ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

XX.

THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN THE PRIMÆVAL AND THE PRESENT WORLD. THE DILUVIUM.

THE sharp distinction between the primæval and the present world is connected with the theory discussed in my 17th lecture, namely, that immediately before the creation of man, and of the vegetable and animal world which surrounded him, the earlier form of the earth with its organisms was destroyed by a geological catastrophe. According to the theories developed in my last two lectures, it cannot be supposed that such a clear distinction existed; but the expression primæval world" may be used in these theories to denote the periods in the world's history which elapsed before the creation of man. There are many reasons, as you will see in the course of my lecture, which will compel me to discuss at what point in the history of the world as it is described by geologists and palæontologists, the primeval world ceases, and the present world, or recent period, begins. The geological formations which certainly belong to the historical period, and are continuing now, e.g. the deltas of rivers, coral islands, peat mosses, and such like, must no doubt belong to the latter; while the formations which are ascribed to the Azoic, Palæozoic, and Mezozoic periods must no less undoubtedly belong

376

to the primeval world.1 The period in which we must undertake to draw the boundary line between the primæval and the present world is the Cainozoic or Tertiary period.2 Does the beginning of the recent period, or the first appearance of man, occur before the beginning, or after the close of the Cainozoic period, or during this period? The last would be possible, because the Cainozoic period, like the other periods, includes not only one formation, but a whole series of superimposed strata. There are difficulties in the way of minutely defining the boundaries of these strata, and the determination of the boundary between the highest Cainozoic stratum and the lowest recent stratum is especially difficult. It is therefore always possible that formations which are usually ascribed to the Cainozoic period, that is, to the period before man, really belong to the recent period, that is, to the age of man. Geologists say that it is much more difficult to define the limits, to divide and to ascertain the order of the Cainozoic formations, than those of any other period.

Lyell, who has many followers, distinguishes four sub-divisions in this period, to which he gives rather strange names. He calls the oldest strata of the Cainozoic period the eocene, from ws and xavós, thus answering to the dawn of a new period; the two following subdivisions he calls miocene and pliocene, from peîov and πλείον and χαινός, that is, less and more recent. The most recent strata he formerly called pleistocene, that is, the most recent. In his later writings, instead of the last name he makes use of the denomination post1 See above, p. 283. 2 See above, p. 312.

pliocene, and includes the post-pliocene and the recent strata under the name post-tertiary. I will only mention one of the simplest among the countless other divisions and names; the eogene formation, neogene formation (Molasse), and the Diluvium; this third name brings me to the further remarks which I propose to make.

In a pamphlet which Buckland published in 1823, under the name of Reliquiæ Diluvianæ, he put together all the geological phenomena which he ascribed to the flooding of the earth in the time of Noah, the flood which is mentioned in Genesis under the name of the Deluge, Diluvium. Since Buckland, Cardinal Wiseman has been foremost in enumerating in his well-known lectures the "geological proofs of the reality of the Deluge." I must just mention the principal points.

2

I will begin with the so-called Bone Caves. We find, especially in the limestones of the most different formations, natural cavities, which in places spread out into lofty and enormous vaults, in other places are again contracted, lead through narrow passages into new chambers, and sometimes extend to vast distances

1 See Pfaff, Grundriss, p. 346. Cf. Giebel, Paläontologie, p. 235: "The most diverse local strata lie above the chalk rocks; these are all classed together as tertiary formations, and in them, together with the diluvium which is equally spread over the whole surface of the earth, we see the last epochs of the geological formation of the earth's solid crust. It is difficult to divide them into separate systems, corresponding to the primary and secondary (Palæozoic and Mezozoic), because of their small extent, and their peculiarly local characteristics. But still it has been thought necessary to distinguish three formations between the chalk and the diluvium, and these have been called eocene, miocene, and pliocene, or lower, middle, and upper tertiary."

2 Twelve Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion.

3 Burmeister, Gesch. der Schöpfung. p. 462. Leonhard, Geologie, ii. 315. Vogt, Lehrbuch der Geologie, i. 594. Nöggerath, Ges. Naturwiss.

iii. 290.

underground. Masses of chalk, lime, sand, and all kinds of rolled stones have fallen into these caves through the openings which connect them with the surface of the earth. Under these rolled stones we find in many of the caves great quantities of the bones of animals, usually not exactly petrified, but in their natural condition, often, however, covered with stalagmite, or cemented together. Sometimes it is possible that these bones may have been washed into the caves with the rolled stones. But when the bones are not polished and have not lost their outline, as would be the case had they been washed down and rolled about by water, we must suppose that the animals must have got into the cave, that they there decayed, and that only the skeletons have been preserved, on which a coating which kept them from decomposition has been deposited. Two things are then possible: either the animals lived in the caves, and there died a natural death, or were suffocated and buried by the water which flowed in; or their corpses were washed in. It is supposed that the former occurred in those caves which contain chiefly the bones of one kind of animal, for instance, bears or hyænas. Thus, in a cave at Kirkdale in England, which was explored by Buckland, hyæna bones were principally found. It is supposed that it was inhabited by hyenas, and that the bones of horses, oxen, and deer which were found with them, are those of animals which were dragged in by the hyænas; it is said that whole layers of the excrement of hyænas were found there. Other caves only contain the bones of graminivorous animals, e.g. horses, unicorns, sheep, and deer, and as these animals do not usually inhabit

caves, it is supposed that they sought a refuge there, flying from the terrors of some convulsion of the earth, or, as is more likely, that the lair of these animals was in some neighbouring place, and that a stream of water washed them into the cave where they were found. The bones of at least 1000 animals have by degrees been extracted from the Gailenreuth cave in Bavaria, of which more than 800 were bears, 130 wolves, hyænas, lions, and wolverenes. These animals cannot all have lived in the cave together; we must therefore suppose that their corpses were washed into it, with all kinds of rolled stones and mud.

Besides the Bone Caves, the Osseous Breccias must be mentioned.1 These are fissures in the older rocks, which are open from above, and have been filled up with fragments of bones, the teeth of large and small mammals, besides shells, the remains of plants and wood, pieces of limestone and other rubbish; all of which has been cemented into a solid mass by calcareous cement or clay.

The Bone Caves, of which many have been found in very different countries, lie in most cases so high above the neighbouring rivers, that the latter could not reach them when in flood, so that at any rate there must have been very extensive inundations. The fact that the animals whose remains are found in the Bone Caves belong not to the older formations, but to the present animal world, or are very closely related to it, favours the supposition that these floods must be identified with the Deluge in the time of Noah.

To this category belong also the deposits of tufaceous 1 Nöggerath, Ges. Naturwiss. iii. 159.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »