point must be that of climate, and I have already given abundant evidence to show that at that "time" an abundant warm-climate vegetation mantled all the Arctic regions. As already quoted from Wallace, throughout the whole Arctic regions, and during the whole of geological time, "we find one uniform climatic aspect of the fossils,"

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 times."

That this astonishingly mild and uniform climate prevailed over these regions until and during the time of the mammoth, we ought not to have a shadow of doubt. =What single bit of positive evidence is there to show that it did not?= That he must have had some such vegetation on which to feed is certain, and there is no proof of any previous interruption of these conditions save a series of hypotheses. He and his fellows browsed on semi-tropical and warm temperate plants far within the Arctic Circle, if there happened to be land there, doubtless over the very Pole itself; but suddenly!! lo, something caught him with the grip of death--

"And wrapped his corpse in winding-sheet of ice, And sung the requiem of his shivering ghost."

Who has not read of their untainted meat now making food for dogs and wolves? Their stomachs are well filled with undigested food, showing, as one author remarks, that they "were quietly feeding when the crisis came." Dr. Hertz recently reported one not only with its stomach full of food, but with its mouth full, too. No wonder that even an orthodox geologist like Prof. Dana is compelled to say that these things prove "that the cold finally became =suddenly= extreme, as of a single winter's night, and knew no relenting afterward."

Here then is one very notable geological event which has taken place within the human epoch, and the only thing of its kind of which geology has an undeniable record, viz., a sudden and radical change in the earth's climate; =a cosmic affair, and not a local phenomenon=. I need not here attempt to discuss the how of this world catastrophe as it must have been, or the other changes inseparably involved. The fact itself is as certain as Man's own existence.

The next division of our subject, in further consideration of the changes that have taken place since Man's existence, as stated at the beginning of this chapter, relates to the changes of land and water distribution since "Middle Miocene times." And here again I shall try to take the cla.s.sification of these rocks just as I find them.

The first thing which impresses us is the extremely fragmentary distribution of the Miocene and Pliocene beds. Not, however, that they are uncommon nor yet of small extent. 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 leopard, or the warts on a toad's back, 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 sediment, without deluging the surrounding regions in a similar manner. But then, to be sure, fresh-water lakes will answer the same purpose, and are particularly indicated when the proportion of plants and terrestrial animals is =in excess= of the true marine fossils. And so enormous fresh-water basins are described here and there, with the great mammals crowding about their margins in their zeal to become fossilized, 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 made. This mountain making business is another affair that geologists would like to have take place on the installment plan, but unfortunately it seems to have been nearly all postponed till the very close of "geological time." This arrangement of fresh-water lakes saves the central Rocky Mountain region from going down again beneath the deep. But it cannot save the Alps, Juras and Appennines in Europe, nor parts of the Himalayas, and I know not what other mountains in Asia, nor the coast region of California and Oregon in America, to say nothing of large parts of the Andes in South America, with regions in Africa and Australia.

But what is the use of trying to figure out the amount of our earth which has been under the ocean since "Middle Tertiary times," and thus since Man was upon it? To save the northern half of Europe with all of Canada from again going under at the close of the "Tertiary period,"

geologists have spread out their continental ice sheets, and have asked them to do duty instead of water. But this is hardly sufficient, for the "upper" or "later" part of the so-called "Glacial" deposits are clearly stratified; and so they either invoke a "=flood vast beyond conception=," as Dana does in America for the "final event in the history of the glacier," or, as others prefer, the whole region is baptized again. As Dawson says in his "Meeting-Place of Geology and History," "=No geological event is better established than the post-Pliocene submergence.="

But I must not weary the reader by dwelling on this monotonous repet.i.tion of catastrophes--for must they not have been catastrophic if such ups and downs of whole continents are crowded within the human period? We may allow a number of thousands of years for Man's possible existence, but Archaeology and History alike protest against the =millions= of years required to explain these continental oscillations on any basis of uniformity. One such period of horror ought to be enough for us, and to understand or explain it in a truly scientific manner, we must with it correlate the sudden and world-wide change of climate already described.

One more point demands consideration ere we complete this subject of what Man has witnessed of geological change. For, according to current theory =almost all the mountains have been either wholly formed or at least completed within quite "recent" times=: indeed many of the greatest mountain chains have been puckered up from the position of horizontal strata wholly since "Miocene times," which for us means since Man was upon the globe.

Thus Dana in speaking of the part of Western America which has been elevated since "Miocene times," says that it--

"... probably included the whole of the Pacific mountain border, from the line of the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific coast line and outside of this line for one or more scores of miles."[91]

And he adds the significant words:

"Contemporaneously, similar movements were in progress over the other continents: along the Andes, affecting half, at least, of South America; the Pyrenees, Carpathian Alps, and a large part of Europe; the Himalayas and much of Asia." (p. 365.)

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 England, or at least Western Europe.

In speaking of foreign examples of Tertiary mountain-making this author devotes especial attention to the Alps and the Juras, for their structure is better understood, having been more carefully studied. And of an example described by Heim, already spoken of, he says:

"One of the overthrust folds in the region has put the beds upside down over an area of 450 square miles. Fifty thousand feet of formations of the Jura.s.sic, Cretaceous, Eocene Tertiary and Miocene Tertiary, were upturned =at the close of the Miocene period=."[92]

With what a whack must this mighty ma.s.s of rocks have fallen on itself--miles in thickness, and turned "upside down over an area of 450 square miles"!!!

Of course I am here taking the record just as I find it, as I have already discussed this matter of "overthrust folds."

I need not give further examples from the other great mountain ranges.

Their structure is not so well understood as that of the Alps, though doubtless when examined they will be found just as "young," and just as full of astonishing mountain movements as those already examined. But this much is already certain, that =practically over all the world the mountains were either completed or wholly raised from the sea level= during "late Tertiary" and "early Quaternary time." No wonder Dana says that this fact "is one of the most marvelous in geological history."

"It has been thought incredible that the orographic climax should have come =so near the end= of geological time, instead of in an early age when the crust had a plastic layer beneath, and was free to move; yet =the fact is beyond question=." ("Manual," p. 1020.)

I think I have now abundantly proved the various heads of the proposition with which I began this chapter, viz., that even from the standpoint of the current theories:--[93]

(1) Man must have seen the entire elevation or at least the completion of practically all the great mountains of the world, such as the Rockies, Andes, Alps, Himalayas, etc.

(2) The relative distribution of land and water surface has--since Man's advent as commonly stated--changed completely. The land and water have practically changed places over the greater part of the globe.

(3) Man lived while the Arctic regions had a mild soft climate, 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 untainted. Other considerations show this change of climate to have affected the whole globe.

The lesson to be drawn from this as the last fact in the line of c.u.mulative evidence here presented, will be considered in the following chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[88] "Controverted Questions of Geology," Article III., 1895.