The Antiquity of Man Part 22

(* "Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society" volume 7 1851 pages 22, 30.)

In most cases where the princ.i.p.al contortions of the layers of gravel and sand have a decided correspondence with deep indentations in the underlying till, the hypothesis of the melting of large lumps and ma.s.ses of ice once mixed up with the till affords the most natural explanation of the phenomena. The quant.i.ty of ice now seen in the cliffs near Behring's Straits, in which the remains of fossil elephants are common, and the huge fragments of solid ice which Meyendorf discovered in Siberia, after piercing through a considerable thickness of inc.u.mbent soil, free from ice, is in favour of such an hypothesis, the partial failure of support necessarily giving rise to foldings in the overlying and previously horizontal layers, as in the case of creeps in coal mines.*

(* See "Manual of Geology" by the author, page 51.)

In the diagram of the cliffs at page 167, the bent and contorted beds Number 5, last alluded to, are represented as covered by undisturbed beds of gravel and sand Number 6. These are usually dest.i.tute of organic remains; but at some points marine sh.e.l.ls of Recent species are said to have been found in them. They afford evidence at many points of repeated denudation and redeposition, and may be the monuments of a long series of ages.

MUNDESLEY POST-GLACIAL FRESHWATER FORMATION.

In the range of cliffs above described at Mundesley, about 8 miles south-east of Cromer, a fine example is seen of a freshwater formation, newer than all those already mentioned, a deposit which has filled up a depression hollowed out of all the older beds 3, 4, and 5 of the section Figure 27.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 33. Newer Freshwater Formation]

(FIGURE 33. SECTION OF THE NEWER FRESHWATER FORMATION I N THE CLIFFS AT MUNDESLEY, EIGHT MILES SOUTH-EAST OF CROMER, DRAWN UP BY THE REVEREND S.W. KING.

Height of cliff where lowest, 35 feet above high water.

OLDER SERIES.

1. Fundamental Chalk, below the beach line.

3. Forest bed, with elephant, rhinoceros, stag, etc., and with tree roots and stumps, also below the beach line.

3 prime. Finely laminated sands and clays, with thin layer of lignite, and sh.e.l.ls of Cyclas and Valvata, and with Mytilus in some beds.

4. Glacial boulder till.

5. Contorted drift.

6. Gravel overlying contorted drift.

N.B.--Number 2 of the section, Figure 27, is wanting here.

NEWER FRESHWATER BEDS.

A. Coa.r.s.e river gravel, with sh.e.l.ls of Anodon, Valvata, Cyclas, Succinea, Limnaea, Paludina, etc., seeds of Ceratophyllum demersum, Nuphar lutea, scales and bones of pike, perch, salmon, etc., elytra of Donacia, Copris, Harpalus, and other beetles.

C. Yellow sands.

D. Drift gravel.)

When I examined this line of coast in 1839, the section alluded to was not so clearly laid open to view as it has been of late years, and finding at that period not a few of the fossils in the lignite beds Number 3 prime above the forest bed, identical in species with those from the post-glacial deposits B C, I supposed the whole to have been of contemporaneous origin, and so described them in my paper on the Norfolk cliffs.*

(* "Philosophical Magazine" volume 16 1840 page 345.)

Mr. Gunn was the first to perceive this mistake, which he explained to me on the spot when I revisited Mundesley in the autumn of 1859 in company with Dr. Hooker and Mr. King. The last-named geologist has had the kindness to draw up for me the annexed diagram (Figure 33) of the various beds which he has recently studied in detail.*

(* Mr. Prestwich has given a correct account of this section in a paper read to the British a.s.sociation, Oxford, 1860.

See "The Geologist" volume 4 1861.)

The formations 3, 4, and 5 already described, Figure 27, were evidently once continuous, for they may be followed for miles north-west and south-east without a break, and always in the same order. A valley or river channel was cut through them, probably during the gradual upheaval of the country, and the hollow became afterwards the receptacle of the comparatively modern freshwater beds A, B, C, and D. They may well represent a silted up river-channel, which remained for a time in the state of a lake or mere, and in which the black peaty ma.s.s B acc.u.mulated by a very slow growth over the gravel of the river-bed A. In B we find remains of some of the same plants which were enumerated as common in the ancient lignite in 3 prime, such as the yellow water-lily and hornwort, together with some freshwater sh.e.l.ls which occur in the same fluvio-marine series 3 prime.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 34. Paludina marginata]

(FIGURE 34. Paludina marginata, Michaud (P. minuta, Strickland).

Hydrobia marginata.*

(* This sh.e.l.l is said to have a sub-spiral operculum (not a concentric one, as in Paludina), and therefore to be referable to the Hydrobia, a sub-genus of Rissoa. But this species is always a.s.sociated with freshwater sh.e.l.ls, while the Rissoae frequent marine and brackish waters.)

The middle figure is of the natural size.)

The only sh.e.l.l which I found not referable to a British species is the minute Paludina, Figure 34, already alluded to.

When I showed the scales and teeth of the pike, perch, roach, and salmon, which I obtained from this formation, to M. Aga.s.siz, he thought they varied so much from their nearest living representatives that they might rank as distinct species; but Mr. Yarrell doubted the propriety of so distinguishing them. The insects, like the sh.e.l.ls and plants, are identical, so far as they are known, with living British species. No progress has yet been made at Mundesley in discovering the contemporary mammalia.

By referring to the description and section before given of the freshwater deposit at Hoxne, the reader will at once perceive the striking a.n.a.logy of the Mundesley and Hoxne deposits, the latter so productive of flint implements of the Amiens type. Both of them, like the Bedford gravel with flint tools and the bones of extinct mammalia, are post-glacial. It will also be seen that a long series of events, accompanied by changes in physical geography, intervened between the "forest bed," Number 3, Figure 27, when the Elephas meridionalis flourished, and the period of the Mundesley fluviatile beds A, B, C; just as in France I have shown that the same E. meridionalis belonged to a system of drainage different from and anterior to that with which the flint implements of the old alluvium of the Somme and the Seine were connected.

Before the growth of the ancient forest, Number 3, Figure 33, the Mastodon arvernensis, a large proboscidian, characteristic of the Norwich Crag, appears to have died out, or to have become scarce, as no remains of it have yet been found in the Norfolk cliffs. There was, no doubt, time for other modifications in the mammalian fauna between the era of the marine beds, Number 2, Figure 27 (the sh.e.l.ls of which imply permanent submergence beneath the sea), and the acc.u.mulation of the uppermost of the fluvio-marine, and lignite beds, Number 3 prime, which overlie both Numbers 3 and 2, or the buried forest and the Crag. In the interval we must suppose repeated oscillations of level, during which land covered with trees, an estuary with its freshwater sh.e.l.ls, and the sea with its Mya truncata and other mollusca still retaining their erect position, gained by turns the ascendency. These changes were accompanied by some denudation followed by a grand submergence of several hundred feet, probably brought about slowly, and when floating ice aided in transporting erratic blocks from great distances. The glacial till Number 4 then originated, and the gravel and sands Number 5 were afterwards superimposed on the boulder clay, first in horizontal beds, which became subsequently contorted. These were covered in their turn by other layers of gravel and sand, Number 6, Figures 27 and 33, the downward movement still continuing.

The entire thickness of the beds above the Chalk at some points near the coast, and the height at which they now are raised, are such as to show that the subsidence of the country after the growth of the forest bed exceeded 400 feet. The re-elevation must have amounted to nearly as many feet, as the site of the ancient forest, originally sub-aerial, has been brought up again to within a few feet of high-water mark. Lastly, after all these events, and probably during the final process of emergence, the valley was scooped out in which the newer freshwater strata of Mundesley, Figure 33, were gradually deposited.

Throughout the whole of this succession of geographical changes, the flora and invertebrate fauna of Europe appear to have undergone no important revolution in their specific characters. The plants of the forest bed belonged already to what has been called the Germanic flora.

The mollusca, the insects, and even some of the mammalia, such as the European beaver and roebuck, were the same as those now co-existing with Man. Yet the oldest memorials of our species at present discovered in Great Britain are post-glacial, or posterior in date to the boulder clay, Number 4, Figures 27 and 33. The position of the Hoxne flint implements corresponds with that of the Mundesley beds, from A to D, Figure 33, and the most likely stratum in which to find hereafter flint tools is no doubt the gravel A of that section, which has all the appearance of an old river-bed. No flint tools have yet been observed there, but had the old alluvium of Amiens or Abbeville occurred in the Norfolk cliffs instead of the valley of the Somme, and had we depended on the waves of the sea instead of the labour of many hundred workmen continued for twenty years, for exposing the flint implements to view, we might have remained ignorant to this day of the fossil relics brought to light by M. Boucher de Perthes and those who have followed up his researches.

Neither need we despair of one day meeting with the signs of Man's existence in the forest bed Number 3, or in the overlying strata 3 prime, on the ground of any uncongeniality in the climate or incongruity in the state of the animate creation with the well-being of our species.

For the present we must be content to wait and consider that we have made no investigations which ent.i.tle us to wonder that the bones or stone weapons of the era of the Elephas meridionalis have failed to come to light. If any such lie hid in those strata, and should hereafter be revealed to us, they would carry back the antiquity of Man to a distance of time probably more than twice as great as that which separates our era from that of the most ancient of the tool-bearing gravels yet discovered in Picardy, or elsewhere. But even then the reader will perceive that the age of Man, though pre-glacial, would be so modern in the great geological calendar, as given in Chapter 1, that he would scarcely date so far back as the commencement of the Pleistocene period.

CHAPTER 13. -- CHRONOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF THE GLACIAL PERIOD AND THE EARLIEST SIGNS OF MAN'S APPEARANCE IN EUROPE.

Chronological Relations of the Close of the Glacial Period and the earliest geological Signs of the Appearance of Man.

Effects of Glaciers and Icebergs in polishing and scoring Rocks.

Scandinavia once encrusted with Ice like Greenland.

Outward Movement of Continental Ice in Greenland.

Mild Climate of Greenland in the Miocene Period.

Erratics of Recent Period in Sweden.

Glacial State of Sweden in the Pleistocene Period.

Scotland formerly encrusted with Ice.

Its subsequent Submergence and Re-elevation.

Latest Changes produced by Glaciers in Scotland.

Remains of the Mammoth and Reindeer in Scotch Boulder Clay.

Parallel Roads of Glen Roy formed in Glacier Lakes.

Comparatively modern Date of these Shelves.

The chronological relations of the human and glacial periods were frequently alluded to in the last chapter, and the sections obtained near Bedford, and at Hoxne, in Suffolk, and a general view of the Norfolk cliffs, have taught us that the earliest signs of Man's appearance in the British isles, hitherto detected, are of post-glacial date. We may now therefore inquire whether the peopling of Europe by the human race and by the mammoth and other mammalia now extinct, was brought about during the concluding phases of the glacial epoch.

Although it may be impossible in the present state of our knowledge to come to a positive conclusion on this head, I know of no inquiry better fitted to clear up our views respecting the geological state of the northern hemisphere at the time when the fabricators of the flint implements of the Amiens type flourished. I shall therefore now proceed to consider the chronological relations of that ancient people with the final retreat of the glaciers from the mountains of Scandinavia, Scotland, Wales, and Switzerland.

SUPERFICIAL MARKINGS AND DEPOSITS LEFT BY GLACIERS AND ICEBERGS.

In order fully to discuss this question, I must begin by referring to some of the newest theoretical opinions entertained on the glacial question. When treating of this subject in the "Principles of Geology,"

chapter 15, and in the "Manual (or Elements) of Geology," chapter 11, I have stated that the whole ma.s.s of the ice in a glacier is in constant motion, and that the blocks of stone detached from boundary precipices, and the mud and sand swept down by avalanches of snow, or by rain from the surrounding heights, are lodged upon the surface and slowly borne along in lengthened mounds, called in Switzerland moraines. These acc.u.mulations of rocky fragments and detrital matter are left at the termination of the glacier, where it melts in a confused heap called the "terminal moraine," which is unstratified, because all the blocks, large and small, as well as the sand and the finest mud, are carried to equal distances and quietly deposited in a confused ma.s.s without being subjected to the sorting power of running water, which would convey the finer materials farther than the coa.r.s.er ones, and would produce, as the strength of the current varied from time to time in the same place, a stratified arrangement.

In those regions where glaciers reach the sea, and where large ma.s.ses of ice break off and float away, moraines, such as I have just alluded to, may be transported to indefinite distances, and may be deposited on the bottom of the sea wherever the ice happens to melt. If the liquefaction take place when the berg has run aground and is stationary, and if there be no current, the heap of angular and rounded stones, mixed with sand and mud, may fall to the bottom in an unstratified form called "till" in Scotland, and which has been shown in the last chapter to abound in the Norfolk cliffs; but should the action of a current intervene at certain points or at certain seasons, then the materials will be sorted as they fall, and arranged in layers according to their relative weight and size. Hence there will be pa.s.sages from till to stratified clay, gravel, and sand.

Some of the blocks of stone with which the surfaces of glaciers are loaded, falling occasionally through fissures in the ice, get fixed and frozen into the bottom of the moving ma.s.s, and are pushed along under it. In this position, being subjected to great pressure, they scoop out long rectilinear furrows or grooves parallel to each other on the subjacent solid rock. Smaller scratches and striae are made on the polished surface by crystals or projecting edges of the hardest minerals, just as a diamond cuts gla.s.s.