GENESIS THE MIRACLES AND THE PREDICTIONS ACCORDING TO SPIRITISM

1. The Earth carries within it the evident traces of its formation. One can follow the phases of it with a mathematical precision in the different rocks which compose its framework. The whole of these studies constitute the science of geology, a science born of this century, and which has thrown light upon the much controversial question of its origin, and of that of the living beings which inhabit it. Here there is no point upon which one can hang a hypothesis. It is the rigorous result of the observation of facts, and into the presence of facts doubt is forbidden to enter. A history of the formation of the globe is written in the geological beds of the Earth in a clearer manner than in books hitherto written, because it is Nature itself who speaks and not the imagination of men that created systems. Where one sees the traces of fire, one can say with certitude that fire has existed; where those of water are seen, one says with no less certainty that water has been there; where one sees those of animals, one infers that animals have lived there.

Geology is therefore a science of observation: it draws conclusions only from that which it sees. Upon doubtful points it affirms nothing. It utters only debatable opinions concerning phenomena, of which the definite solution awaits more complete observations. Without the discoveries of geology, as well as those of astronomy, the genesis of the world would still lie in legendary shadows. Thanks to it, today man knows the history of his habitation; and the trelliswork fables which surrounded his cradle is crushed, never to rise again.

2. Everywhere where stony cavities exist, natural excavations, or apertures opened by man, one observes that which is called stratifications, or superposed beds. The rocks which present this phase are designated stratified rocks. These beds, of a very variable thickness, sometimes of only a few hundred inches, sometimes a hundred yards and more, are distinguished from one another by the color and nature of the substances of which they are composed. Works of art, the boring of wells, the exploding of quarries, and, above all, mines, have given the means of observation to a considerable depth.

3. The beds are generally homogeneous; that is to say, that each one is formed of a similar substance, or of diverse substances which have co-existed, and have formed a compact whole. The line of separation isolating them from one another is always distinctly defined as in the different parts of a ship. No part is seen mingled or lost in another, each remains within its own respective limits. Such is the case, for example, in the colors of the prism or the rainbow.

By these characters, observers decided that they had been successively formed, deposited upon one another by different causes and conditions. The deepest have naturally been formed first, and those nearest the surface subsequently. The last of all, that which is found on the surface, is the bed of vegetable which owes its properties to the destruction of organic matter which produces plants and animals.

4. The lower beds, placed under the vegetable, have received in geology the name of rocks, a word which in this acceptation implies not always the idea of a stony substance, but signifies a resting-place of some mineral substance. Some are formed of sand, of clay or loam, of chalk or pebbles; others of stones, properly speaking, of greater or lesser hardness, such as sand-stone, marbles, chalk, limestone, millstone, coals of the Earth, asphalt, etc. They say that the power of a rock depends upon its thickness.

By the inspection of the nature of these rocks or beds, one recognizes by certain signs, that they are produced by heated substances sometimes vitrified by the action of fire, others, by terrestrial substances deposited by water. Some of these substances have remained disintegrated, as sand; others at first in a pasty state, under the action of certain chemical agents or other causes, have become hardened, and have acquired in time the consistence of stone. Superposed stony beds show successive deposits. Fire and water have then played their parts in the formation of the materials composing the solid framework of the globe.

5. The normal position of terrestrial or stony beds producing aqueous deposits is horizontal. When one sees these immense plains, often extending as far as the eye can see in a perfectly horizontal line, united as if leveled by a roller, or depths of valleys as smooth as the surface of a lake, one can be certain that at some distant epoch these places have been for a long time covered by tranquil waters, which, in retiring, have left the beds dry upon which they were deposited during their sojourn. After the retreats of the waters, these beds have become covered with vegetation. If in place of fertile, muddy clay or chalky ground, which afford nourishment for soil, the waters had deposited only siliceous sand without aggregation, we should find here dry and sandy plains constituting waste lands and deserts. The deposits left by partial inundation and those which form the alluvium at the mouth of rivers, give us a faint idea of this.

6. Although the horizontal is the most normal and usual position of these aqueous formations, one sees, often to a considerable extent in mountainous districts, rocks, which indicate by their nature that they were formed by water in an inclined, and sometimes even in a vertical position. Now, as according to the laws of the equilibrium of liquids and weights, the aqueous deposits can be formed exclusively upon horizontal planes, it is therefore supposed that those which rest on inclined planes are drawn into the lower depths by currents, and by their own weight. It is evident that these deposits have been raised by some force, after their solidification and transformation into stone.

From these considerations we can conclude with certitude that all these stony beds composed of aqueous deposits, in a perfectly horizontal position, have been formed during the succession of ages by tranquil waters; and that, whenever they are found in an inclined position, the Earth has been violently agitated and subsequently broken up by general or partial earthquakes of more or less importance.

7. A characteristic fact of the highest importance for the unexceptional testimony it furnishes, consists in fossil remains of vegetables and animals encountered in innumerable varieties in the different beds; and as those remains are even found in the hardest stones, it is necessary to conclude that the existence of these beings antedates the formation of these stones. Now, if we consider how many centuries must have been spent in this hardening process, which has eventually brought them to the condition in which they have been from time immemorial, one is forced to the conclusion that the time of the advent or organized beings upon the Earth is lost in the night of unknown ages, and that it is consequently very far behind the dates assigned by Genesis. *

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* Fossil, from the Latin fossilia and fossilis, derived from fossa, “ditch,” and from fodere, “to dig or plough the earth.” This word is used in geology to signify bodies, or the remains of organized bodies, belonging to creatures that lived in prehistoric times. It is equally applied to mineral substances bearing traces of the presence of organized beings, such as the imprints of vegetables or of animals. The word “fossil,” in a more general acceptation, has been substituted for that of petrifaction, which applies only to bodies transformed into stone by the infiltration of siliceous or calcareous substances in the organic tissues. All the petrifactions are necessarily fossils, but all fossils are not petrifactions. The formation with which stony beds are covered, when they are plunged into waters charged with calcareous substances, such as those of the Saint-Allyre stream, near Clermont, in Auvergne, France, are not properly speaking, petrifactions, but simple incrustations. Monuments, inscriptions and other objects produced by human effort belong to the science of archeology.

8. Among these vegetable and animal fossils are those which have been penetrated throughout by siliceous or calcareous substances, which have transformed them into stone, of which some have the hardness of marble: these, properly speaking, are petrifactions. Others have simply been enveloped by matter in a soft state, and a few of them are found in a perfect state in the hardest stones. Others have left only imprints, but of a distinct perfect delicacy. In the interior of certain stones the imprint of feet have been discovered, also the form of fingers and nails, from which it is concluded that some animal has produced them.

9. The animal fossils are but little comprehended. One finds sometimes the solid and resisting parts, such as bones, scales, and horns. Sometimes these are complete skeleton, but more frequently only detached portions of which it is easy to recognize the production. By the inspection of a jaw or a tooth, one sees immediately whether it belongs to a herbivorous or carnivorous animal. As all the parts of an animal have a necessary correlation, the form of the head, of a shoulder-blade, of a bone of the leg, or a foot, suffices to determine the size, the general form, and the mode of life of the animal. * The terrestrial animals have an organism clearly separating them from aquatic animals. Fish and shell-fish fossils are excessively numerous; shell-fish alone sometimes forming entire beds of great thickness. By their nature, one quickly determines whether they are marine or fresh-water animals.

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* At the point to which George Cuvier has carried the science of paleontology, one bone alone suffices often to determine the race, species, and form of an animal, also its habits, by which it can be entirely reconstructed.

10. The masses of pebble-stone rock, which in certain places constitute important rocks, are unequivocal indication of their origin. They are rounded like the pebble-stones on the seashore, an unmistakable sign that they have been subjected to the effects of waters. The countries where they are found buried in large quantities have most certainly once been occupied by violently agitated waters.

11. Rocks of diverse formations are also characterized by the nature of the fossils they enclose. The most ancient ones contain vegetable and animal remains, which have entirely disappeared from the surface of the globe. Certain more recent species have completely disappeared, but have preserved an analogy, which differs only in size and slightly in form. Others, of which we see the last representations, are tending evidently to disappearance in a near future, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, etc. Thus, as the terrestrial beds approach our epoch, the animal and vegetable species they contain approach those animals and vegetables which still exist.

The perturbations and inundations which have taken place upon the Earth since its origin have completely changed the conditions of vitality, and have made entire generations of living beings disappear.

12. By interrogating the nature of the geological beds, one knows in the most positive manner if, at the epoch of their formation, the country which encloses them was occupied by the sea, by lakes, or by forests and plains peopled with terrestrial animals. If, then, in the same country one finds a series of superposed beds containing alternately marine and fresh-water fossils many times repeated, it is an unexceptionable proof that this same country has been many times encompassed by the sea, covered by lakes, and become dry again.

And how many centuries upon centuries certainly, thousands of centuries perhaps has it required to accomplish each period of this? What a powerful force must have been required to displace and replace the ocean, to raise mountains! How many physical revolutions, violent commotions, the Earth has passed through before becoming what it has been through historic ages! And they try to make us believe that the formation of the Earth took less time than is necessary to propagate a plant!

13. The study of the geological beds attests, as has previously been stated, to successive formations, which have gradually changed the form of the globe, and divided its history into many epochs. These epochs constitute that which is called geologic periods, the knowledge of which is necessary to establish a true Genesis. Geologists count six principal periods, which they have designated as follows: first the primary, second the transition, third the secondary, fourth the tertiary, fifth the deluge, sixth the post-deluge or present period. Rocks formed during the duration of each period are called thus: primitive, transition, secondary rocks, etc. One says that such and such rocks, such and such fossils, are found in rocks of such and such periods.

14. It is essential to remark that the number of these periods is not absolute, and that it depends upon system of classification. One does not comprehend, in the six principal periods designated above, all which are marked by notable and general change in the state of the globe; but observation proves that many successive formations have been produced during the history of each. That is why they are divided into periods, characterized by the nature of the rocks, which bear twenty-six general and very characteristic formations, without counting those which are produced by modifications due to purely local causes.

PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE GLOBE

15. The depression of the poles and other conclusive facts are certain indications that the Earth had been originally in a fluid or soft state. This state could have been caused by matter having been liquefied by fire or softened by water.

It is proverbially said: “There is no smoke without fire.” This true proverb is an application of the principle: “There is no effect without a cause.” For the same reason one can say: “There is no fire without a focus.” Now, by facts which pass under our eyes, there is not only smoke produced, but also very real fire which must have a focus. This fire coming from the interior of the Earth, and not from on high, the focus must be within; the fire being permanent, the focus must be equally so.

The heat which is augmented by measure as it penetrates the interior of the Earth, and which at a certain distance from the surface attains a very high temperature; the hot springs, so much warmer according to the depth from which they come. Fires and masses of heated and burning substances, which escape from volcanoes with vast upheavings, or by crevasses produced by earthquakes, can leave no doubt concerning the existence of an interior fire.

16. Experience demonstrates that the temperature has been raised one degree by every thirty yards of depth: whence it follows that at a depth of three hundred yards the augmentation is ten degrees, at three thousand yards, one hundred degrees, a temperature of boiling water; at thirty thousands yards, seven to eight leagues (from twenty-one to twenty-four miles), one thousand degrees; at twenty-five leagues (seventy-five miles), more than thirty-three hundred degrees, a temperature at which no known material can resist fusion. From there to the center there is still a space of more than fourteen hundred leagues (forty-two hundred miles), may be twenty-eight hundred leagues (eighty-four hundred miles), in diameter, which must be occupied by molten substances.

Although this is only a conjecture judging cause by effect, it has all the elements of probability; and one arrives at this conclusion, that the Earth is still an incandescent mass covered with a solid crust of twenty-five or more leagues (seventy-five miles) in thickness, which is scarcely the one hundred and twentieth part of its diameter. Proportionally speaking, it must be much thinner than the thinnest rind of an orange.

For the rest, the thickness of the terrestrial crust is very variable in many places; for there are some countries, especially volcanic territories, where the heat and flexibility of the soil indicate that it is much thinner. The high temperature of hot springs is also an indication of close vicinity to the central fire.

17. It is then evident that the primitive state of the softness or fluidity of the Earth must have been caused by the action of heat, not by water. The Earth was then originally an incandescent mass. In consequence of the caloric rays, it became liquefied. It has been gradually cooled, and the cooling process has naturally commenced on the surface, which has become hardened, whilst the interior has remained in a fluid state. One can thus compare the Earth to a block of coal coming red from the furnace, the surface cooling by contact with the air, although, if one breaks it, the interior is found to be yet burning.

18. At the epoch when the terrestrial globe was an incandescent mass, it contained not one atom more or less than it does today. Only under the influence of this high temperature, the greater part of the substances composing it, and which we see under the form of liquids and solids, earth, stones, metals, and crystals, were found in a very different state. They have only been submitted to a transformation. In consequence of the cooling process and mixtures, the elements have formed new combinations. The air, considerably inflated, became extended to an immeasurable distance. All the water forcibly reduced to vapor was mingled with the air. All the substances susceptible of volatilization – such as metals, sulphur, carbon – were there found in a gaseous state. The state of the atmosphere was then in no way comparable with its present condition. The density of all these vapors gave it an opacity through which no ray of sunlight could penetrate. If a living being could have existed on Earth at this period, he would have had for light only the sinister brightness of the fires beneath his feet, the burning atmosphere, and not even the existence of the sun would be noticed.

PRIMARY PERIOD

19. The first effect of the cooling process was to solidify the outermost surface of the melted mass, and to form there a resisting crust, which, thin at first, little by little thickened. This crust constitutes the stone called “granite,” of an extreme hardness, named thus by reason of its granulated appearance. The three principal substances found there are feldspar, quartz or crystal rock, and mica. This last has a brilliant metallic tint, although it is not a metal.

The granite-bed is then the first ever formed upon the globe, which it entirely envelops, and of which it constitutes in some sort the bony framework. It is the direct product of melted matter consolidated. Upon it and in the cavities that its violently agitated surface presented are successively deposited the beds of other rocks subsequently formed. That which distinguishes this from later formations is the absence of all stratification; that is to say, it is in its whole extent a compact and uniform mass, and not divided by different kinds of beds. The effervescence of incandescent substances must have produced numerous and profound crevasses through which this substance was expelled.

20. The second effect of the cooling process was to liquefy certain vaporous substances in the air, which were precipitated to the surface of the ground. There were then shower and lakes of sulphur and bitumen, veritable stream of iron, copper, lead, and other heated metals infiltrating themselves into the fissures which constitute today the metallic veins and arteries of the Earth.

Under the influence of these different agents the granite surface experienced successive decomposition. Combinations were formed which resulted in primitive rocks distinct from the granite rocks, but in confused masses, and without regular stratifications.

Then came the waters, which, falling upon a burning soil, vaporized anew, fell again and again in torrents until the temperature permitted them to rest upon the soil in a liquid state.

At the formation of the granite rocks the regular series of geologic periods commence. To the six principal periods it is proper to add that of the primitive incandescent state of the globe.

21. Such was the aspect of this first period, a veritable chaos of all the elements mingled together seeking their position where no living being could possibly exist, as one of its distinctive characters in geology at this time is the absence of all traces of vegetable and animal life.

It is impossible to decide upon the duration of this primary period: no more can we of the ones that follow. But, judging from the time necessary for a cannon-ball of given volume heated to the red-white heat to become sufficiently cool to allow of a drop of water resting upon it in a liquid state, it has been calculated, that, if this cannon-ball were of the magnitude of the Earth, more than one million years would be necessary.

TRANSITION PERIOD

22. At the commencement of the transition period the solid granite crust had thickened only a little, and offered but a feeble resistance to the effervescence of the burning substance which it covered and repressed. Numerous rents were made, by means of which the interior land was thrown out. The soil presented considerable inequalities of surface.

Waters not very deep covered nearly all the surface of the globe, with the exception of elevated lands formed of rocks frequently submerged at their base.

The air gradually became purged from the heavier gaseous substances, which, while condensing by the cooling process, were precipitated to the surface of the ground, then drawn into and dissolved by the waters.

At this epoch it is necessary to understand “cooling process” in a relative sense; that is to say, in connection with the primitive state; for the temperature must have still been burning.

The thick aqueous vapor which was raised on all sides from the immense liquid surface fell in abundant and warm rains, obscuring the air. Soon, however, the rays of the sun began to shine through this foggy atmosphere.

One of the last substances of which the air has been purged, because it is naturally in a gaseous state, is carbonic-acid gas, which then formed one of its constituent parts.

23. At this epoch beds of earthly sediment began to form, deposited by waters charged with lime and other matters peculiar to organic life.

Then appeared the first living beings of the vegetable and animal kingdom. At first few in number, one finds more and more frequent traces of such as one penetrates more and more deeply into the beds of this formation. It is to be remarked, that everywhere life is manifested as soon as conditions are propitious to vitality, and that each species is born as soon as the proper conditions of its existence are produced.

24. The first organized existences which appeared upon the Earth were vegetables of the least complicated organization, designated in botany under the names of cryptogams, acotyledonous plants and monocotyledonous plants, such as lichens, mushrooms, mosses, ferns, and herbaceous plants. One does not now see trees with woody trunks, but only those of the palm species, whose sponge-like trunks are analogous to the stems of herbs.

The animals of this period, which have succeeded to the first vegetation, are exclusively marine. These were at first polyps, radiates, zoophytes, animals whose rudimentary and simple organizations approach most nearly to vegetable forms. Later came fishes and shellfish, the species of which do not exist now.

25. Under the empire of heat and humidity and in consequence of the excess of carbonic acid dispersed into the air – a gas improper for the respiration of terrestrial animals but necessary to the plants – the exposed terrains were quickly covered with a pungent vegetation while at the same time aquatic plants multiplied on the surface of marshes. Plants, which in our day are simple herbs a few inches high, attained a prodigious height and magnitude; there were then forests of tree-like ferns from eight to ten yards in height, and of proportionate magnitude; plants called wolfs foot, and a kind of moss of the same size, equisetum arvense, * four or five yards high, which we hardly see now. At the end of this period pines or fir-trees began to appear.

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* A marsh-plant commonly called horsetail.



26. In consequence of the displacement of the waters, the grounds which produced these masses of vegetation were many times submerged, covered again with terrestrial sediment, during which those which had become dry appeared in their turn with a similar vegetation; thus there were many successive generations of vegetables destroyed and renewed again. The animals being aquatic suffered nothing from these changes.

These remains accumulated during a long series of years, and formed beds of great thickness. Under the actions of heat, of humidity, of pressure, exercised by subsequent terrestrial deposits, and, without doubt, also various chemical agents, such as gas, acids, and salts, products of a combination of primitive elements, these vegetable substances were submitted to a fermentation converting them into coal. The coal-mines are, then, the direct result of the decomposition of a mass of vegetables accumulated during the transition period. That is why they are found in almost every country. *

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27. The fossil remains of the luxuriant vegetation of this epoch are being discovered today under the ice of the polar regions, as well as in the torrid zone: therefore it is necessary to conclude, that, since vegetation was uniform, the temperature also must have been equally so. The poles were then not covered with ice as now: then the Earth drew its heat from itself, from the central fire which equally heated all the solid bed, then too thin to offer to it successful resistance. This heat was much greater than that conveyed by the solar rays, enfeebled as they were by the density of the atmosphere. Later on, when the central heat could exert only a feeble influence upon the surface, that of the sun preponderate; and the Polar Regions, receiving only oblique rays giving very little heat, became covered with ice. One understands that at the epoch of which we speak, and for a long time after, ice was unknown upon the Earth.

This period has been a very long one, judging from the number and thickness of the coal-beds. *

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* In the Bay of Fundy (Nova Scotia), M. Lyell found upon a coal-bed four hundred yards in thickness, sixty-eight different levels, presenting evident traces of many forest soils, the trunks of the trees of which were still garnished with their roots (L. Figuier). Supposing that it takes one thousand years to form each of these levels; it must have taken sixty-eight thousand years to form this coal-bed alone.

SECONDARY PERIOD

28. With the transition period the colossal vegetation and animals which characterized this period disappeared. Perhaps it was caused by a change in atmospheric conditions, or on account of inundations having destroyed all which had life on Earth. It is probable that the two causes have contributed to this change; for, by a study of the rocks which mark the end of this period, we find signs of great earthquakes, upheavings, and eruptions which have thrown upon the Earth great quantities of lava, and also notable changes which have appeared in the three kingdoms.

29. The secondary period is characterized, under the mineral kingdom, by numerous and important beds, which attest a slow formation in the waters, and mark very different characteristic epochs.

Vegetation is less rapid and less colossal in growth than in the preceding period, caused no doubt by the diminution in heat, and humidity, and by modifications experienced by the constitutive elements of the atmosphere. To herbaceous and pulpy plants were joined those with woody stalks and, properly speaking, also the first trees.

30. Animals are still aquatic or amphibious at this time; animal life upon the Earth seeming to have made but little progress. A great quantity of shell-covered animals have been developed in the seas by the formation of calcareous substances; also new fishes of a more perfect organization than those of the previous period have appeared, also the first of the whale tribe. The most characteristic animals of this period are monstrous reptiles, among which are found:

The ichthyosaurus, a species of lizard-fish, which attained ten yards in length, the jaws of which, being of a prodigious length, were armed with one hundred and eighty teeth. Its general form was a little like the crocodile, but without the scaly breastplate; its eyes were as large as the head of man; it had fins like the whales, and spouted water into the air like them.

The plesiosaurus was another marine animal, as large as the ichthyosaurus, the excessively long neck of which was bent like that of the swan, which gave to it the appearance of an enormous serpent attached to the body of a turtle or tortoise. It had the head of a lizard and the teeth of a crocodile. Its skin must have been smooth; for no trace of scales, or carapaces, have been found. *

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* In 1823 the first fossil of this animal was found in England. Later on, this same type of fossil was also found in France and in Germany.

The teleosaurus approaches nearer the actual crocodiles, which appear to be the diminutive descendants of it. Like them it had a scaly breastplate, and lived at times upon the Earth as well as in the water. Its body was about ten yards in length, allowing three or four for the head alone. Its enormous mouth had an aperture two yards in length.

The megalosaurus was a great lizard and a kind of crocodile from fourteen to fifteen yards in length, essentially carnivorous, nourishing itself with reptiles, small crocodiles, and tortoises. Its formidable jawbone was armed with teeth like a double bladed pruning or garden knife bent round behind in such a way, that, once having entered into their prey, it was impossible for the latter to disengage themselves.

The iguanodon (iguana), the largest lizard which had appeared upon the Earth, measured from twenty to twenty-five yards from the head to the extremity of the tail. Its snout was surmounted by a horn formed of bone, similar to the iguana of our day, from which it seem to have differed only in size; the latter having a body not a yard in length. The form of the teeth prove that it was herbivorous, and the feet that it was a land animal.

The pterodactyl was a strange animal of the size of a swan, being like a reptile in body, with the head of a bird. Its toes, which were of a prodigious length, were united with a fleshy membrane like that of the bat, which served it as a parachute when it precipitated itself from the height of a tree or rock upon its prey. It had no horny beak like birds; but the jawbones were as long as half its body, and were garnished with teeth terminating in a point like a beak.

31. During this period, which must have been very long as the number and importance of the geological beds attest, animal life developed largely in the watery elements, in like manner to vegetation in a previous period. The purer air, more conducive to respiration, permits some animal to live upon the Earth. The sea has been many times displaced, but without violent commotion. With this period disappeared in their turn those races of gigantic aquatic animals, replaced later by analogous species, less disproportionate in form, and of infinitely smaller size.

32. Pride has influenced man to say that all animals were created for his purposes and for his needs. But what is the number of those which directly serve him, which he has been able to subject, compared to the incalculable number of those with which he has never had and will never have any connection? How is it possible to sustain a similar thesis in presence of these innumerable species which alone have populated the Earth for thousands and thousands of centuries before he came here himself, and which have disappeared? Can one say that they have been created for his profit? However, these species all had their utility in life. God would not create them for nothing in order to give himself the pleasure of destroying them; for all had life, instincts, and the capacity for misery and happiness. What then was the object? It must have been a sovereignly wise one, though we are still unable to comprehend it. Perhaps the secret will one day be given to man, in order to humble his pride; but in the meantime how many ideas crowd upon us in presence of these new horizons into which we are permitted to gaze, and which display to us the imposing spectacle of this creation, so majestic in its slow and mighty developments, so admirable in its foresight, so punctual, precise, and invariable in its results.

TERTIARY PERIOD

33. With the tertiary period commences for the Earth a new order of things. The aspect of its surface is completely changed; the conditions of vitality are profoundly modified, and approach the present state of the Earth. The first part of this period is signalized by an arrest in animal and vegetable productions. Everything bears traces of an almost entire destruction of living beings, and then appeared successively new species, the better organization of which is adapted to the locality where they are called to live.

34. During preceding periods the solid crust of the globe, by reason of its thinness, presented, as has been said, a pretty feeble resistance to the action of the internal fire. This envelope, easily broken, permitted melted substances to be freely expelled to the surface of the Earth. After having acquired a certain thickness, this did not take place. Burning substances compressed on all sides, like boiling water in a closed vessel, would end in an explosion. The granite mass, violently broken at many points was riddled with crevasses, like a cracked vase. Upon the line of these crevasses the solid crust was raised and reformed, formed peaks, chains of mountains, and their ramifications. Certain parts of the envelope which were not rent where simply piled up, whilst upon other points excavations and depressions were produced.

The surface of the Earth became during the tertiary period very unequal. The waters, which until this time had covered in a nearly uniform manner the greater part of its extent, flowed down into the lowest places, leaving vast continents of dry land, or summits of isolated mountains, which formed islands.

Such is the great phenomenon which has been accomplished in the tertiary period, and which has transformed the aspect of the globe. It was not produced instantaneously or simultaneously at all points, but successively at epochs more or less remote from one another.

35. One of the first consequences of these uprisings has been, as has been said, the inclination of the primitively horizontal beds of sediment, and which have remained everywhere in this horizontal position where the soil has not been overthrown. It is in the flanks and in the vicinities of the mountains that these inclinations are steeper.

36. In countries where the beds of sediment have preserved their horizontal position, in order to reach that of the first formation, it is necessary to pass through all the others, often to a great depth, at the end of which one invariably finds the granite rock. But, when these beds have been elevated into mountains, they have been carried above their normal level, sometimes to a very great height, in such a way that, if one makes a vertical trench upon the side of the mountain, they are shown in all their thickness, superposed like the different layers of a building.

This explains why quite large beds of marine shell fossils are often found on high elevations of land. It has been generally recognized that at no epoch the sea has been able to attain such a height; for all the water on the Earth is not sufficient for it, and would not be even were it a hundred times greater in volume. Some might say that the quantity of water had diminished; but then the query would come. What had become of it? The uprisings which are now incontestably demonstrated by science explain completely and logically the marine deposits which are found upon certain mountains. *

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37. In places where the uprising of the primitive rock has produced a complete rent in the soil, perhaps by its rapidity, perhaps by form, height, or volume of the raised mass, the granite has appeared bare like a tooth which pierces the gums; the beds which were covered, elevated, upheaved, and recovered have been brought to life; whilst rocks belonging to the most ancient formations, and which were found in their primitive position at a great depth, form now the soil of certain countries.

38. The granite mass, dislodged by the effect of the earthquakes, has left in some places fissures through which the melted substances have escaped: the volcanoes. The volcanoes are like chimneys to this immense furnace, or better still, like escape-valves, which, in providing an exit for the great excess of burning substances, preserve them from terrible commotions, whence one can infer that a large number of active volcanoes is a source of safety to the whole Earth.

One can form an idea of the intensity of this fire by learning how volcanoes opened in the midst of an ocean are not extinguished by the immense waters which cover and penetrate them.

39. The uprisings of the Earth in one solid mass have necessarily displaced the waters which have flowed back into hollow places, become deeper by the uprising of emerged rocks and by depressions; but these same low depths have been raised in their turn sometimes in one place, sometimes in another, and have repelled the waters, which have flowed elsewhere successively until they have found a stable resting place.

The successive displacements of this liquid mass have violently agitated the surface of the Earth. The waters, in passing away, have drawn portions of rocks of anterior formation, brought to light by the earthquakes; denuded mountains which were recovered, and brought to light their granite or calcareous base. Deep valleys have been hollowed out, and others filled in.

There are, then, mountains formed directly by the action of the central fire: they are principally granite mountains. Others are due to the action of the waters, which, in drawing mellow Earth and soluble matters after them, have hollowed out valleys around a calcareous or other resisting base.

The substances drawn by running waters have formed the beds of the tertiary period, which are easily distinguished from the preceding ones less by their composition, which is nearly the same, than by their disposition.

The beds of the primary, transition, and secondary periods, formed upon a slightly undulating surface, are nearly uniform over all the Earth. Those of the tertiary period, to the contrary, formed upon a very unequal base and by the procession of the waters, have a more local character. Everywhere, by digging to a certain depth, one finds all the anterior beds in the order of their formation; whilst the tertiary rocks are not found everywhere, nor all the beds of the latter.

40. During the earthquakes which took place at the commencement of this period, one finds that organic life has been arrested, which is proved by the absence of fossils in these rocks. But, as soon as a calmer state was restored, vegetables and animal re-appeared. The conditions of vitality being changed, the atmosphere becoming purer, new species, with more perfect organization, were formed. As regards structure, the plants differed very little from those of our time.


41. During the two preceding periods the Earth uncovered by water was of very small extent, marshy and frequently submerged: that is why the animals were all either aquatic or amphibious. The tertiary period, in which vast continents have been formed, has been characterized by the appearance of terrestrial animals.

Just as the transition period has brought forth colossal vegetables, and the secondary period monstrous reptiles; the tertiary period has produced gigantic mammal animals, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, paleotherium, megatherium, dinotherium, the mastodon, mammoth, etc. The two latter elephant varieties were 5 to 6 meters tall, and their tusks would reach 4 meters long. It has produced birds as well, some of the species of which are living now. A few of the animals of this period have survived subsequent inundations. Others that have been designated by the generic term, “pre-diluvium animals,” have completely disappeared, or have been replaced by analogous species, in form lighter and smaller in which the original types have been merely outlined: such are the felisspeloea, a carnivorous animal about the size of the bull, having the anatomical characteristics of tiger and lion; the cervus megaceron, a variety of deer of which the horns, three yards in length were separated by three to four yards from their extremities.

DELUGE PERIOD

42. This period has been marked by one of the greatest inundations which have ever visited the globe, which changed once more the aspect of its surface, and destroyed completely a multitude of living species, of which only few remains have been found. Everywhere are left traces which attest its generality. The water, violently driven from its bed, has surrounded continents, drawing with them Earth and rocks, denuding mountains, and uprooting forests of a century’s growth. The new deposits which they have formed are designated in geology “diluvial terrains.”

43. One of the most significant traces of this great disaster are rocks called “erratic blocks.” Thus are named granite rocks that are found isolated in plains reposing upon tertiary beds, and in the midst of diluvial rocks, sometimes many hundred of miles from mountains whence they have been torn. It is evident that they can have been transported so great a distance only by the violence of a current. *

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44. A no less characteristic fact, and one the cause of which is not yet explained, is that among the diluvial rocks are found the first aerolites. It is, then, at this epoch that they began to form. The cause which produced them did not previously exist.

45. It is toward this epoch that the poles commenced to be covered with ice, and the glaciers were formed on the mountains, which indicates a notable change in the temperature of the globe. This change must have been sudden; for, had it operated gradually, animals, such as the elephant, which live now only in warm climates, and which are found in great numbers in a fossil state in the polar territories, would have had time to withdraw little by little, to the more temperate regions. Everything goes to prove that they have been suddenly seized by great cold, and enveloped in ice. *

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* In 1771, the Russian naturalist Pallas found in the midst of the ice from the North the entire body of an elephant fossil, covered with its skin, still maintaining part of its flesh. In 1799, another elephant fossil was found and described by the naturalist Adams. It was equally immersed in a huge block of ice, near the mouth of the Lena River, in Siberia. The people who lived in the neighborhood (Jakoutes) tore its flesh apart to feed their dogs. Its skin was covered with a long mane and the neck was covered with thick fur. The head, not including the tusks, measured more than 3 meters and weighed more than 400 pounds. Its skeleton is at the museum of Saint Petersburg. On the island and on the beaches of the glacial ocean large quantities of tusk are found, which constitute objects of considerable commerce under the name of ivory fossil, or ivory from Siberia.




46. This was, then, the veritable universal deluge. Opinions are divided as to the cause which produced it; but, whatever they may have been, the fact no less exists.

It is generally supposed that a sudden change took place in the position of the axes of the Earth, by which the poles were displaced, whence a general projection of the water upon the surface. If this change had come about gradually, the waters would have been displaced by degrees without agitation; whilst everything indicates a violent and sudden commotion. While in ignorance of the veritable cause, one can give only hypothesis.

The displacement of the waters can have been occasioned only by the uprising of certain parts of the solid crust, and the formation of new mountains on the bosom of the waters, like that which took place at the commencement of the tertiary period; but, beyond there having been a general inundation, this would explain nothing of the sudden change of the temperature of the poles.

47. In the agitation caused by the displacement of the waters, many animals have perished; others, in order to escape inundation, have withdrawn to the high elevations, into caves and crevasses, where they have perished in masses, perhaps by famine, perhaps by devouring one another, or by the flowing of the water into the places where they have taken refuge, and from whence they could not escape. Thus is explained the cause for the great quantity of bones of animals, carnivorous and otherwise, which are found mixed-up in certain caves, named by reason of this “bone caverns.” They are found most frequently under the stalagmites. In a few of them the bones seem to have been drawn there by the current of the waters. *

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* A great number of similar caverns have been discovered, of which some are quite extensive. There exist some in Mexico which are many miles in extent. That of Adelsberg, in Carniola, Austria, is no less than nine miles. One of the most remarkable is the Gailenreuth, in Wurtemberg. There are many in France, England, Germany, Sicily, and other countries of Europe.

POST-DELUGE OR PRESENT PERIOD – BIRTH OF MAN

48. The equilibrium once re-established on the surface of the globe, animal and vegetable life promptly resumed their course. The consolidated soil had taken a firmer position; the purer air agreed with more delicate organs. The sun, which shone with all its splendor through a limpid atmosphere, produced with its light a less suffocating, more vivifying atmosphere than that of the interior furnace. The Earth was inhabited by less ferocious animals; the more succulent vegetables offered a finer alimentation. All at length was prepared for the new host which must come to inhabit the Earth. It was then that man appeared, the last created being, he whose intelligence henceforth must concur with the general progress by progressing himself.

49. Has man existed on the Earth only since the deluge period? Or did he appear before this epoch? This question is a disputed one now; but its solution, whatever it may be, is only of secondary importance, as it would change none of the established facts, neither it negate the appearance of the human species on Earth prior to the date assigned by the Biblical Genesis, by many thousands of years.

The reason why it has been thought that the advent of man was posterior to the deluge is, because no authentic traces of his appearance previous to this have been found. The bones discovered in diverse places, and which have been thought to belong to a supposed race of pre- diluvium giants, have been recognized as the bones of quadrupeds.

That which is beyond doubt is, that man did not exist either in the primary, transition, or secondary periods, not only because no traces of him are found, but because conditions were not prepared for his appearance. If he has appeared in the tertiary period, it must have been towards the end, and then men must have been very few in number.

Besides, the deluge period, having been short, has not produced notable changes in climacteric and atmospheric influences. Animals and vegetables were about the same before as after. It is then, not a material impossibility that the advent of man took place before this great inundation. The presence of the monkey at this period adds to the probability which recent discoveries appear to confirm. *

Whether or not man has appeared before the great universal deluge, it is certain that his career as a human being has never really commenced to outline itself until the post-deluge period, which is specially characterized by his presence.