Illogical Geology Part 5

And the completely worthless character of such "evidence" of age becomes, if possible, 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-day. "It is notorious," says Darwin, "on what excessively slight differences many palaeontologists have founded their species." And even to-day, in spite of all that we have learned about variation, little or no allowance seems ever to be made for the effects of a certainly greatly changed environment. If the fossil forms among the mollusks and other sh.e.l.l fish for instance, are not precisely like the modern ones in every respect, they are always cla.s.sed as separate species, the older forms thus being "extinct," in utter disregard of the striking anatomical differences between the huge Pleistocene mammals and their dwarfish descendants of to-day, which for a hundred years or so were declared positively to be distinct from one another, but are now acknowledged to be identical.

Of course no one denies that there are numerous extinct forms among the invertebrates, just as we know there are among the huge vertebrates of the Mesozoic and Tertiaries, none of which we moderns have ever seen alive. Other forms do not appear familiar to our modern eyes, because larger or of somewhat different form; but to say that they are really distinct species from their modern representatives, or to say that no human being ever saw them alive, are statements utterly incapable of proof. Up to about the year 1869 it was stoutly maintained that man had never seen =any= of these fossil forms in life. But no one now maintains this view, for human remains have now been found along with undisturbed fossils of the Pleistocene, or even middle Tertiaries, 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 lat.i.tude. Hence the only question now is, and it is the supreme question of all modern geology, =WITH HOW MUCH OF THAT ANCIENT FOSSIL WORLD WERE THESE EQUALLY FOSSIL MEN ACQUAINTED?= If Man lived in "Pliocene" or perhaps "Miocene times," when a luxuriant vegetation was spread out over all the Arctic regions, what possible evidence is there to show that his companions, the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, mammoth, etc., were not also living then and browsing off just such plants, when the Arctic frosts caught them in the grip of death and put their "mummies" in cold storage for our astonishment and scientific information? Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other; why should not the plants and animals, contemporary with the same creature (man), be just as truly contemporary with one another? If man was contemporary with the Miocene plants, and the Pleistocene mammals were contemporary with man, what is there to forbid the idea that the Pleistocene mammals and the middle Tertiary flora were contemporary with each other?

For nearly half a century geologists have never had the courage to face this problem fairly and squarely, with all preconceived prejudices about uniformity cast aside. 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 all? But the trouble would then be that, with this much conceded, the whole "phylogenic series" would tumble with it, and become only the taxonomic or cla.s.sification series of that ancient world with which these fossil men were acquainted. To appropriate the words of one who has done much to clear the ground for a common-sense study of geology, I know of nothing against such an idea save "the almost pathetic devotion of a large school of thinkers to the religion founded by Hutton, whose high priest was Lyell, and which in essence is based on _a priori_ arguments like those which dominated Mediaeval scholasticism and made it so barren."[36]

Baron Cuvier's work in the line of comparative osteology has never been surpa.s.sed, perhaps never equalled since, and he is said to have been "the greatest naturalist and comparative anatomist of that, or perhaps of any time." (LeConte, "Evol. and Rel. Thought," pp. 33, 34); and yet he maintained till the last that all those which we now call the Pleistocene mammals were distinct species from the modern ones; 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 living. All of which tends to show how unreliable are those a.s.sertions commonly found in the text-books about all the species of the so-called "older" rocks being extinct. It is only with hesitation that such specific distinctions are surrendered even to-day, 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 zoology, thus breaking down many of the specific distinctions which have long been maintained between the fossil and the living forms. Even the mammoth has been found to have so many characters identical with the modern elephant of India, and such a complete gradation exists between the two types, that Flower and Lydekker acknowledge the transition from one to the other is "almost imperceptible," and express a doubt whether they "can be specifically distinguished" from one another.[37]

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 uniformity.

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 deposit.

He pictures the uncritical work of the earlier writers on fossil botany, until August Sc.h.i.n.k (1868-91) made a great reform in this science; 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 forms. But he adds: "It cannot be said that palaeozoology (the science of fossil animals) has yet arrived at this desirable standpoint."

But he justifies this charge of want of confidence by saying:

"Comparatively few individuals have such a thorough grasp of zoological and geological knowledge as to enable them to treat palaeontological researches worthily, and there has acc.u.mulated 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-deposit, with a willful disregard of the much more difficult problem of their relationships in the long chain of existence.

"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 zoology; if there is a difficulty, then stratigraphical arguments are made the basis of a solution. 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 stratigraphers, or to revise their labors from a zoological point of view."[38]

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 life. For if, in spite of the brilliant and withal careful work of Cuvier, Owen, Wallace, Huxley, Ray Lankester, and Leith Adams, with numerous others that might be mentioned, there are still grounds for such grave doubts of the values of specific distinctions in the case of the mammals, whose general anatomy and life-history are so well known and their almost countless variations so well studied out, =what must be the confusion and inaccuracy= in the case of the lower vertebrates, and especially of the invertebrates, whose general life-history in so many instances is so dimly understood, and the limits of their variations absolutely unknown? Remembering all this, what is our amazement when we read in this same volume by Professor Zittel[39] that the tendency among many modern writers in dealing with these lower forms of life, is toward the erection of the closest possible distinctions between genera and species, until recent palaeontological literature is fairly inundated with new names; and all this with =the purpose=, unblushingly avowed, of "enhancing the value" of such distinctions as a means of determining the relative ages of strata, and to "bring the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development" of the various forms "into more =apparent= correspondence."

I do not exaggerate in the least, as the reader may see by referring to Zittel's book; though not wishing to make my readers "spell through"

another quite technical paragraph I have refrained from direct quotation.

But surely we have here a most amazing style of reasoning. It is another clear case of first a.s.suming one's premises, and then proving them by means of one's conclusion. The method here employed seems about like this: First a.s.sume the succession of life from the low to the high as a whole; then in any particular group, as of Brachiopods or Mollusks, decide the momentous question as to which came first and which later in "geological time" by comparing them as to size, shape, etc., with the live modern individual in its development from the egg to maturity; and lastly, =take the results= of this alleged chronological arrangement to prove just =how= the modern forms have evolved. Surely it is a most fearful example of otherwise intelligent men being hypnotized by their theory into blind obedience to its suggestions and necessities.

Not long ago I had occasion to write to a well-known geologist about a Lower Cambrian mollusk which appears strikingly like a modern species. I give below an extract from his reply which bears directly upon this point. I withhold the name, for the information was given in a half-confidential manner, but I may say that the author's work on the Palaeozoic fossils is recognized on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Some geologists make it a point to =give a new name= to all forms found in the Palaeozoic rocks, i.e. a name different from those of modern species. I was taken to task by a noted palaeontologist for finding a pupa (a kind of land snail) in Devonian beds; but I could not find any point in which it differed from the modern genus [? species]. Yet if I could have had more perfect specimens I might have found differences."

Such disclosures speak volumes for those able to understand; and lead one to receive with a smile the familiar a.s.sertion that all the species of the Palaeozoic and other "older" rocks are extinct. And we can now form a truer estimate of the high scientific accuracy of Lyell's ingenious division of the Tertiary beds, according to the percentage of living or extinct Mollusks which they contain.

But from the inherent weakness of the argument about extinct species as thus revealed, it follows that chronological distinctions based on any proportionate number of extinct species =have absolutely no scientific value=; and hence that the life succession theory finds no support from these chronological distinctions, just as we have already seen that it is without a vestige of support from the stratigraphical argument.

The life succession theory has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of the imagination.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] See p. 39 of this volume.

[34] "Intro. Text-Book," p. 189.

[35] "Manual," p. 1007. Prof. Dana has italicized the word "=suddenly=."

[36] Howorth, "The Glacial Nightmare and the Flood," preface, xx, xxi.

[37] "Mammals, Living and Extinct," pp. 428-9.

[38] "Hist. of Geol.," pp. 375-6.

[39] pp. 400, 403, 405.

CHAPTER VIII

SKIPPING

We have now to deal with another absurdity involved in the life succession theory, the discussion of which grows naturally out of the subject of extinct species.

As preliminary to the subject here to be presented, we must bear in mind that the present arrangement of the fossils in alleged chronological order, as well as the naming of thousands of typical specimens, was all well advanced while as yet little or nothing was known of the contents of the depths of the ocean, or even of the land forms of Africa, Australia, and other foreign countries. In most of the important groups of both plants and animals, the detailed knowledge of the fossil forms preceded the knowledge of the corresponding living forms, just as Zittel says that the theories of the igneous origin of the crystalline rocks "had been laid without the a.s.sistance of chemistry" and the knowledge of the microscopic structure of these rocks.[40] On pp. 128-137 of his "History," this author shows how, up to 1820, little or nothing of a scientific character was known of any of the cla.s.ses of living animals save mammals. During the last half century, however, the progress of science has been steadily showing case after case where families and genera, long boldly said to have been "extinct" since "Palaeozoic time,"

are found in thriving abundance and in little altered condition in unsuspected places all over the world. 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 "recent," for, though found in profuse abundance in these "Older" rocks, not a trace of many of them is to be found in all the "subsequent" deposits.

The proposition here to be considered and proved I shall venture to formulate as follows:

=There is a fossil world, and there is a modern living world; the two resembling one another in various details as well as in a general way; but to get the ancestral representatives of many modern types, e.g., countless invertebrates, with other lower forms of animals and plants, we must go clear back to the Mesozoic or the Palaeozoic rocks, for they are not found in any of the "more recent" deposits.=

I have already remarked that the blending of the doctrine of life succession with that of uniformity, must inevitably have given birth to the evolution theory, 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 time. That such is not the testimony of the rocks, even when arranged with this idea in view, is too notorious to need any words of mine, for it has been considered by many[41] the "greatest of all objections" to the theory of evolution.

This abruptness in the disappearance of "old" and the first appearance of "new" forms, has brought into being that "geological scape-goat," as James Geikie has called the doctrine of the =imperfection of the record=. But Dawson has well disposed of this argument in the following words:

"When we find abundance of examples of the young and old of many fossil species, and can trace them through their ordinary embryonic development, why should we not find examples of the links which bound the species together?"[42]

But it is equally evident that each successive series ought to contain, in addition to its own characteristic or "new" species, =all the older forms which survived into any later deposits, or are now to be found living in our modern world=. Such no doubt was the idea of those of the early geological explorers who discarded Werner's onion-coat theory, and they tried to arrange their series accordingly. This reasonable demand is still recognized as good; 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 rocks.[43]

It is, I say, still recognized =in theory= that the "younger" deposits ought to contain samples of the "older" types which were still surviving, in addition to their own characteristic species; but with the progress of geological discovery it has long since been found that such an arrangement was utterly impossible. Indeed, it would almost seem as if modern writers had forgotten the principle altogether.

For, as already said, according to the present chronological arrangement, many kinds of invertebrates, both terrestrial and marine, occurring in comparative abundance in our modern world, are found as fossils only in the very "oldest" rocks and are =wholly absent from all the rest!!!= Others which date from "Mesozoic times" are wholly absent from the Tertiaries, though abundant in our modern world. This I regard as another crucial test of the rationality of this idea of a life succession.

Of course there are certain limitations which must be borne in mind. If we find a series of beds made up largely of deep sea deposits, we cannot reasonably expect to find in them examples of all the land forms of the preceding "ages" which then survived, nor even of the shallow water types. Nor, conversely, can we demand that, in beds crowded with the remains of the great mammals and plants, and thus probably of fresh or shallow water formation, we ought to find examples of all the marine types still surviving. We now know that each level of ocean depth has its characteristic types of life, just as do the different heights on a mountain side. This doctrine of "rock facies" was, I believe, enunciated first in 1838. Edward Forbes also did much for this same idea, showing how at the present time certain faunas are confined to definite geographical limits, and particular ocean depths. Jules Marcou about 1848 applied this principle to the fossils and showed how such distinctions must have prevailed during geological time.

Here it seems that we are at last getting a refreshing breath of true science; but if carried out in its entirety how shall we a.s.sure ourselves that in the long ago very diverse types of fossils, e.g., gratolites and nummulites, or even trilobites and mammals, =could not have been contemporary with each other=? This principle of "rock facies," if incorporated into the science in its early days, would have saved the world from a large share of the nonsense in our modern geological and zoological text-books.

But in answer to any pleadings about the imperfection of the record, or any protests about the injustice of judging all the life-forms of an "age" by a few examples of local character, i.e., of fresh, shallow, or deep water as the case may be, the very obvious retort is, Why then are such local and fragmentary records given =a time value=? Why, for example, should the Carboniferous and a.s.sociated formations be counted as representing all the deposits made in a certain age of the world, when we know from the Cambrian and Silurian and also from the alleged "subsequent" Jura.s.sic that there must have been vast open sea deposits formed contemporaneously?

As Dana expresses it:

"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 Subcarboniferous. Very partial exhibits were made by the few marine beds of the Coal measures: still less by the beds of the Permian, and far less by the Tria.s.sic. The seas had not been depopulated. The occurrence of over 4,000 invertebrate species in Britain in the single Jura.s.sic period is evidence, not of deficient life for the eras preceding, but of extremely deficient records."[44]

Surely these words exhibit the "phylogenic series" in all its native, unscientific deformity. It is =because= the Coal-measures, the Permian, and the Tria.s.sic, are necessarily "extremely deficient records" of the total life-forms then in the world, that I am writing this chapter, and this book. But it seems like perverseness to plead about the imperfection of the record, and yet refuse the =evidently complementary= deposits when they are presented. If, as this ill.u.s.trious author says, "The seas had not been depopulated," what would he have us think they were doing? Were they forming no deposits all these intervening ages that the Carboniferous, Permian, and Tria.s.sic were being piled up? Were the fishes and invertebrates all immortalized for these ages, or were they, when old and full of days translated to some supermundane sphere, thus escaping deposit in the rocks? Did the elements continue in the _status quo_ all these uncounted millions of years? and if so, how did they receive notice that the Tria.s.sic period was at last ended, and that it was time for them to begin work again? I do not like to appear trivial; but these questions serve to expose the folly of taking diverse, local, and partial deposits, and attaching a chronological value to each of them separately, and then pleading in a piteous, helpless way about the imperfection of the record.

And yet I cannot promise to present a t.i.the of the possible evidence, because of two serious handicaps. First, the ordinary literature of the science is silent and meagre enough in all conscience, even though the bare fact may be recorded that a "genus" of the Cambrian or Silurian is "closely allied" to some genus now living. It may be even admitted that "according to some it is not genetically distinct from the modern genus"

so-and-so; but the authors =never descend below the "genus,"= and in most cases forget to tell us whether or not it occurs in other "later"

formations, though of course the presumption is that it does not, but has skipped all the intervening ages, or it would hardly be named as a characteristic type of the formation in which it occurs.

But this disadvantage, serious though it be, is scarcely worth speaking of when we remember the significant words of a well-known authority already quoted:

"Some geologists make it a point to give a new name to all forms found in the Palaeozoic rocks, i.e. a name different from those of modern species."